A practice born from a stitch
taught by a mother,
that moved the world.
Arquicostura is the artistic practice of Raquel Rodrigo — large-scale cross-stitch textile art for spaces, brands, and institutions worldwide. What began as a street intervention in Madrid in 2011 has grown into an international studio working across cultures, cities, and scales, with one constant: work made entirely by hand, with meaning at its core.
Raquel studied Fine Arts in Valencia, where she discovered a passion for space — not the canvas, but the room around it. That led her to Madrid, to study commercial interior design and window display, where art and design fused into something she couldn't ignore. In 2011, she was invited to intervene a storefront for Nuevo Estilo, one of Spain's leading interiors magazines. The façade happened to belong to a costura — a sewing shop. That coincidence became a calling.
For that intervention, Raquel reached back to something her mother had taught her as a girl: punto de cruz — cross-stitch. A technique as old as memory, as intimate as home. She took it outside, scaled it up, and put it on a façade in the middle of Madrid. The response was unlike anything she had expected. People stopped. People cried. People told her stories about their grandmothers, their childhoods, their homes. She had accidentally created something universal.
What started as a solo practice grew quietly and steadily. Today Arquicostura is a studio of skilled artisans — a tight team of embroiderers who work by hand on every piece. The commissions have come from brands, institutions, and visionaries across the United States, Europe, and beyond. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Florida. But for Raquel, the measure of a project's success has never been its scale. It has always been its soul.
Every piece begins with a concept — then becomes a pattern, then becomes a stitch. Arquicostura works exclusively with traditional cross-stitch, executed entirely by hand, by two artisans working together on metal mesh. Cotton thread is the default; other materials are chosen project by project.
The studio handles the full arc of each commission: concept and design, pattern creation, production, shipping, and installation when required. Nothing is outsourced. Nothing is rushed. The workshop is where the project truly begins — long before it reaches the wall.
From first message to final installation — you are part of every step.
You write, you tell me your project. I read carefully and reply within 24 hours. Always.
I develop the concept and visual proposal — scale, composition, palette — tailored entirely to your space and brand.
Every design is translated into a hand-drawn pattern. This is where the artisanal process truly begins.
The team works stitch by stitch, by hand. You receive progress updates throughout. No surprises.
We ship worldwide and, when needed, travel to install. The project ends when it's exactly right.
Arquicostura pieces make people stop. They recall a grandmother, a childhood home, a forgotten warmth. That emotional charge is not accidental — it is the work.
Every client is a partner, not a brief. Raquel works directly with you from day one — listening, adapting, pushing the idea further until it becomes unmistakably yours.
Design, pattern, production, installation. The studio controls every stage. No intermediaries, no shortcuts. The quality of the final piece begins in the first stitch.
Cross-stitch crosses every border. Arquicostura has worked with brands and communities across Europe, the United States and beyond — the technique speaks to all of them.
The studio is a family. The team of artisans is where the soul of each project is born — quietly, stitch by stitch — long before any installation takes place.
From a boutique window to a 200m² public shade structure. Raquel approaches every brief as a problem to be solved creatively — and has yet to find one she couldn't execute.
