Page 10 - The Digital Cloth Issue 7

I am passionate about stitching, even when I’m
trying to develop new skills in different
processes; I find that I’m continually looking
for ways to incorporate them with my
embroidery. For the most part my textile work
is self taught, maybe that’s why so much of it is
experimental. I use whatever methods or
materials I feel will help me create the
image I have in mind – conjure a story, convey
thoughts and feelings or create an atmosphere.
Quite often when I start a project, I have the

concept or the image of the finished piece in
my mind, but no real idea of how to go about
it, or even if it will work (see 3D barn owl,
‘Silent Vigil’, which was a piece about
superstition and ’Sleeping Beauty’, a sneaky
peak at a red squirrel asleep in her dray. These
pieces began as a concept and developed
through trial and error). I often think that I
should call this method of working ‘false starts,

blind alleys and detours’. But it is also full
of happy accidents, endless possibilities and
fantastic revelations. Van Gogh nailed it when
he said, ‘I am always doing that which I cannot
do, in order that I may learn how to do it’.
It’s definitely in my blood. I come from a
family of stitching enthusiasts. When my
grandmother sat down, she always had a
needle of some sort in her hand. As a child,
she had never been allowed to read for leisure, the natural world; its flora and fauna, folklore
books being replaced by mending for the rest and environmental issues. Sadly, we don’t have

of the family. But in her adult life and with to go further than our own backyards to see
subsequent generations, stitching became a endangered species and I not only love
channel for creativity and also as a kind of portraying these creatures, but hope that my
meditation, helping them through stressful work highlights and informs. Apart from nature,
times. My grandmother, aunt and mother I also like to work on whatever interests me and I
were all very keen dressmakers and hand feel should be given a voice.
embroiderers and my father reminisces about Such a project was ‘The Hair Shirt’, my first
embroidering under the kitchen table, as a sculptural textile piece, created in 2014 to
child, to take his mind off the air-raids during highlight the hardships and horrors front line

the Blitz. It’s interesting what a unifying thread troops suffered globally during the First World
and solace stitching has been in so many of our War, and honour the sacrifice that so many
lives. I’m lucky enough to have graduated from made in truly horrific circumstances. My own
the kitchen table to my own workroom, which grandfather among them. It’s a life-size copy of a
is my space to dream and lose myself in my British military issue ‘greyback’ shirt, which I
work. created on a water-soluble substrate, appliquéd
My main inspiration has always come from