Some were freshmen, others graduate students. Some were majoring in painting, others in digital media or textiles. But despite this diversity of backgrounds, these talented young men and women from the Rhode Island School of Design all felt compelled to participate in a crash course in the art of machine embroidery during a 5-week-long winter term class at the prestigious fine arts college. "They were inspired to add embroidery to their creative language," says Michael Savoia.

And who better to teach them than Savoia – a renowned embroidery artist who for more than 20 years has dreamed-up innovative, machine-stitched creations for leading interior designers. Putting on his professor's cap, Savoia guided the young artists through an intensive, hands-on course that stoked creativity and engendered passion for embroidery. The winter term class was the latest step forward in RISD's embroidery program, which Stitches helped start in 2010 by coordinating a partnership between RISD, Madeira USA and Hirsch International. By teaching digital embroidery, RISD hopes to give students another tool for bringing their most creative ideas to life.

Here, we highlight some of the excellent designs students created under Savoia's tutelage.

A Painterly Approach

Student Jiyoung Kim decided to embroider in an abstract manner. "Like paintings in thread," says Savoia. "She created a design that represented a cityscape of a changing skyline, then repeated it in changing colors at will to create a large, heavily embroidered panel using light density fills." Check out her work:

Stained-Glass Stitches

For one assignment, Savoia challenged students to articulate in thread an image of a Mackintosh stained-glass window. "It was an exercise in utilizing the variety of textures and lines in Pulse software," says Savoia. Here are some of the student's threadwork interpretations:

Apparel Prints

During the course, some students developed embroideries for apparel. One student, Jacob Canton, adapted a simplified version of Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man to create an image for use in designing children's clothing. This is some of his stitchwork.

Creative Riffing

Savoia encouraged students to allow their imaginations to come to life in thread. Here are a few beautiful embroidered designs they created: