You might think such extensive mash-ups could lead to art that overwhelms, but that’s hardly the case. April expertly balances colour and composition to create cohesive works that are surprisingly neat at first glance. Even upon close inspection, April’s layers of texture and pattern seamlessly merge and often surprise the eye.

In addition to offering us a look into her process and favourite things, April also shares how renowned UK textile artists helped her discover the power of simple stitches and inspired her to let go of her need for control. She explains how Constance Howard and others have taught her that self-expression doesn’t have to be complicated when it comes to stitchwork. And we think you’ll agree.

Apron strings

April Sproule: My earliest memory of making something with textiles is making an apron with my maternal grandmother, Grandma Ollie, when I was seven years old. She was a tiny woman who lived in a small house filled with things she had made. She loved to sew, knit and paint.

I remember carefully cutting out the apron on her kitchen table and sewing it on her portable Singer sewing machine. Her patience was infinite as she taught me those brand-new skills. I was amazed we had made something useful out of seemingly nothing with a scrap of fabric and some thread.

Around the same time my paternal grandmother, Grandma Petersen, began teaching me to do hand sewing and stitching. She taught me how to cut old clothing into squares using a cardboard template. Those hand-pieced squares would later become a quilt top. She also taught me hand embroidery and lace making.

I have very fond memories of being sequestered away in one of their homes on rainy winter days happily stitching away for hours. It’s no wonder sewing and stitching are now like breathing to me. They are something I have always done, and those basic skills would go through many transformations in years to follow. Back then, I had no idea how those early experiences would impact my life.

Textile artist inspiration

During high school, I participated in a work study programme that involved writing a business plan and starting my first little business. I set about making a variety of leather goods, clothing and bags to sell at local shops and galleries.

After learning the technical skills I badly needed, at the San Francisco School of Fashion Design, I worked for several different US and Canadian manufacturers. My area of expertise was new product development and production management for companies making leather goods, accessories and clothing. Since 2001, I’ve been a full-time studio artist working as both a designer and workshop facilitator.

In 2011, I developed a commercial collection of 25 stencil designs inspired by Japanese Katagami stencils for painting on fabric. I began using the stencils for all sorts of things while teaching my painting techniques to others. I started making upcycled clothing for myself and linen bags to sell with the stencils, and then I added hand stitching to them. The stencilling and hand stitching worked well together. Next came a collection of hand embroidery patterns and kits in 2015.

Shortly after that, I started seeing online images from UK textile artists who were doing amazing work using hand stitching. I was especially inspired by Mandy Pattullo, Claire Wellesley-Smith, Louise Baldwin, Cas Holmes and Aideen Canning. These incredible women not only eradicated the notion of creating perfect little stitches, but they used stitching in such an expressive and expansive manner. Theirs was a much freer and innovative style of hand stitch that appealed to me on many levels.

I admired those artists’ ability to move away from the expected and express their own unique, wild and wonderful styles.

It was as if a door had opened, and anything was possible on the other side of that threshold.

April Sproule, Textile artist

Freestyle stitching

My new norm became letting go of the need for control and embracing the idea of self-expression.

Upon further investigation, everything led back to the work and influence of Constance Howard. I pored over her books, and my entire perspective on hand stitching changed tremendously. I didn’t necessarily change the stitches I used, but I became mindful of how those stitches were used. One simple stitch could be used in 20 or more different variations.

When I developed my collection of hand embroidery patterns, I thought using lots of different complex or unusual stitches added more interest.

Constance Howard took a different approach. It was more about starting with one simple stitch and then tweaking it, contorting it, and reimagining all its possibilities.

Now as I go back and look through Constance’s books, I especially love seeing her illustrations. These days I see hand stitching as another form of mark making. And as I switch back and forth between pen and ink illustration and my hand stitching, each medium provides inspiration for the other.

I studied Constance Howard’s approach and realised the complexity of stitches wasn’t as important as I’d first thought.

April Sproule, Textile artist

Natural inspirations

I am inspired by many things, but my greatest inspiration comes from nature. Nature provides me with a never-ending treasure trove of ideas. It could be insects, botanical specimens or even diatoms and other microscopic images that pique my interest and beg me to take a closer look.

I live in an astonishingly diverse beautiful area in northern California. In just a few minutes, I can be exploring tide pools along our rugged coastline or trek deep into a Redwood forest where rays of sunlight pierce the thick canopy of branches and illuminate the areas below in a spectacular display.

Things that are in a state of erosion or decomposition are much more interesting than a perfect specimen. And surface design with textiles, pen and ink illustration, printmaking, collage, and watercolour are all mediums that supply me with lots of ideas and inspiration.

I’m interested in capturing the essence of my subject matter, rather than in replicating it in a photorealistic way.

April Sproule, Textile artist

Creative sketches

My work is developed in different ways, but it usually begins with a feeling or mood I want to convey. Early in the morning, I often work in a little handmade book where I experiment with different ways of combining paper, fabric and stitch in new and interesting ways that can lead to larger projects. 

Often my work begins with what I call a production sketch. It’s just a vague idea and a starting point, but it’s a very important step because it takes what only exists in my mind into the physical world where it becomes tangible.

Introducing colour

Next comes colour, which is one of the most valuable design elements. Colour is what first attracts or repels viewers to our work. I usually start with white fabric or pieces on which I’ve applied some sort of surface design techniques.

Scale, the overall finished size of the piece, comes next. Are the details going to be lost if a person sees it from a distance? Those choices inform all my decisions on which mediums to use.

I’ve learned to worked much more intuitively. All I need is one idea to get started. It could be the colour green and then everything develops from there.

Every piece I make takes me on a journey of learning and exploration.

April Sproule, Textile artist

Figuring things out

I feel incredibly fortunate because I rarely get really stuck on a piece and give up on it. I am good at problem solving and figuring things out. It seems like a waste of time, energy and materials to give up on a piece and not finish it.

When I start a new project that is very involved, I clean up my studio and put everything in its place. Initially clutter can be a distraction, but that’s only in the beginning. Once my ideas start to flow, it is total chaos. I don’t clean up until the project is completely done.

Mixing things up

I use a wide variety of mixed media on fabric and paper. I especially enjoy working with dyes, paints, stencilling, printing, pen and ink, cyanotypes, and hand or machine stitch. Learning to do all of these things has been so much fun!

I’ve done lots of shibori dyeing with Procion dyes and indigo over the years. It’s so exciting to unwrap the cloth and see what has happened. And now I have all those fabrics to choose from and add to my textile art.

Using paints and inks on fabric and paper has been a great addition to my work. I use textile paints that don’t alter the hand of the fabric, and I’m pretty picky about that. I also love using walnut ink, sumi ink and India inks. Sometimes I just sit and draw stripes or dots with a pen or brush. Then it’s fun finding new ways to incorporate those pieces into my work.

I am also experimenting a lot with different papers. I won’t use papers that are either too delicate or too hard to stitch through. I still have a lot to learn about different types of paper, but that’s part of the research and excitement of learning something new.

Favourite fabrics

My absolute favourite fabrics to work with are linen, cotton sateen and silk. I use both vintage and new fabrics, but many of the vintage fabrics are just wonderful to work with. The linen is like butter to stitch through, and I love the texture of it. 

My next favourite fabric is cotton sateen, as the weave gives it a subtle sheen. It has a very nice hand, dyes beautifully and it is really easy to stitch through. And silk has long been a favourite of mine. I don’t ever use fusibles on it, as that would ruin the hand of the fabric. I have lots of silk left over from having a custom sewing business for 10 years. Now, I’m glad I saved all those fabrics.

Threads & stitches

For threads, I mostly use DMC cotton along with some hand-dyed threads. I‘d like to try linen thread but haven’t yet. My favourite stitches are the running stitch, stem stitch, straight stitches, rice stitch, couching, and the versatile blanket stitch. I also like the cretan stitch a lot, because it can be used in lots of different ways.

I took Sue Stone’s Exploring Texture and Pattern course in 2018. After finishing all the exercises, my style of stitching changed from using more complex decorative stitches to using very basic stitches in different forms and combinations.

My needle has become like my pen, and my hand stitching is now another form of mark making.

April Sproule, Textile artist

A few basic tools

I enjoy using good quality tools that last a long time, so I don’t have to replace them.

Really sharp scissors are very important. I have embroidery scissors, appliqué scissors, regular scissors, paper scissors and huge shears for cutting heavy fabrics. But mostly I just need a sharp little pair of embroidery scissors for cutting threads.

Fabric markers are also important. I use Frixion markers and have never had a problem with them. I like that I get nice clean lines with them. And of course, good needles make everything so much easier. I use mostly size 10 embroidery needles with a nice sharp point.

One of the greatest things about hand embroidery is you only need a few basic tools.

I do almost all of my actual stitching at night. I use a large floor model OttLite, and I could not sew without it. I usually do hand stitching for three hours or so every night. It’s become a daily practice I really enjoy.

My iPad is my favourite design tool. I use an app called Adobe Fresco for my illustrations. I start a piece, photograph it, and then draw mock up stitches on the photo to help with design options and decisions. I can add 10 layers of stitching, eliminate what I don’t like, AirDrop the image to my phone, and use it for reference as I stitch. It’s just like magic!

I think one of the best things you can do as an artist is try things outside of your comfort zone.

April Sproule, Textile artist

Silver linings

The biggest challenges I’ve faced as a professional artist were Covid related. From 2001-20, I operated a longarm quilting business, sold my wares online and as a vendor at shows, and I taught workshops on techniques I’d developed over the years. 2019 was an especially busy year for me. Then Covid reared its ugly head, and every single upcoming event I had scheduled was cancelled.

I decided to make the most of this unexpected free time by focusing on my art and volunteering for different textile art groups who support artists and textile art instructors. That gift of time gave me a chance to re-evaluate what I was doing and make some positive changes.

I closed my longarm quilting business and decided to stop vending at shows and started applying for grants. In 2019, I received a grant from a local arts foundation, and in 2020, I received a business grant from the state. Collectively, those funds made it possible for me to gain the technical training and equipment I needed to start teaching online.

I aim to spend half my time working and the other half creating art. I’m not there yet, but I will be some day. It’s also much easier to share what I do with others and help others achieve their creative goals.

I’ve found that pushing myself helps to grow my skills and proficiency.

My biggest artistic challenge was making the portraits in Sue Stone’s Stitch Your Story online course. I knew what a fabulous teacher Sue was, and it was really hard, but I learned so much along the way. I was really inspired by the work of the others in the course.

Designing my creative space

After leasing a commercial building for five years for my business and studio, I finally had a studio built behind my house in 2006. I needed room for my 14ft longarm quilting machine, space to teach my surface design workshops and a workspace for me to create my textile art.

I had lots of experience designing textile art projects, but designing a building was an entirely different experience. Luckily, I found a great designer and very good contractors to work with me.

The 24ft x 40ft (7.3m x 21.1m) two-story structure has nice high ceilings. Downstairs is my wet studio where I do my messy stuff like dyeing and fabric painting. I included a 6ft-wide stainless steel sink from a place that carried used restaurant equipment, and it has been a useful addition. There’s also lots of storage for art supplies and other stuff.

Upstairs is one large room where I sectioned off a full bathroom and walk-in closet. The kitchen area has cabinets that hold art supplies, and it was designed to accommodate appliances, but I would rather have the space.

One of my requests was to have lots of natural light. But I also needed wall space for art display and a large design wall. The designer was able to plan accordingly, so I have windows on three sides and plenty of wall space in between.

I had a 4ft x 8ft cutting table built with storage cabinets and shelving below. I knew my needs for this space would change over the years, so one of the best things I did was to outfit all my heavy equipment, like the cutting table and longarm machine, with heavy duty casters so I can easily move things around by myself. That has been a tremendous help.

The building is quite tall due to the high ceilings on each level, so I had a manual dumb waiter added to transport heavy items, like sewing machines, up to the second floor. We’ve had lots of great workshops and retreats here, and that dumb waiter has gotten a lot of use over the years.

Every morning I wake up really early, grab a strong cup of coffee, and head over to the studio. When time permits, I sit and draw for an hour in front of my big window before I start my day. I’m grateful for every moment I spend here. My family has always been very supportive of what I do, and none of this would’ve been possible without them.

Cheryl is inspired by the natural world, colour, light and her emotional well-being. She spends hours crafting the collage materials for her art quilts and textile pieces. 

There’s no roadmap and no rules or fixed ideas about colour, subject or form. She works by instinct, letting go of expectations and following where the work leads. The best ideas arise from process, she says. 

For Cheryl, it’s the act of creating – the spontaneous dance of colour and line – that fuels her. Through this intuitive process, she channels love, loss and connection, transforming deeply personal moments into something universal.

Cheryl Rezendes: I am a fine artist; textiles just happen to be the canvas that I paint on. Machine and hand stitching are my pencil and pens. Thread is the ink and graphite.

I am inspired by the natural world. My large studio is situated in my garden. It’s filled with natural light giving me a view of the gardens and the woods. I’m surrounded by 40 acres of woodland.

I have lived here for almost 35 years and I’m still enthralled by all that I see and hear. It’s a place of refuge as well as a place of creativity. However, a trip to the city offers a vast array of visual inspiration as well. 

“There is always so much to see and absorb in whatever world I am walking through.”

Cheryl Rezendes, Artist

Being inspired

I am always inspired by the work of any artist, be it textile, painting or even pottery. It is all fodder for my creative self and making new work. 

Recently, my partner and I have started painting together. He is a potter and graphic designer. We work on large pieces of paper that measure approximately 150cm x 100cm (60″ x 40″). We paint and make marks very differently from each other. Just watching what he does, how he does it and how we bring both our skills together is incredibly inspiring.

I might help inspiration along by giving myself a challenge, such as to photograph all the lines that I see. It is amazing what can become a line if you are looking for them: a railing, the side of a building, a stacked pile of sticks and the edge of my dog’s kibble, to name but a few.

Creating my materials

I create my own collage materials. Usually I start by painting large pieces of white fabric using direct painting methods. But I might also stamp and stencil my own designs on to the fabric. 

I’ll also draw on the cloth and create monoprints. This is done without any intention of what they will look like or be used for. 

Sometimes I’ll digitally print one of my photographs onto cloth using my wide format Epsom printer. 

The pieces of fabric that I create in these ways will often coordinate or speak to each other – a visual conversation, if you will. I get inspired to use them together. These images are fused and/or stitched into the larger piece. As I work, I will be constantly hanging these pieces up on my design wall.  

“By viewing my work on a design wall, I’m auditioning them together, as well as getting inspired by the cloth and the work process itself.”

Cheryl Rezendes, Artist 

“My process for creating art is intuitive and based on discovery.”

Cheryl Rezendes, Artist 

Call & response

I don’t have a favourite colour palette that I return to again and again. Instead, I use colours that, for whatever reason, speak to me at any given time. 

I then follow the piece along: asking what is needed from a design standpoint and then responding. I teach these concepts in my Stitch Club workshop. 

Because of the way that I create my textiles, my work is visually very painterly. Sometimes the finished pieces are statements of beauty and elegance, and at other times they are filled with raw emotion.

“I often don’t know what the pieces are about until they are finished.” 

Cheryl Rezendes, Artist 

Finding meaning

The collection I made on care-giving was created that way.  It featured fifteen art quilts that were inspired by the eight years I spent as care-giver for my mother who had Alzheimer’s Disease and for my late husband who had Parkinson’s Disease and dementia. 

During those years I seemed to be drawn to dark colours, particularly brown, black and grey. Even as abstract pieces, the work seemed very emotional. They weren’t pretty. They were dark. 

At some point in the process of making those pieces I started to ask myself, “Okay. What are all these about, anyway?” 

I showed them to fellow artists to get their take. The resounding answer was that this collection of work was particularly sad and spoke to the anguish and grief I was feeling. Then the titles were born.

Coincidently, or not, when the show was completed my grieving process for the loss of those two people whom I had loved was completed as well.

Teaching intuitively

In my Stitch Club workshop, I share my process for creating intuitively. I highlight creating monoprints on cloth then used hand stitching as both a design and drawing tool. I introduce some collage work as well.  

My hope is that students come away with the skills to create monoprints and hand stitching but also that they understand that they can have a personal and unique visual voice. 

The inherent combination of spontaneity and discovery in the creation of one-of-a-kind prints lends itself well to this concept.

Cultivating curiosity

I encourage you to be open to the creating process, particularly self-discovery and the spontaneous.

Try to see what is happening in front of you rather than always seeing what you haven’t done. Often our intention doesn’t come through, but what we have actually created can be, and usually is, better! 

Imagine you are seeing the world for the first time. Drive or walk down your road and imagine what it would look like to someone who has never travelled that route before. You’ll find things you never saw.

Experiment with new supplies and different processes rather than just staying with what you’re already comfortable with. 

I may be formally trained but as a consequence, I have to work really hard at putting that training aside so I can be in discovery mode. Sometimes I’ll paint and draw with my non-dominant hand or cut collage pieces randomly. 

“I’ll do anything that helps me embrace discovery again.”

Cheryl Rezendes, Artist 

Nurturing creativity

I had the great fortune of growing up with parents who supported my creative spirit from an early age. 

They provided me with sketchbooks, paint and composition books. My mother had an interior design business, so I was exposed to beautiful fabrics, wallpaper and design books.

We lived just a two-hour train ride from New York City so we regularly visited the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim. That early exposure to the work of contemporary artists was a spring board for me becoming a professional artist. 

Learning to see

In my late teens, I went to The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA where I studied painting and drawing for four years. As an artist, this was the most influential time in my life. 

At the time I attended, the school was a department of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. This enabled me to have free access to the museum whenever I wanted and I was able to spend as much time with any given painting that I happened to be inspired by. I was also part of a course that allowed students to choose a painting from the museum’s archives that we wanted to study. 

The artwork would be delivered to a special classroom located on the top floor of the museum where I could make copies either by painting or drawing. That experience taught me an array of important skills that I would later use to observe and truly see the work of other artists and the world around me.

Supporting textiles

My mother exposed me to beautiful textiles as a child. She also taught me how to sew. 

After art school I made my living as a stitcher while doing my artwork in the evenings. I quickly became very skilled. I worked for a designer making elegant evening wear. I made costumes for a shop that supplied musical and theatrical events and I also created costumes for live action 3D animations. 

Later, after moving to western Massachusetts and while raising my boys, I made custom wedding gowns using antique textiles and lace. I continued to paint, draw and do collage work and was represented by a few galleries. 

At some point I became familiar with digital printing on cloth. I became intrigued with printing images of my paintings and collages on cloth. I couldn’t help but use those to collage as well. 

My work continued to grow and, in 2013, my book Fabric Surface Design (Workman Publishing) was published. It features over 80 techniques for putting imagery on fabric using textile paints. 

“Life has presented many challenges to me, but I’ve painted and drawn my way through them, even if I could only work in my sketchbook.”

Cheryl Rezendes, Artist

The magic is found in her use of ‘sequins,’ which Jessica stresses aren’t limited to shiny little plastic circles. They can be created from anything and in any shape, including sweets wrappers, straws, wire, metal washers, junk mail, cereal boxes and, of course, fabric.

While Jessica’s whimsical bits and bobs are a joy to behold, they also have a serious purpose in raising awareness about zero waste and recycling. Jessica seeks to literally turn rubbish into works of art, and she delights in viewers’ astonishment upon closer viewing of her work. ‘Look! That’s a bottle cap!’

Jessica’s vibrant selection of unloved objects, combined with traditional embroidery work, is something we’re sure you haven’t seen before. And she is kindly offering us a look into both her process and artistic philosophy.

Tell us a bit about your art practice…

Jessica Grady: My work is entirely stitched by hand using embroidery techniques and intricate detailing. Each stitch provides an added element of texture and colour to the work as a whole.

With a lot of sculptural embroidery pieces, I often stitch into and embellish my embellishments before adding them to the fabric, to increase the level of small details.

I also like to work in layers to help build up my pattern. I begin with the largest shapes first, and then the detail gets smaller as I layer up, leaving my embroidery stitches as my final flourish.

I am a fan of basic stitches, such as straight stitch, couching, french knots and chain stitch. I think the most simple stitches have the most versatility in the way they can be manipulated and used within a piece of work.

When I stitch embellishments onto fabric, I try to use my securing stitch as an added pattern or design. It’s like doodling with a pen on paper, but I use my needle and thread.

I also cut and create the vast majority of my sequins and beads through many mixed media processes, including dyeing, painting, fusing and foiling.

Colour is another important aspect of my work. I use many strong and highly contrasting colours, creating a very vivid and saturated colour palette. My artworks are a textural and visual feast, saturating the senses with colour and pattern.

From trash to treasure

Tell us about your design process…

I am a firm ‘anti-planner’ and avoid planning out designs in advance. I instead create mini samplers that demonstrate a technique or motif idea that I have swirling around in my head. I can then see if the idea works and then develop it further.

I prepare my materials in batches, so one day I might be dyeing recycled plastics and on another I am painting metal washers. I want to have colourful and exciting things ready, that make me want to create something with them.

I work with recycled and unconventional materials, so actually creating my sequins, beads and embellishments is my favourite part of the process.

Every work is inspired by my materials – the colour, shape or texture of something is always the catalyst to what will be created.

Jessica Grady, Textile artist

For me, it’s all about transforming waste materials. For example, I’ll take something mundane like a ground coffee packet and then dye, paint, scrunch and overstitch the fabric to create something totally unique. And nobody would be able to guess it’s made from something many people would throw in the bin!

I’m passionate about utilising mixed media and recycled materials such as painted metal washers, hand-dyed plastic waste, dyed sponges and stripped electric cables. The juxtaposition of unusual media with traditional techniques invites the viewer in for a closer look.

My continued experimentation also means I don’t think I will ever run out of new ideas for unusual materials I can stitch onto my fabrics!

Collections transformed

What initially attracted you to textiles as a medium?

I was fascinated with textiles from a young age. My great aunt gave me pieces of fabric with printed flowers and showed me how to embroider with coloured threads. I attempted to finish them off with neat flowers, but my attraction was more to the colours and textures of the stitches.

I also vividly remember destroying my poor mum’s ironing board cover, after a first attempt at devoré printing (a burn technique largely used with velvet) as a teenager.

I love the tactility of textiles, and I enjoy the challenge of creating a highly-detailed, three dimensional surface using embroidery and embellishment.

What were your early influences?

I grew up in a small town on the Yorkshire coast. I have always loved being near the sea and hunting for treasure, be it fragments of sea tumbled glass or broken shells and pottery.

I became a collector of ‘stuff’ at an early age, and it’s only now that I am going back to those collections and finding ways to incorporate those small pieces into my embroideries.

I was very shy and anxious as a child and threw all my energy into my studies and art projects. In a way, I feel it gave me a voice when I didn’t feel confident enough at the time to express myself through talking.

My family has always encouraged my art practice, and my mum was always coming along with me to look at new exhibitions or to shop for craft supplies.

Ironically, my college career advisor told me a textiles degree would give me limited career options, and therefore, wasn’t a good choice. Safe to say, I didn’t listen to her!

What was your route to becoming an artist?

I studied art and design at Norwich University of the Arts. After looking through my sketchbook, one of my teachers encouraged me to look at textiles as a degree option. Every page of my sketchbook had influences of texture, and I would try any new textile practice I could get my hands on.

So I completed a textile design degree, learning to weave, knit, print and stitch. My course had a flexible approach that allowed me to dabble with practices that interested me, rather than having to cement myself to one single discipline.

University helped hugely with my confidence and development of my artistic voice. I also interned at several commercial textile companies, including Hand and Lock, and Zandra Rhodes.

After graduation, I worked for several London companies as a freelance embroidery and print designer in the fashion industry. But I still created my own work and was always applying for exhibitions and shows alongside my commercial practice.

After a while, I found working in fashion began to dilute my sense of who I was as an artist, so I decided to do more of my own work. I applied for a new artist award in 2017 called ‘RAW Talent’ offered by an organisation called art&, and to my surprise, I got into the programme. It was an amazing experience in which I received both one-on-one and group mentoring. It made me realise that yes, I could do this. I just needed to be stubborn and not give up!

I am a big believer that you must keep plugging away and shout about your practice, including using social media or writing to magazines and shows.

What currently inspires you?

Colour, shape and pattern are my biggest inspirations. I also like a good challenge in taking something particularly bizarre and adding it into a textile context. If something has a hole in it, I will stitch it onto fabric. And if it doesn’t have a hole, I’ll drill one in!

My work is deliberately ambiguous in its theme. I enjoy hearing what people think the pieces look like, and for me, the main goal is to encourage curiosity and evoke a sense of playfulness and joy. I always say I create happy work only, with the colour really shouting out to you when you look at a piece of work.

I am also inspired by my recycling ideas and trying to give materials a new purpose by turning them into something beautiful.

Zero-waste art

Tell us about an artwork that holds fond memories…

Fragments is a large-scale three dimensional framed artwork created entirely using recycled straws, wires and dyed medical tubing. This piece really pushed me out of my comfort zone and started my love of more sculptural embroidery work. It took several months to stitch.

At the time, I was at a pivot point in my artistic journey. I was making work because I wanted to sell the work and not because I wanted to make the work. I hadn’t yet realised that creating something I put my all into would be stronger than something made for commercial purposes.

I sent photographs of the piece to various magazines and shows, and it landed me a feature in several international textile magazines. And it is still a piece I enjoy taking to shows, including the International Quilt Festival in Tokyo, Japan (2020) and the Art Textiles Made in Britain exhibition (2021).

How has your work developed and evolved?

My work has evolved and grown up along with myself! I started my journey being quite hesitant and unsure. But my frustration at the lack of interesting sequins and beads led to me becoming more aware of zero waste practices. I now make a conscious effort to recycle and use up unloved materials in my embroidery work.

My sense of colour has also changed and grown stronger.

An exciting personal development has been the idea of creating highly sculptural 3-D embroidery pieces that break out of the format of framed artwork. I enjoy the challenge of stitching vertically, and that, combined with large-scale work, gives me lots of future installation ideas.

And in 2023, I achieved my goal of writing a book about my processes and ideas, when Stitched Mixed Media was published by Crowood Press.

Dutch artist Mirjam had been put off textiles at school by critical teachers who insisted on following ‘the rules’. Even her own family taught her that there was a right and a wrong way to do embroidery. Instead, she became a children’s author. But, she was still intrigued with embroidery, and so her evenings were turned to experimenting with stitch, texture and pattern. 

Today, her nature-inspired crochet, felt works and embroideries – many worked on her own eco dyed and printed cloth – have led to large followings on Instagram, Etsy and Patreon, where she shares her knowledge via e-books and tutorials. 

Mirjam told us how the seasons are her inspiration, and that seeing Sue Stone tie a knot in her thread was the epiphany that freed her from decades of embroidery restrictions.

Creating with joy

Mirjam Gielen: It hasn’t been that long since I felt confident enough to call myself a textile artist. I learned many techniques in my youth, but I don’t have any formal training in the arts.

I love to combine my embroidery with eco printing and dyeing, crochet, felting and any other technique that helps to achieve the effect that I’m looking for.

Dyeing and printing with plants provides me with a stash of fabrics and threads. This makes me feel like a child in a room full of wonderful toys with endless possibilities!

I enjoy experimentation and that often leads to new discoveries of how to use a certain material or technique.

I create my art at home: our living room doubles as my workspace while our kitchen is frequently turned into a dye studio.

I try to limit dyeing to moments when my family members are out, or I’ll dye in the garden when the weather allows – the smells from the dye pot aren’t always appreciated. Otherwise, my family is very supportive: they help me by editing my tutorials or providing inspiration with photographs and research. In that way my work is very much embedded in family life.

My main platform is social media, especially Instagram, and I like to connect and share with people around the world. I’ve participated in a few exhibitions, but felt very much on display rather than connected to the visitors.

How did you become a textile artist?

My mother, grandmother and aunts always had some textile activity on the go. It could be knitting, embroidery, crochet or sewing, but also tatting or macramé. They invariably made things that were useful, like clothing, tablecloths or lampshades. They wanted to make them as beautiful as possible and were always on the lookout for a new pattern or pretty yarn.

They showed me the joy of needlework but were also quite obedient to what they called ‘the rules’.

At school I was often criticised for not working neatly enough. That might have been to do with the fact that I am left-handed, but was forced to do all the crafts right-handed. I was constantly chided and forced to undo my work. It left me with the idea that textile work could be great, but I just wasn’t good enough.

I kept creating on a modest scale, because the fun and satisfaction of making things with my own hands kept its appeal. The birth of my children stimulated that and I loved to craft for and with them.

I was an author of children’s books when my children were young and I started the habit of doing some stitching or crochet after a day spent juggling with words. I just played with colours and stitches as a relaxing downtime, without much thought about results. That was when the joy came back and I was able to create more freely. Slowly it grew into something more.

Did you have a particular turning point that influenced your art?

I had done some botanical dyeing with my mother, but that had been forgotten over the years. When I saw eco printed fabrics online and read a book by India Flint on the subject, something clicked and I started eco dyeing and printing myself. The fabrics I produced turned out to be the ideal basis for my stitches. 

Another pivotal moment came during a TextileArtist online course by Sue Stone. It was something really simple: she tied a knot in her thread before starting. I was aghast because I’d been taught that tying knots was more or less a deadly sin! My grandmother used to say that the back of the work should be as neat as the front – knots had no place there. 

Seeing a renowned textile artist like Sue Stone actually tying a knot was very freeing. It made me realise that I still had lots of rules in my head that were hampering my artistic freedom. 

Sue’s style is very different from mine, but she still is a role model for me in her approach to textile art. It encouraged me to get rid of the last remnants of my harsh inner critic and enjoy the creative force of exploration and experimentation.

“Eco prints feel like a magical world I can explore with my needle.”

Mirjam Gielen, Textile artist

Patterns, lines & structures

What is the ethos behind your work of creating organic embroidery on eco printed fabric?

Nature is important to me and provides a constant source of inspiration. Outdoors, I feel nourished and relaxed.

I feel that textile work has a lot in common with organic processes. I can make my stitches small or big, dense or wide apart. They can be grouped together like a herd or wander around. They colonise the fabric in an organic way, growing slowly, stitch by stitch.

Stitches have their own characteristics that are a bit like the DNA that provide code for the stitch process. A french knot looks distinctive and not like a seed stitch, just like a rose looks like a rose and not like a tulip. Then there are the influences that can steer the process in a multitude of directions, similar to the influences of soil, sun or rain in nature.

“There are so many fascinating and beautiful structures and phenomena in nature that provide inspiration.”

Mirjam Gielen, Textile artist

Eco printing helps to get rid of the ‘blank page’ problem. It immediately provides an environment that can be explored with stitches. It invites intuitive stitching and a dialogue with the fabric.

Embroidery gives me direct contact with the fabric and I think that is why it is my preferred technique. But I don’t like to limit myself: crochet, for instance, can provide interesting and organic looking structures too. Felting has also found a place in my practice, not only because it is such a delight to stitch on, but also because it can be three-dimensional.

How do you develop ideas for your work?

For inspiration, I use images that I take with my camera or that I find on the internet. I collect them on boards on Pinterest. My next step is often to draw in a sketchbook, not with the aim of designing my work in detail, but to get a hands-on feel for patterns, lines and structures. I also often make stitch samples before starting on an art work. 

These stitch explorations have led to several ‘sketchcloths’, as I like to call them; eco printed fabrics that get filled over time with all sorts of experiments. The free stitch play on those fabrics is appealing enough to blur the line between ‘sample’ and ‘art’. 

My focus is increasingly on the process rather than on the result. I can start out with a mix of inspiring images as a basis, but once I get stitching, I let my intuition lead me. I might end up with something different from what I envisioned beforehand. And, when that leads to a ‘blah’ result, I don’t see that as a failure, but as a valuable lesson and a stage in my process.

Botanical dyes, reclaimed materials

What materials do you especially like to use in your work?

I want to have a practice that doesn’t contribute to the environmental issues that we face. Industrial dyeing of fabrics is one of the most polluting industries, and I don’t want to add to that if I can help it.

Botanical dyeing is one of the solutions, but I also use reclaimed materials. I do sometimes buy new materials like goldwork threads though – I’m not looking to create a new inner critic that chides me for not being strict enough regarding my efforts to be sustainable.

There’s a lot that can be found online, from shops that sell botanical dyestuffs or organic linen, to online market places where people ask a small price for their grandmother’s leftover stash.

I once bought a large box of threads from a widower who proudly showed me all of his wife’s work. He was selling her stash to raise enough money to buy a piece of ceramic art for her grave. Every time I use her threads I remember how lovingly he talked about her. That’s the kind of added bonus that you don’t get with store bought items.

What’s been your biggest challenge in creating your art, and how did you overcome that challenge?

I think the biggest challenge was to overcome self-doubt and self-critique. I was held back by old beliefs and musty rules. My harsh inner critic was frantically trying to keep me safe, safe from disappointment, ridicule or failure – be perfect, it would say, or better still, don’t even try. It’s like an overprotective friend that hates to see you get hurt but also has a totally unrealistic estimate of the dangers. 

I have found that many of the things that I feared are in fact non-existent.

If a composition doesn’t work, I can undo things, add stitches, add an appliqué or simply try again. If I run out of steam, it’s okay to rest for a bit – my mojo won’t get lost. I can’t lose what truly belongs to me and if it doesn’t truly belong to me, it’s okay to lose it. I have started to trust in that, and it’s brought me lots of joy, through the work itself and in sharing it with others.

Time & teaching

How do you organise your working week?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were more than 24 hours in a day? But then I’d probably still discover that I didn’t have a drop to drink all morning or that it’s way past lunchtime! I can get completely engrossed in my work.

On the other hand, working from home can lead to people thinking that you are always available. I’ve had to learn to let the phone ring and say no to invitations to go for a coffee when I’m working.

Creating classes and tutorials takes up a big part of my time. I love to teach, but I need to protect the amount of time spent on it.

Social media can be another distraction. I try to take regular pauses while stitching, so as not to overtax my body by sitting in one position for too long. But I tend to fill that time by scrolling on my phone and, before I know it, I’m answering a question on Instagram, clicking on interesting links and reading messages from friends.

Being self-employed means having a lot of freedom – I can take a walk whenever I feel like it – but it also requires quite a bit of self-management.

I have a lot of followers on Instagram and a growing number of patrons on Patreon – that can lead to a feeling that I have to create interesting content all the time for all those lovely people.

Textile work is often labour-intensive and progress can be slow, so I don’t always have something new to show. When I feel that pressure I take a deep breath and realise that those demands are just in my head. Nobody actually gets angry or hurt when I don’t produce constantly.

Taking time off to stare out of the window, go on a walk or do a simple chore is time well spent as it creates space for my brain to process inspiration and come up with new ideas.

This is also similar to natural processes: seeds need time to germinate and winter days are just as important as the abundance of summer.

How is your work evolving?

I find that I’m drawn more and more to working three-dimensionally. It poses challenges that I avoided for a long time. I started with stitching on felt balls, but there are so many more possibilities – I’m excited to see where it leads me.

Do you have one or two tips for makers?

My best tip would be to focus on the process. To enjoy the journey wherever it leads.

If you see all your works as steps in an ongoing process, you become less afraid of failing. Failure doesn’t even exist. If you discover, for instance, that appliqué is not your thing or that you really shouldn’t have combined those two fabrics, that’s a lesson that will fuel your creative development just as much as any ‘successes’ will.

Another tip is to feel free to learn from others. Being inspired to try something you see someone else doing is not stealing ideas but a way of finding your own voice.

In textiles, we’re interconnected by a long tradition that spans many ages and cultures, and that always was and is the property of everyone. That said, it’s only fair to honour your sources of inspiration and give credit where it’s due.

As a young art student in the 90’s, Emma Cassi fell in love with fashion designer Dries Van Noten’s intricate and colourful embroidered scarves. Her student budget, however, offered no hope of ownership, so Emma tried to create her own scarf. That experiment would set Emma on a textile art journey for years to come.

Emma has a passion for working with what’s on hand, describing it as both an inventive and resourceful approach to making. She also loves the ‘alchemy’ of creating her own dyes from her natural surroundings. Who knew red mud could create such magical textures and colours?

We’re excited to share Emma’s diverse portfolio that’s aesthetically and spiritually connected. Emma literally lives and breathes her creative process, and it’s a wonderful reminder of how the process is as valuable as the end result.

It started with a scarf

Emma Cassi: My mum was a fine seamstress, and both of my grandmothers were incredible with needles and textiles. One of my grandmothers spent her time crocheting in her armchair, and the other repaired garments and socks to perfection.

I completed a year of Art History at university and then enrolled in the Beaux-Arts in Dijon, France. I didn’t work with textiles for my coursework, but I started embroidering in my spare time. It was like a hobby, and I was very bad at it in the beginning. 

While studying, I attended Ann Hamilton’s solo exhibition in Lyon (1997) where I had a big revelation. A peacock was running free in a room with floating red fabric hung across the ceiling, and big, white textile panels with embroidered poems hung from the ceiling to the floor. It was the first conceptual textile art I had seen. It touched me because it was poetic, beautiful, and so unusual. 

At the same time, Dries Van Noten was using embroidery from India in his designs. Art and fashion were mixing, and it was a very interesting time. Embroidery wasn’t as fashionable in 1996 – it was either in museums or in grannies’ wardrobes.  

Van Noten’s use of delicate beadwork, stunning mixes of colors and patterns were exquisite. His designs and collaboration with the best artisans in the world made him one of the best fashion designers.

Of course, I couldn’t afford any of Van Noten’s scarves, so I tried making them myself. That was the beginning of a 20-year training endeavour and my relationship with fabric, needles and threads.

Vegetal alchemy

My connection to alchemy began by chance at the Wellcome Collection Library where I assisted with the translation of an old alchemical book written in French. At the time, I was studying herbalism, and I was captivated by the art of ‘spagery’ – transforming plants into medicinal essences. 

Rudolf Steiner’s Alchemy of the Everyday further deepened my interest, and in 2018, my curiosity led me to begin dyeing fabrics using herbal infusions.

I work with natural materials such as plants, mud and powders, and I use rainwater or mountain water to allow the elements to influence the outcome. Fabrics are left outside to interact with the sun, wind and rain, creating unpredictable and organic patterns. 

The process is as important as the result, embracing imperfection and spontaneity. I never repeat the same mixture or method, which makes each piece unique. Alchemy and vegetal come to life as a dialogue between materials and elements. Transformation is at the heart of my creations, and the journey is as meaningful as the final work. 

“For me, ‘vegetal’ represents the raw, untamed energy of nature. So, my approach to fabric dyeing is wild and intuitive.”

Emma Cassi, Embroidery artist 

Avocado skins & berries

I love using avocado skins and pits, turmeric powder, and berries I find in nature, such as blackberries. Pomegranate skins and leaves also play a big role in my dyeing process. The plants I choose often reflect where I am. For example, when I lived in England, I worked with nettles. Now in Spain, rosemary has become a staple.

Bundle dyeing is one of my favourite techniques. It’s such a joyful process, where petals, flowers, leaves and anything found in nature comes together to create unique, unpredictable patterns. 

“The magic lies in the transformation – ordinary materials become vibrant colours, often in surprising ways.” 

Emma Cassi, Embroidery artist 

Flea market treasures

I often visit the vibrant El Rastro Sunday morning flea market in Madrid, Spain. It’s a wonderful place to uncover unique treasures and fabrics. However, I still have a deep connection to the flea markets and brocantes in my hometown of Dijon, France, to source vintage materials.

I’ve been collecting a lot of linen lately to make curtains. I then repurpose leftover pieces for other projects. I also recently came across a beautiful collection of vintage handkerchiefs that I’m transforming with embroidery.

Upcycled cotton bed linens with holes or stains are also appealing. I enjoy their well-worn softness and am inspired by the fact they’ve been washed countless times. I’m giving them a second life, breathing new stories into materials that witnessed so many dreams. 

Vintage threads are also lovely, particularly cotton and silk. They have a unique texture and quality that often tells a story, enhancing the narrative aspect of my pieces.

Occasionally I’ve come across collections of old threads, which feel like little treasures waiting to be revived. They bring a timeless elegance to my stitching, making each piece feel deeply connected to the past. 

African beadwork

Shortly after designing some masks for Hand & Lock, I travelled to Kenya where I fell in love with the incredible artistry of African beadwork. I saw sacred works including Masai jewellery, Yoruba beaded chains from Nigeria, wire-beaded animals and stunning wall hangings. They were truly magical and left a deep impression on me. 

When I returned, I began creating 3D portraits as a way to continue my intimate connection with Kenya’s cultural richness and my passion for beading embroidery. 

I had already explored intricate beadwork and sequins in my jewellery-making practice. However, transitioning those techniques to textile art brought new challenges, particularly in creating the 3D effect. I experimented with adding stuffing to specific areas which required a balance between structure and flexibility to ensure it was still easy to embroider upon. 

Mastering that method was a huge win, as it opened new possibilities for depth and texture. Seeing how the beadwork transforms a flat surface into something alive and dimensional has been incredibly rewarding. 

Beading advice

My advice for readers wanting to add beadwork to their textile art is to start by exploring different types of beads to find what resonates with them, whether it’s their textures, colours or materials. It’s good to experiment with various sizes to see what looks best or feels most natural.

Beading is a tactile and intuitive process, so take time to play, experiment and let your creativity guide you. Don’t be afraid to mix materials or create your own techniques. There’s no right or wrong way to incorporate beads into your art. 

In my Stitch Club workshop, I share my tips and ideas so that members can create a captivating 3D portrait inspired by African beading traditions. By mixing trapunto and intricate beadwork they can form unusual and striking faces with 3D, contoured elements.

I hope students embrace the joy of intuitive creation and see the transformative power of blending materials. More importantly, I want them to experience the magic of creating something deeply personal and see how each step in the journey is as meaningful as the finished piece.  

Wearable embroidery

My garment named Seedling was inspired by a friend and our shared connection to the Cistus plant, which is sometimes called rockrose. We first met because of that plant: she had it in a vase in her studio, and I immediately recognized its amazing wild scent and told her it was my favourite. 

That conversation not only sparked a friendship, but also a jewellery collaboration, and later, a performance featuring this kimono and skirt. 

I wrote a poem for my friend, that blended the story of the rockrose with our own journey and I stitched the poem into the garment. The garment’s colors were inspired by a cave in the countryside where she wore it during our performance. 

I dyed recycled cotton bed linen with mud, indigo and henna. The embroidery was done outdoors during the summer to capture the essence of nature’s textures and spirit. The piece symbolizes a deep intertwining friendship, memory and the natural world. 

Mud dyeing

This body of work is deeply inspired by my life in the hills of the Valencia region, where I embrace a way of living that is closely connected to nature. Every day I walk through the wild landscapes, bathe in and drink fresh water from the mountains and live without electricity or the internet.

When we moved to Spain, we bought a house dating back to 1900. In the barn, I discovered an old, stained canvas which became the foundation for this series. I began experimenting with dyeing and printing using the red mud from the land surrounding the house.

I had been searching for a nude or pinkish tone for my dyework. When I noticed the stunning dark red and brownish mud in the Spanish landscape, I decided to dig a bit and experiment with dyeing fabric. To my delight, it worked beautifully. 

I hang the canvases in the attic and let buckets of fabric and red mud macerate for months. This slow natural process allows the materials to transform over time, creating unique textures and patterns that reflect the essence of the place and its rhythm. 

“Dyeing with mud allows me to connect deeply with the place, transforming a forgotten material into something meaningful and alive with the spirit of its origins.”

Emma Cassi, Embroidery artist

Meditative silk landscapes

After injuring myself from years of intensive embroidery on lace for jewellery, I had to pause and step away. These silk panels became my way back to embroidery. Working with silk provided a healing framework by allowing me to use my needle on the soft, delicate fabric without straining my shoulder. I was able to reconnect with my craft gradually and gently.

The silk panels offer a beautiful canvas on which to explore embroidery and colour. I used vintage threads, combining silk, cotton and fine wool to create layers of texture and richness. The process is deeply meditative, and the softness and thinness of the fabric demand patience and care.

Over the past six years, this practice has evolved into an integral part of my creative journey, merging healing and artistry. 

The new gold

I love how I can transform everyday materials into jewellery that is both precious and meaningful. The collection I created for the Seedling project felt like an exciting and effervescent process – it came together over just a few months. 

I embroidered hundreds of seeds collected from making butternut and pumpkin soup every day. The variety of shades and shapes inspired me. I dyed the silk with henna, turmeric and indigo which created a rich, textured finish. 

I think the collection showcases a rare blend of Edwardian elegance and ethnic aesthetics. Each piece has been thoughtfully crafted to evoke the essence of ritualistic objects, embodying the spirit of talismans imbued with meaning and artistry.

People also resonated with the story behind the seeds as being ‘the new gold’. Wearing the embroidered seeds and regarding them as something precious became a beautiful metaphor for valuing the legend of the fertility deity named Kokopelli, as well as bringing attention to a seed saving project that inspired the collection.

Living in an isolated part of Australia while raising her young family, Dijanne had little access to materials and tuition. Undeterred, she taught herself to dye, print and stitch her own fabrics.

She learnt to use natural vegetation from the Australian bush for her experiments on fabric and paper. Making sustainability and environmental concerns a priority, she developed skills that she could teach to others.

Dijanne has travelled, taught and exhibited in Europe, Australia and Asia, often working with small indigenous communities to upskill women.

She loves to tell stories about her travels and her interests in history, art, nature and the environment. Let’s take a look at how her richly textured cloth does that in the most tactile and visually pleasing way.

Dye, print & ink

How do you develop your colourful and textural art?

Dyeing and printing fabric has been a part of my arts practice since the beginning. I had a limited budget when I started creating textile art, as I had a young family, and also because we lived in an isolated region. So I had to be inventive in creating my own fabrics. As time progressed, it became an important element in my work.

I’ve always been inspired by nature and environmental issues, as I’ve lived in a reasonably wild region of the world. I’ve seen the catastrophic effects of pine plantations, fires and farming, and how they’ve impacted all of nature.

My earlier work dealt with issues of bushfires – the Hellfire Series. That’s morphed into working with natural inks, again using sustainability and environmental concerns in this practice.

I’ve collaborated with Australian artist Cheryl Cook, under the name Inkpot Alchemists, to make natural inks with vegetation from the bush and from our gardens. I use them to colour and print on fabric and paper. Some of the vegetation for the inks has been sourced in very small amounts from the Crinigan Bushland Reserve, where I walk regularly.

The printing has developed into more elaborate linocuts over the years. I also print with nature itself, particularly when using natural inks. I like to think of it as a partnership with nature, which is full of surprises.

Today, my home is my studio, as I live alone in Morwell, Australia, a small city in the industrial Latrobe Valley in Gippsland, Victoria. When I collaborate with Cheryl, we work together in her studio in Tanjil South.

See, play & stitch

You’ve created a Stitch Club workshop – tell us about the artwork you developed during the process.

The artwork I created incorporates two of my favourite techniques: linocut printing and hand stitch, as well as a favourite subject matter, travel. The workshop is all about observations, play and stitch, and is inspired by travel, gardens and nature.

The motifs for the workshop were inspired by my travels in Perugia, Italy in 2023. I spent two weeks there visiting galleries and museums and enjoying the countryside. I was inspired by the ambience and history of this hilltop town in Umbria.

The work incorporates printing one’s own fabric inspired by travel encounters, and then stitching into it to recreate the rich textures.

I chose emblems I’ve encountered, which included rabbits on woven cloth in the artisan weaving workshop, Giuditta Brozzetti Museum and Atelier, and many representations of trees seen in paintings. I also include sculptures and posters, the griffin – the heraldic emblem for Perugia – and the many madonnas in paintings and textile designs.

The stitching enlivens and connects the images. This process is adapted from the type of work I do in my Traveller’s Blanket series, which are vehicles for telling stories of encounters and travels. The linocuts allow me to make printed fabric incorporating images from the place, and the stitching is the mark making that connects those images to create a whole.

History of lace

How did you develop your artistic skills over time?

I was born in the Netherlands and my parents migrated to Australia when I was nine years old. When we first arrived we lived on a very large station (63,000 acres) 18 miles from Jerilderie, a country town in New South Wales. I attended the Australian National University where I studied Arts Law and practised for 10 years as a solicitor.

I was initially self taught in art and textiles, but in the early 2000’s I embarked on a master’s degree in visual and performing arts through distance learning. It saw me create work inspired by the history of migration in my own family, and interpret that using lace.

I could trace part of my family to the early 1600s and Huguenot French, which was a similar timeline to lace developing in Europe, and so I created lace reflecting this journey.

My work has always been about themes and series; in a sense, they’re stories and record my interests in history, art, nature and the environment.

Exploring through journalling

When planning and researching, how do you develop ideas for your work?

I keep a journal, not a sketch book as such. I do draw in my journal and might keep interesting snippets of brochures or some such.

But a lot of my journal is writing – I might write about encounters, but often also the ambience of a place and the feelings it might inspire. The writing might be as prosaic as ‘I need to do more work’, but on the other hand might explore thematic or philosophical ideas.

This journalling process allows me to write about the work in an essay style, expressing ideas about, for example, the environment. It may or may not develop into a body of work or an exhibition, but it helps me to explore themes.

“My writing is a process of exploration and evolution – it can allow me to develop poetry around the theme, as well as visual imagery to use in my art.”

Dijanne Cevaal, Textile artist

I think about my work in writing, but not as individual pieces – more as a thematic body of work. I also go down many rabbit holes. I enjoy researching by way of books and or other media. I have quite a formidable, eclectic library.

I also mind map themes. If I’m really exploring a theme in depth, I’ll dedicate a separate journal for that. I’ll often start with a mind map to help me keep on track, but also to add things to, as I spend time exploring.

Narrative layers

How do you begin a new artwork?

As I explore my theme by way of mind maps and my journal, I develop some ideas for printed images on fabric that help to tell the story. I then embellish those prints with stitch to create a rich, almost narrative, layer.

A lot of my work is intuitive, one thing leads to another, and I don’t necessarily plan or record those – it comes out of the process itself and I get carried away.

I’ll dye the fabric, as all my work commences with white or unbleached khadi fabric. I’ll then add print. I usually work with whole cloth and add stitch by machine and/or by hand. Sometimes I’ll add appliqué if the piece needs it.

In my artworks Coqueclicot I and II I used a technique called Tifaifai. If the designs are cut carefully, you end up with a positive cutout and a negative cutout, both of which can be made into finished pieces.

In my piece Medieval Concertina Book I’ve hand stitched mulberry paper, which softens beautifully as you stitch.

Natural cotton fabrics

What fabrics, threads and other materials do you like to use in your work?

I use cotton fabrics, especially unbleached khadi cotton, obtained from The Stitching Project in India, which I hand dye.

I sometimes buy ordinary white cotton purchased from IKEA, or linen sheets bought secondhand at brocante markets in France. I source flannel for batting or other lightweight batting, textile printing inks, and cotton – usually cotton perlé #8 thread or linen (merlin) threads – from Fonty in France.

Stitching while travelling

Where do you like to create your art?

I work in a dedicated workroom, though I tend to use most of my house for creating. My kitchen table is regularly used for the work I do with natural ink, and when the weather is fine I also work outside.

When I travel, I usually work on one of the travellers blankets, as this requires a relatively small kit: scissors, cotton perlé #8 threads and some needles, which means it can pack very small.

The blankets take so much time that it keeps me occupied the entire time I travel. But having said that, I usually am carrying an exhibition and my hand printed panels for sale, so there’s not much room for anything else.

My image of Journey Through My Surface Design is of works created in 2018 for an exhibition of travellers blankets. It was entitled Exploration Australia, Atauro Island, The Temptation of Persephone. All were entirely hand stitched and hand dyed khadi with a mix of applied linocut motifs or simply hand stitched.

Teaching in the community

Tell us about some of the art projects and residencies you’ve done.

My residency with Boneca de Atauro on the island of Atauro in South-East Asia was all about community, as well as teaching skills and ideas I had for the women to develop a marketable product.

Boneca de Atauro is a women’s group of 60-70 women: that varies depending upon need and capacity. It’s not fostered by an NGO but directed and driven by the women themselves. It’s been one of the most inspiring and communal ways of working I’ve seen.

As such, it wasn’t really about developing my own work, though it inevitably did.

It was more about helping to improve the women’s skills. As a teacher in an environment where scholastic learning was absent, except amongst the younger women (and then usually only basic level education because they were girls), it took a little while to settle in. Also, they spoke very little English and I spoke no Tetun and only small snips of Portuguese.

I couldn’t just march in and lay out the skills; I had to observe how they worked and how they learnt.

They worked a lot with treadle machines. I’d never actually worked on one so I thought I should learn. In a way, it was this that broke the ice.

I wasn’t instantly good at using a treadle machine, and so nearly every woman there showed me how, or would gently guide me.

“This learning interchange resulted in equalising our relationship, so the women became receptive to learning from an outsider.”

Dijanne Cevaal, Textile artist

Culturally, their hierarchies are circular, not linear like Western societies. They needed to make a presentation to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs for a working grant. So we sat and mind mapped so that I could comprehend, but also present, their case for them in a more understanding way. It was an amazing experience and I do hope to go back.

It’s very difficult for the group to source supplies, and the fabric they work with isn’t good quality cotton. The small island is 20 nautical miles from Dili, the capital of East Timor, so there are many logistical difficulties, which makes their story all the more inspiring.

I’ve also worked with The Stitching Project in India, working on stitching and teaching skills to some of the women. As they use a lot of woodblock print, I showed them ways to incorporate stitch into the patterns created by the woodblock.

Exhibiting art quilts

My one big takeaway has been to be inspired by other ways of working, and to look, watch, understand and learn.

In the year 2000, I co-curated, with Frederique Tison, a travelling exhibition of Australian Art Quilts. They were shown at Chateau de Chassy in the Morvan region in France.

Coincidentally, 2000 also happened to be the year that the Olympics were held in Sydney, Australia. We were the only Australian Textile and Art exhibition in Europe, so it attracted much attention in France and ended up being shown at the Australian Embassy in Paris.

This led to curating more Australian Art quilt exhibitions, one of which travelled to the Middle East at the invitation of Robert Bowker, the Australian Ambassador to Egypt, Syria and Libya. I accompanied the exhibition for much of this, demonstrating and installing it.

These exhibitions included 30 works by Australian quilt artists and were much appreciated for their innovation, colour and expression of place.

Interpreting nature

Which piece of your textile art is your favourite?

I don’t have a particular favourite, but I do enjoy working on the travellers blankets, as these are entirely stitched by hand and are storybooks of a sort.

I also enjoy working on my sewing machine, usually on whole cloth heavily stitched pieces. My favourites amongst machine work are the forest scenes, as these allow me to make comments about the environment and nature, and to interpret nature.

Vision makes art

What do you think are the biggest challenges you face as a textile artist?

Breaking down the prejudices of textile being art and the perceptions that it’s a little hobby that women do. This lowliness in esteem means that textile artists often have to teach their techniques in order to sustain themselves, which means taking away energy from art creation.

Galleries have been very slow in accepting textiles as art. It’s the double whammy of being perceived as having been ‘made’ by women and actually being ‘created’ by women. And we all know that women are underrepresented in the gallery system.

“Technique alone does not produce art – it’s the ideas, interpretations and visions that make the art.”

Dijanne Cevaal, Textile artist

Individual expression

What advice would you give to an aspiring textile artist?

Mind maps really help – it helps to focus ideas and establish avenues of research and exploration.

And keep doing the work: working consistently and daily helps establish a pattern of work, but also allows daily time for exploration. Working sporadically means you start over each time, but working daily, even if it’s only for an hour, helps establish continuity.

The techniques I use and the materials – dyeing and printing my own fabrics – allow me to tell stories of places visited and encounters with nature. These kinds of techniques allow for very individual expression and help me to develop my own voice.

“My needle and thread are my pencil and mark making tool – the fact that the stitching produces texture is an added bonus.”

Dijanne Cevaal, Textile artist

Andy Warhol’s famous quote could be straight out of the mouth of Lauren Austin. Perhaps all true artists simply love making art for art’s sake.

Lauren began making quilts with her family at the age of seven and continued throughout her adult life whenever she could, in her spare time. After working as a computer consultant and then attending law school, she became a human rights lawyer and lecturer.

But one day, when she found herself thinking about fabric colour-matching while teaching her law students, she realised she couldn’t lead two lives.

A timely invitation to submit a quilt for a big show was the catalyst she needed to switch careers.

Today, Lauren is known for her quilts honouring her ancestors, family and friends. Along the way, she’s broken boundaries, fostering an unconventional array of techniques not usually associated with quilting, including stone lithography and beading.

All of which results in unique, effervescent works that speak to her life as an African American female artist. We delve into how Lauren manages a full-time career working on her art quilts – all from her apartment in Florida, USA.

Making quilting a priority

Lauren Austin: I call myself a ‘quiltist’, by which I mean a quilt artist, but I’m also a storyteller and instructor.

I use family photos and my hand-dyed, printed and painted fabric to make quilts and prints about my life as an African American woman artist, and about my obsessions with birds and leaves.

“Quilts are how I honour my ancestors, my family and friends. Making quilts keeps me alert, active and interacting with the world.”

Lauren Austin, Quiltist

A variety of different art methods add design and interest to my work, including raku-fired ceramic masks, retro photochemical processes like cyanoprint, and etching and burning fabric to create complex surface design.

Until 2004, I worked in other jobs, as a US foreign service officer, computer consultant and later as a human rights lawyer. While working in those jobs I made quilts at night and on the weekends.

That year I had an epiphany. I was explaining a law term to a group of students, while at the same time, my mind was on my art. I was thinking ‘Yellow next to magenta is so sparkly, how is that possible?’. It was like I was two people in one – I found myself thinking this can’t go on.

Soon after that, the curator, artist and founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network (WCQN), Dr Carolyn Mazloomi, called me. She was putting together a big show called Threads of Faith and invited me to contribute a quilt.

I hadn’t made a quilt in two or three years. I put my head on my desk and cried. An opportunity appeared, but I had nothing made.

I went home and told my husband. He said (or rather I heard): ‘You have to give it up, it’s too hard’. That’s the only time I considered divorce.

GIVE UP QUILTING??!! My husband stopped me and said no, it was time to stop that other stuff and just do the quilting. He is the best husband.

“I took my husband’s advice, quit my job and went to quilting full-time. It was hard – I had to hunt down teaching art gigs and commissions, but it was the best thing I ever did.”

Lauren Austin, Quiltist

Right now, I live and work with my husband in an apartment that is three-parts studio and one-part living space in Maitland, Florida, outside of Orlando. I work nine to five and treat my art quilt practice as a career.

I like working at home. It saves money, and it’s great to have all my tools and supplies available 24/7. One bedroom is a work area for linoleum and woodblock carving, and the other is a bedroom and living room. I have a longarm machine, two other sewing machines and several large design walls.

I’m lucky to have a life partner who is happy with this arrangement. By living within the workspace, I’m able to sit with my experiments and tweak them constantly. It’s a good setup for me. We have a nice, screened porch with plants and a lake at the back with birds, frogs and the occasional alligator.

My learning legacy

My mother, Elizabeth R Turner, was a lifelong learner and reader. My mother’s people were teachers. My maternal grandmother was one of the first black librarians in Chicago. My legacy from all of them is to learn new things all the time, forever.

My mother’s response to any idea or question I had was: ‘There’s a book in the library to help you do what you want to do’, and we would go to the library to find it. Searching for information and experimenting became second nature in life and in art. It brought me deep into quilting at a young age, leading to the creation of my first quilt.

“This philosophy of lifelong learning led me to see how different art-making ways could be used on fabric and incorporated in quilts.”

Lauren Austin, Quiltist

I was also greatly influenced by the group of textile artists that were my mother’s friends. These women came to our house every Tuesday evening to sew or make crafts together. Each one worked on her own projects, and sometimes they worked on a project together.

They told stories, laughed, and enjoyed each other’s company while making things. The feeling of touching fabric and sharing friendship are intertwined for me.

Kindness of teachers

Artistic development happens in many ways. No one approach has ever been enough for me. I was lucky to find people who were generous in giving their time, willing to share their skills if I wanted to learn, yet be open to applying their techniques to fabric.

I always found teachers who were strong and comfortable in their own art, so they didn’t want to change my aesthetic or force me to make exactly what they made.

For example, I learned the stone lithography printing technique from Charles Criner, who had only ever made prints on paper. This was during a hard time in my life. My husband was sick, and the printmaking was a respite from caregiving. Charles made sure that I didn’t have to worry about paper or tools and often bought me lunch at a time when I didn’t have money to spare.

“Charles never told me what to make. I am ever grateful for his kindness and for giving me the opportunity to learn. This is what art experiments can do.”

Lauren Austin, Quiltist

I made many drawings and prints in his studio, amassing a pile of paper prints that I liked, but with no idea how to use them. I asked Charles if I could print on fabric. Even though he’d never done so, he was open to the experiment and pleased with my results.

He had a more traditional view of quilts but came around to my way of making because of our work together. Even though his drawings and paintings had a similar background – black life and black history – they were very different from mine.

I’m also proud of the five years I spent living in Ningbo and Shanghai, China, working with other artists, learning about Chinese textile work, and experimenting with screen printing and dye painting on fabric.

I learned to make traditional Chinese baby shoes from a friend’s mother – she spoke no English and I spoke no Chinese. With patience, gestures, laughter and good strong tea, I spent several months of Saturdays sewing shoes for my first granddaughter.

Stitching black history

When I started out, I made a lot of quilts with images of African American history.

I’ve been a longtime member of the WCQN. Dr Mazloomi puts out a call for work on a certain topic and the artists respond to the topic. Her show and book And Still We Rise was a timeline of African American history from 1619 to the present, and for this exhibition, I made two pieces about Florida’s Black history.

His Instruments of Justice was about Harry T Moore, of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who was murdered because of his work advocating for black people.

We Hid in the Woods and the Swamp was about the Rosewood massacre in 1923. I suggested Rosewood and Harry T Moore as subjects because Florida’s Black history is so complicated and mostly unknown. His Instruments of Justice is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art/Renwick Gallery.

I made these pieces while living in Shanghai and feeling homesick for Florida Black life. Making the pieces was a great way to stay close to my people, and to show my friends in my new home what my culture and history were about.

Sharing my work prompted my studio mate, Nini Sun, to ask me what I would make if I just made the art in my head, without a purpose in mind. It was an amazing ‘aha’ moment and unleashed a flurry of art-making that has been with me ever since.

I still make themed work – there are too many historic and important stories about black people all over the world that call to me to make something – but I now listen to my inner voice much more than ever.

“I want people to see the diversity of my experience as a black woman: that I have many facets that make up ‘me’.”

Lauren Austin, Quiltist

I think of my work as very personal self-expression. It isn’t theory or experimentation for the sake of saying ‘I can do this’. The processes serve to explore and show who I am now and how I got to this place.

Family stories

Idea development is both planned and intuitive. I work with issues I’m obsessed with – maybe a current event, maybe a deep dive into my feelings about something or someone.

For many years I’ve made pieces using my family photos going back seven generations but, as I age, it becomes more urgent that I make more, to be sure my descendants will understand who I was when I’m not here anymore.

I love making work about my family because they can give me a true response to my choices and how the work fits with their recollections. I sent photos of Beth’s Indoor Garden to my cousin while I was working on it. I didn’t say what it was about, or anything other than look what I’m working on!

I made the original sketches with a particular photo of my mom in mind where she is sitting at her dining room table with her cat, surrounded by her favourite potted plants. I thought I was done with the piece – that’s the point I usually show work to someone else.

My cousin looked at it and said: ‘That’s Aunt Beth! Excellent! Where’s the crossword puzzle?’. I just laughed! It’s such a joy when people recognise what you’re aiming for. Most of the time they will add something I hadn’t thought of, and that’s what happened here.

My mom always did the New York Times’ crossword puzzle at that table. I was able to go back and add a folded crossword puzzle page, and the work was complete.

My People: All Who Wander are not Lost was made as a memorial to my sister’s friend Susanne Davis, for her son Steven. Steven found the quilt top in her effects after she passed away. Susanne had dyed the fabric, Steven gave it to me and I quilted it for him.

Nature inspirations

In Mr Turner’s Dragons, I made a woodcut carving of my maternal grandfather, Alexander Laurent Turner. I’ve been looking at this photo and frame since I was small.

It sits on my ancestor altar in my home. I made a woodcut of the photo, with plans to print it on paper and fabric.

I also focus on nature and combine this with my family work. I spend time photographing plants for reference material and drawing objects and people that might go into a piece someday.

I like using printmaking and dyeing fabric in support of this. Experimenting with the process gives me natural looking palettes and imagery, which then becomes a piece about my mother and her potted plants, such as in Beth’s Indoor Garden, or my father’s sister in her prom dress in an abstract forest that became Queen of the Forest.

I’m always researching black history for new material – stories about black people in nature are particularly important these days. For example, I once spent the day in a gun shop drawing an antique gun of the make used by the Buffalo Soldiers, the black soldiers who made up the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments.

This drawing became a pattern for the pistol in View from a Camp Table, a still life about the Buffalo Soldiers. This work is now in the collection of The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art in St Petersburg, Florida.

Sketch to stitch

I draw in a sketchbook all the time. Some sketches turn into quilts, either by scanning the drawing and printing it on fabric; by making a woodblock carving of the image that is printed on fabric; or fashioning a large scale figurative piece that starts from the sketch.

I started out hand piecing and quilting. I hand stitched many quilts, including king size quilts for my family. Now, I mostly use the machine for quilting because I do so many layers, and need the speed and efficiency to get through all the fabric I’m sewing.

I still use hand quilting and hand embroidery in my work. I love the textures created by handwork. Hand beading is really where I put in hundreds of hours. All the beading you see in my work is hand sewn by me. Beading is soothing and magical.

I use glow in the dark beads a lot. I can take it anywhere – doctors’ offices, gatherings – wherever I am I have a little bag with hand sewing, embroidery and beading supplies.

In my figurative work, I will start out drawing a large-scale image on a wall sized piece of paper. I like the images created this way – I must use my whole body to draw, not just my wrist and hand. My back, shoulders and whole arm are involved, and the lines are big, sweeping gestures.

When I have an image I like, I cut the paper into the shapes I’ve created and use these as patterns for the fabric. I sew the parts as mini quilts, the arms and legs, the faces, and then appliqué them to my background.

I may quilt the background first and then appliqué the figures on top, or I may save the quilting for last. Embellishments are usually added at the end – beading, couching and small 3D pieces that can stick out from the picture plane.

Artmaking for me is more than ‘sketch it out and reproduce the sketch’.

“I deliberately give myself time to respond to what I’ve made so far, and things then change within the piece. The result will be better than the original sketch or thought.”

Lauren Austin, Quiltist

I trust my process. I also understand that the work will never look like it does inside my head, and I’ve learned to accept that fact and be happy with the outcome.

Favourite materials

I love mixing dyes and experiencing the surprise of colour when the final work is removed from the washer or dryer and the tie dye is unbundled. It probably won’t be what I envisioned, but that’s a good thing.

I have to work with what I have. Everything can be overdyed or overprinted to add more texture, more interest and to be useful – if not in this piece, then in future work.

I have a huge stash of fabric, mostly West African prints and my own hand dyed yardage. I also like vintage dress fabrics, especially silk and handmade lace. I know I can make more yardage in any shade I need, though I first try to use what I have. Okay, it’s an aspiration!

I buy white PFD (prepared for dyeing) yardage and fibre reactive dyes from Dharma Trading. Most of my threads come from Superior Threads and I use Warm Company’s Warm & White Batting that I buy by the bolt.

These suppliers have come through with quality goods for me for over 20 years, so I stray very little from what they make. I’ll try something new, but these are the ones I count on for my day-to-day work.

Make time for your art

I would say to any would-be artists, believe in yourself. Trust yourself. Listen to your heart. Critique yourself but be kind to yourself.

“Make work that comes out of your head. Don’t worry about the message – just make it!”

Lauren Austin, Quiltist

I have worked for a long time in the arts, and I still get ‘suggestions’ from others – what to make, how to market, all sorts of unsolicited ideas from people who make art and from those who do not.

I listen and then mostly ignore what people tell me. I know what I need to do: I just must make time to do it.

When I trusted myself to know what I needed to do, say sketching in public while on the subway, I became braver than I had been before. It ceased being important how people reacted to the work or to me, and became more about concentrating on what I was learning from teaching myself.

This is how I develop, change what I do and still stay true to my vision and to who I am. Aspiring artists, this approach will work for you!

“Caring less about what people think means I can experiment more, learn more, and come up with new ideas and work.”

Lauren Austin, Quiltist

Much of that early stitchwork was practical in nature, particularly to create clothing. As materials and techniques changed over time, distinctive cultural approaches to design, colour, and embellishment came to life

Textile art played an increasingly important role in expressing cultural histories, folklore, religious narratives, community organisation and family values. Thankfully, many of those textile traditions are alive and well.

Below is a list of books that literally takes you across time and geography. And you won’t have to buy a plane ticket! We start in North America with African American and Native American traditions. Then we head to the African continent, followed by a trek through Asian and Middle Eastern textile techniques. We even have a stop in Mexico.

All of these books feature gorgeous imagery and stories that are both breathtaking and inspirational. So, join us in celebrating the diversity of stitching across the globe.

The quilts of Gee’s Bend

The women of Gee’s Bend in southern Alabama (USA) have been creating vibrant quilts since the early 19^th century. Award-winning author Susan Goldman Rubin explores the history and culture of this fascinating group of women and their unique quilting traditions.

They are especially known for repurposing fabrics in remarkable ways, including old overalls, aprons, and bleached cornmeal sacks. Much to the women’s surprise, a selection of their quilts were featured in a travelling exhibition in 2002.

A New York Times critic reviewing that exhibition described their work as ‘eye-poppingly gorgeous and some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has ever produced’.

The quilts of Gee’s Bend by Susan Goldman Rubin (2017)
^{ISBN 9781419721311} 

Sewing and survival

This book offers a researched narrative based on original sources, diaries, personal letters and other notes highlighting Native American voices. Indigenous Americans have been sewing, weaving, making pottery and other crafts for thousands of years. But ongoing attacks on Native American cultures in the late 1800’s promoted a fascinating shift toward quilt making.

While quilting skills were forced on some women, others willingly took on the craft. It’s compelling to learn that quilting within the Native American culture continued to gain popularity to the point where quilts now serve as cornerstones of many Indigenous give-away traditions.

Author Teresa Wong expertly walks readers through this historical and artistic quilting evolution. Powerful narratives complement images of over 60 quilts, as well as images of significant historical events and portraits of artists and collectors.

The book is available from the author’s website and can be shipped to addresses in Canada, USA, Japan, EU, UK and Australia. The author donates $4 for every book sold to the American Indian College Fund.

Sewing and survival: Native American Quilts from 1880–2022 by Teresa Duryea Wong (2023)
^{Published by Third Floor Quilts}

Colour and creativity across a continent

Traditional handcrafted African textiles are sumptuous, intricate, and steeped in cultural significance. Readers will be introduced to an incredible range of handmade textile techniques found across the African continent.

These include the gorgeous strip weaves of the Ashanti and Ewe, lace weaves of the Yoruba, and mud cloths from Mali and West Africa. The book also explores Berber weaves from Morocco, beadwork from the Zulu, Xhosa, and Ndebele people, and the crocheted, embroidered, and feathered hats from Cameroon.

The book features over 570 colour photographs that complement in-depth information about the influences of religion, culture, trade, tradition, fashion and the changing role of women artists on African textile art. It ends with a guide to public African textile collections, as well as a glossary and suggestions for further reading.

African textiles: Colour and creativity across a continent by John Gillow (2016)
^{ISBN 9780500292211}

Sustainable textiles and mindful making

‘Kantha’ is believed to have originated from the Sanskrit word kontha, which means rags. It refers to both the style of running stitch, as well as the finished quilted cloth made from layers of cast-off fabric embroidered with threads pulled from old saris and dhotis.

Author Ekta Kaul explores this rich tradition through objects of extraordinary beauty that were created to be given as gifts or for use in life event rituals, such as marriage and childbirth. 

Steeped in the ethos of sustainability, emotional repair and mindful making, this book showcases inspiring interpretations of the kantha spirit and discusses creative techniques for readers to develop their own kantha. A dictionary of fundamental kantha stitches with supporting images and instructions is included.

Ekta Kaul grew up in India and trained at India’s National Institute of Design. She received a Masters in Textiles in the UK, and has lived in Edinburgh, Bath, Ahmedabad, Delhi and London. Ekta says living in so many vibrant cities provided a wonderful education in celebrating plurality of perspectives, helping to develop her unique creative style.

Kantha: Sustainable Textiles and Mindful Making by Ekta Kaul (2024)
^{ISBN 9781789940435}

Threads of awakening

When Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo set out to travel the world, little did she know she’d get sidetracked in a Himalayan sewing workshop. Ironically, that sidetrack proved to be her necessary life path.

Equal parts art book, memoir and spiritual travelogue, Leslie shares her experience as a Californian woman travelling to the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India to manage an economic development fund, only to wind up sewing pictures of Buddha instead. 

Tibetans have been creating sacred images from pieces of silk for more than 500 years. Much rarer than paintings and sculptures, these stitched fabric thangkas are among Tibet’s finest artworks. Leslie reveals the unique stitches of an ancient needlework tradition, introduces the Buddhist deities, and shares insights into the compassion, interdependence and possibility they embody.

Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo is a textile artist, teacher and author. She offers an online hands-on apprentice program called Stitching Buddhas that bridges East and West, traditional and contemporary.

Threads of awakening: An American woman’s journey into Tibet’s sacred textile art by Leslie Rinchen-Wongmo (2022)
^{ISBN 9781647420932}

Hmong story cloths

The Hmong people from the country of Laos have a rich tradition of creating story cloths to document their history and cultural legacy. Subjects for the cloths include traditional life in Laos, the Hmong New Year, folk tales and neighbouring peoples.

The Hmong first began making story cloths during their time in refugee camps. Story cloths begin with selecting fabrics and outlining images onto a backing cloth. Fabrics are then cut into the various shapes and appliquéd using intricate satin stitches. Borders are then pieced together and hand stitched. 

This beautiful book features 48 vibrant story cloths that provide a comprehensive look into the makers’ lives and culture. Readers will also find personal stories and artefacts that make this a great book for both history buffs and textile artists.

Hmong story cloths: Preserving historical & cultural treasures by Linda Gerdner (2015)
^{ISBN 9780764348594}

The art of Korean textiles

Bojagi, sometimes called pojagi, is the traditional Korean art of making textile wrapping cloths from exquisitely patchworked fabrics. The careful arrangement of pieces of cloth allows the maker to build unique abstract compositions, which is why this technique often appeals to textile artists and quilters.

In this book, artist and author Youngmin Lee shares the history of this art form and its place in Korean culture. You’ll discover bojagi hand stitch techniques, seam finishes and decorative motifs through a variety of contemporary and beautifully-illustrated projects.

Youngmin Lee is a Korean-born textile artist and educator based in California, USA. In 2017, she founded the Korean Textile Tour, an educational trip for textile enthusiasts. Youngmin has exhibited in the USA and internationally, including at the De Young Open Exhibition, San Francisco, in 2023-2024.

Bojagi: The art of Korean textiles by Youngmin Lee (2024)
^{ISBN 9781789941838}

Shibori for textile artists

Shibori is one of the world’s richest textile traditions. While commonly associated with Japan, the technique has been long used in Africa, India and South America. In this practical guide, textile artist Janice Gunner shows how to combine all geographic shibori methods with contemporary techniques to create stunning textiles bursting with rich intricate patterns and bold colour.

Various creative approaches are clearly explained and illustrated, including tied and stitched designs, folding, clamping, pleating and binding. Simple and safe instructions for a range of dyeing techniques are also provided.

Janice Gunner is an award-winning stitched textile artist, quilter and author. She is a renowned expert on Japanese textile art and was recently awarded The Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles Education and Travel Bursary.

Shibori for textile artists by Janice Gunner (2018)
^{ISBN 9781849945301}

The fabric of life

From the intricate embroidery on a Palestinian wedding dress to the complex iconography on an Afghan war rug, textiles from the Middle East and Central Asia reflect their makers’ diverse beliefs, practices and experiences. This book explores the significance and beauty of textiles from across the vast area and is arranged thematically to enable cross-regional comparisons of the function and symbolic meaning of textiles.

Each chapter focuses on key life events, such as childhood, marriage, ceremony, religion and belief, and homestead. Featured textiles include garments, hats and headdresses, mosque curtains and prayer mats, floor coverings, tent hangings, hand towels, cushions, storage sacks, amulets and much more.

Contemporary works that grapple with modern political issues are also included. The author’s focus on the British Museum’s remarkable collection is sure to provide both education and creative inspiration.

Textiles of the Middle East and Central Asia: The fabric of life by Fahmida Suleman (2017)
^{ISBN 9780500519912}

Last but not least…

Serving a global community of over 60,000 stitchers can sometimes make it difficult to select books that are accessible to all. This is especially true for books that are out of print or self-published. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth mentioning, though, so we’re sharing a few interesting titles that may be more tricky to locate, but still worth a read.

Phulkari from Punjab: Embroidery in transition

This meticulously researched book traces the history of Phulkari through the ages. Over 350 photographs help bring to life the nearly lost craft, including instances of revival and innovation amongst artists and designers.

Every stitch in Phulkari placed on the fabric tells a story in the form of motifs. Author Shalina Mehta spent seven years searching out those stories across the villages and byways of Punjab, which is considered home for this ancient craft.

Shalina traces the history of Phulkari from its decline to its revival and includes stories collected from practitioners along her journey.

Phulkari from Punjab: Embroidery in transition by Shalina Mehta and Anu H Gupta (2020)
^{ISBN 9781911630180}

Beadwork techniques of the Native Americans

This book focuses on beadwork techniques among the western Plains’ Indians, both past and present. Readers will discover the basics, advanced techniques, supplies and actual examples of beadwork through rich illustrations and easy-to-follow instruction.

Styles include loom work, appliqué, lazy/lane stitch and the gourd (peyote) stitch. Instructions for making and beading moccasins are also included. This book is both instructional and artistic, as it features dozens of images of beaded works housed in museums and private collections.

Beadwork Techniques of the Native Americans by Scott Sutton (2008)
ISBN 9781929572113

Mexican textiles

Mexican textiles are known for their passionate appreciation of colour, pattern and design. Author and photographer Masako Takahashi shares her love of the form by taking readers on a journey to artisan workshops, weaving centres, lace makers and family-owned rug manufacturers.

Readers are given an inside view of how traditional fabrics are designed, dyed, woven and finished. The photos are gorgeous, and the author shares insightful notes on regional differences, history, and technique.

Mexican textiles by Masako Takahashi (2003)
^{ISBN 9780811833783}

Printing is one of the oldest and most accessible ways to create a surface design on fabric. And it’s a valuable way to introduce another layer of mark-making into your work. 

Our booklist will help you get in on the act. From experimenting with gelli printing to trying block or screen printing, these books aim to guide you through the entire learning curve. Many also include information about colour theory, as well as ways to create incredible textile designs using simple methods and tools. Even better, you probably already have many of the materials you’ll need to hand.

It’s time to get printing!

Gelli Arts Printing Guide

Printing with a gelli plate is an easy and affordable way to create an incredible variety of print designs on fabric. This book will help you produce beautiful, one-of-a-kind artwork with amazing colours and textures. Wonderful results can be obtained quickly, and simple variations give each print its own unique personality. 

The book opens with the basics, covering supplies and how to set up your printing station, before delving into more than 30 different techniques for making colourful backgrounds, textured pages, multiple layers and basic borders. These instructions are complemented by step-by-step pictures of each technique. Perfect for beginners and experts alike, this newly expanded edition contains an updated gallery of printed art.

Gelli Arts® Printing Guide: Printing without a press on paper and fabric using the Gelli Arts® plate by Suzanne McNeill (2021)
^{ISBN 9781497205406}

Gelli Plate Printing

Meet your dream printing plate and fall in love with a fast and friendly approach to printmaking. Gelli plates are durable, reusable and stored at room temperature. They provide endless creative possibilities for monoprinting without huge prep times and mess. Simply apply paint with a soft rubber roller, make your marks, and pull your print. Wipe the plate down with a spritz of water and paper towel, and you’re ready to print again. 

Fifty separate techniques are presented using sponges, textured rollers, stencils, rubber stamps and more. You’ll also learn how to hunt down ‘texture makers’ such as rubber bands, combs, scraps of fabric, credit cards and more. The book also features a 26-page gallery showcasing the endless possibilities for creating colour, texture and pattern.

Gelli Plate Printing: Mixed-media monoprinting without a press by Joan Bess (2014)
^{ISBN 9781440335488}

Fabric Surface Design

Sensational stitch projects demand fabulous fabrics! Fibre artist Cheryl Rezendes shows you how to create an astonishing array of surface designs, simply and safely, using textile paints and printing ink. She covers a wide variety of techniques, including stamping, Japanese Shibori, silkscreen, soy wax and flour resist, image transfer, marbling, nature printing, foils and metal leaf. Step-by-step photographs illustrate every detail, and Cheryl includes innovative suggestions on how to combine and layer techniques for stunningly original results.

Fabric Surface Design by Cheryl Rezendes (2013)
^{ISBN 9781603428118}

Complete Guide to Designing and Printing Fabric

Looking to design your own textiles? This book is packed with advice from established fabric designers who offer clear, easy-to-follow tutorials. The entire fabric design process is explained, including where to find sources of inspiration for your designs. Then step-by-step instruction is provided for a wide variety of printing methods, including screen printing, monoprinting, stamping, stencilling, resist dyeing, painting and inkjet printing. You’ll find plenty of photos accompanying each tutorial, and both hand and digital printing methods are covered. Attention is also given to how to work with on-demand fabric printing companies, such as Spoonflower and Contrado.

Complete Guide to Designing and Printing Fabric by Laurie Wisbrun (2011)
^{ISBN 9781408147009}

Modern Block Printing

The 17 projects featured in this book showcase the versatility of modern block printing. From printing on fabric and clay to making homewares such as cushions and lampshades, Rowan Sivyer offers easy-to-follow instructions taking you through every step of the process. Attention is given to the history of this ancient printing method and exploring design essentials, as well as choosing and caring for tools and carving and printing techniques. Rowan is often inspired by nature, particularly that of her homelands in New Zealand and Australia. With beautiful photography and stunning design, this is an essential guide to block printing by hand.

Modern Block Printing by Rowan Sivyer (2022)
^{ISBN 9781784885182}

Block Print Magic

This is a perfect reference book for a wide range of print-making enthusiasts. Easy-to-follow illustrated instruction walks you through every step of the process. Artist Emily Howard starts by explaining how to choose and care for tools and set up a studio. Design essentials and carving techniques are then introduced, followed by printing techniques that include multi-block printing, reduction cuts, puzzle blocks and rainbow-roll printing. Advanced carving techniques for creating textures, cross hatching and 3D shading are also explored. 

Seventeen different projects are featured, as well as interviews and examples from five printmakers for inspiration and visual demonstration. This is a must-have for any printmaker’s bookshelf.

Block Print Magic by Emily Louise Howard (2019)
^{ISBN 9781631596155}

Block Print for Beginners

Learn how to create unique contemporary works of art using traditional carving tools and printmaking techniques to create custom lino prints. Practical instruction is combined with approachable projects and inspirational imagery. Essential materials such as printmaking inks, linoleum blocks, carving tools and papers are explored. Then the full process of moving from an uncarved block to a finished print is explained, including how to transfer a drawing, carve the blocks, and work with inks to achieve the best results. The book closes with step-by-step tutorials for creating a variety of lino print blocks that can be used over and over again. Elise offers a fresh, contemporary and enjoyable approach to learning this time-treasured art form.

Block Print for Beginners by Elise Young (2021)
^{ISBN 9781633228887}

Screenprinting on Textiles: The Complete Guide

Screen printing is a stencil method of printing with vast potential. Packed with instruction and practical advice, this book introduces the basic technical aspects of printing on fabric, as well as the equipment and materials needed to succeed. Ideas for designing and combining different types of motifs, images, patterns and repeats are also provided. 

You will learn effective low-tech methods using simple tools, as well as exploring the world of digital print. Advice on using colour, as well as dye recipes, is also featured. Methods such as cross dyeing, crimping and mark making on fabric can also be used in conjunction with screen printing. Sue generously shares practical tips for both traditional screen printing processes, as well as the latest techniques in contemporary practice. 

Screenprinting on Textiles by Sue Westergaard (2020)
^{ISBN 9781785007538}

Beginner’s Guide to Screen Printing

Screen printing involves the forcing of ink through a screen of fine material to create a picture or pattern. Erin demonstrates an accessible way of exploring the creative potential of screen printing, using a simple embroidery hoop and silk fabric. 

The book provides clear instructions and colourful step-by-step photography for 12 different projects, and you’ll learn how to print on different surfaces, including wood, cork and fabric. The projects feature coastal and botanical themes, along with templates and inspiration for you to design your own motifs. Long considered to be a ‘specialist’ and expensive technique, the ideas in this book make screen printing affordable and accessible to all.

Beginner’s Guide to Screen Printing by Erin Lacy (2019)
^{ISBN 9781782217244}

Simply Screen Printing

Leah Higgins is known for her innovative printing techniques on fabric. This book offers a detailed instructional guide to start screen printing using Procion MX dyes and other media to suit your budget and available workspace. It covers working with an open screen with loose resists (such as paper or thread) and with temporary resists (such as thickened dyes, masking tape and freezer paper). Semi-permanent resists, including flour paste, washable PVA glue and sticky back plastic, are also presented. Leah also shares how to combine screen printing with masks on fabric, and there is a section focusing on colour use. Over 500 gorgeous images are spread throughout the book offering both instruction and inspiration. This book is available to ship worldwide from Leah’s website.

Simply Screen Printing by Leah Higgins (2023)
^{ISBN 9781999585853}

Featured picks

• Gelli Arts® Printing Guide: Printing without a press on paper and fabric using the Gelli Arts® plate by Suzanne McNeill (2021)
• Gelli Plate Printing: Mixed-media monoprinting without a Press by Joan Bess (2014)
• Fabric Surface Design by Cheryl Rezendes (2013) 
• Complete Guide to Designing and Printing Fabric by Laurie Wisbrun (2011)
• Modern Block Printing by Rowan Sivyer (2022)
• Block Print Magic by Emily Louise Howard (2019)
• Block Print for Beginners by Elise Young (2021)
• Screenprinting on Textiles by Sue Westergaard (2020)
• Beginner’s Guide to Screen Printing by Erin Lacy (2019)
• Simply Screen Printing by Leah Higgins (2023)

Want to explore more possibilities for printing on fabric? Check out Discover: The power of print, which showcases a variety of textile artists using print surface design in their work.

If you buy books linked to our site, we may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops.

Do you have a favourite book about printing on textiles? Let us know below.

“The sense of smell is the hair trigger of memory.”

Research has proven that the nose knows and remembers. The slightest hint of a familiar fragrance can take us back in time and space, and, according to Pallavi Padukone, that phenomenon is good for both wellness and wellbeing. After successfully using aromatherapy to help manage the stress of the pandemic, Pallavi decided to turn the fragrance industry on its head by creating ‘olfactory art’.

Pallavi’s tapestries and embroideries are literally fragrant. She weaves and stitches with yarns and threads soaked in naturally derived scents like jasmine, rose, and sandalwood. She also dyes her materials with Indian herbs and spices including safflower, chilli and turmeric. Pattern, colour, texture and scent combine to recreate memories of Pallavi’s childhood in southern India.

Pallavi continues to finetune her techniques and expand her library of scents, but she has generously taken a moment to offer us an insight into her current process and techniques. 

We wish we could offer you a scratch-and-sniff option while reading about her work, but we promise you’ll still be delighted to learn about her inventive art that tantalises both the nose and the eye.

Pallavi Padukone: I was exposed to different forms of art from an early age. My mother is a graphic designer and used to work at a gallery in Bangalore, India. Growing up, I’d often visit her at work. I was also enrolled in a weekend art class led by one of the artists.

One of my first experiences involving textiles was at a school tie-dye workshop. It was the first time I’d played around with dyeing fabrics.

I also have fond memories of my grandmother teaching me how to embroider. I sat with her in the evenings, and she would patiently show me different embroidery stitches and knots. She also made me a little guide to help me practise.

I studied textile design during my undergraduate education in India. I decided to specialise in textiles because working with my hands came naturally to me. An exchange semester for a fibre art course in Gothenburg, Sweden, really opened my eyes to how complex textiles can be.

I learnt how to view fibres and fabrics with a conceptual lens. I fell in love with using textiles as an art medium after experimenting with different techniques and meeting many interesting people in the field.

I later studied at the Parsons School of Design, New York, where I focused on integrating scent and textiles, using fragrance as a form of embellishment.

Connecting to culture & place

All the materials I use in my work are chosen for their sensorial qualities. There’s a connection to landscape, place and time that is woven into each work’s backstory.

I integrate hand-spun recycled sari silk mixed with scent-coated cotton for my weaves and embroider on silk organza. I retain the existing jewelled colours the silks are sourced in. I am drawn to the way the sheer fabrics interact with light to visually evoke the ephemeral experience of fragrance.

My work is guided by culture and craft, and I believe in the philosophy of respecting the artisanal, the sustainable and the slow.

“I often use nature as my muse for colour, patterns, and materials.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

My Indian heritage also constantly informs my textile art. Textiles are so deeply rooted in India’s history – their richness and craft inform both my approach and design sensibilities for patterns, motifs, techniques and colour.

My use of colour comes intuitively from sights, my surrounding landscape and imagined memories. I can be inspired by something as simple as certain shades of flowers at a market or an interesting colour-blocked sari I spy someone wearing.

Olfactory art

The idea of using fragrance for its therapeutic qualities and its connection to nostalgia and memory resonates with me.

My initial source of inspiration was the calming effect a small pouch of lavender provided while cooped up in my apartment during the 2020 lockdown.That prompted me to explore scents for wellness and how they could be visually expressed through colour, pattern and texture.

As part of my research, I conducted surveys to record the relationship people have with fragrance and their link to memory, emotion, visual imagery, colour and texture.

I then considered how fragrant yarn itself could open doors to possibilities through textile techniques. Through trial and error, I developed a natural coating for yarn that captured scents.

The Reminiscent collection is inspired by the scents and colours of memories and nostalgia connected to my home in Bangalore. There are a total of 14 wall hangings, tapestries and room dividers that stimulate the senses beyond sight with a feeling of familiarity.

The collection keeps evolving as I keep adding to my library of scents. It’s been a fascinating learning process. Reminiscent seeks to reinterpret the fragrance industry by tapping into scent’s ability to serve as powerful catalysts for triggering memories, especially feelings of calm and comfort.

“It’s a way to use textiles as aromatherapy to condense time and distance, as well as create an immersive experience to reconnect with nature, nostalgia, home and identity.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

Creating scented yarns

The six scents that I started my collection with were jasmine, citronella, vetiver, rose, sandalwood and clove. I’ve added hibiscus and ‘spice rack’, which is a combination of cardamom, clove and turmeric. All these fragrances bring me a sense of comfort, and I associate them with the smell of home and my childhood.

“My memories include the scent of sandalwood talcum powder on my grandmother’s dressing table”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

Jasmine buds in our terrace garden, rose garlands in the flower market, citronella mosquito repellent during summer months, and the petrichor-like fragrance of the vetiver root that’s reminiscent of the monsoons.

The scented yarn coating I developed is wax based. It’s combined with tree resin and pure essential oils, and then coloured with natural dyes and earth pigments. The mixture is warmed, and the yarns are individually dipped, coated and dried.

The resin helps to harden the mixture. Yarns are then put into sealed bags for them to dry and lock in the scent ready for use in my tapestries. It takes about 48 hours for them to dry and harden slightly before I use them.

When yarns are heated at the right temperature, the combination of wax and resin make them quite malleable and versatile for weaving and embroidery. But they do have limitations.

Since yarns are individually dipped, they’re created in small quantities and not as a single continuous long length of yarn. That equates to a more time-consuming process, but small batches prevent waste because I can estimate how much coated yarn will be needed for each colour and scent.

I also make my own scented beads using the same pigmented and scented mixture used for my yarn, by casting the mixture into customised 3D printed moulds that I designed. I use the beads to embellish my work. Vetiver III is an example where I integrated the beads into the warp of the tapestry.

Fading fragrance

A collection tends to remain fragrant anywhere up to three months, depending on exposure to heat and light. But that impermanence is a reminder of its completely natural state and that it absorbs new smells, just as dyes tend to alter over time.

“It’s a fact that scent is temporary, and because I work with completely natural materials, it will fade over time.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

I keep a record of swatches as a test of the material’s durability and how long both scent and colour last when exposed to heat and light. The yarn and beads can be reactivated by adding another coating of scented oils, but the fragrance still tends to fade. So, part of my ongoing exploration is innovating new ways to replenish fragrances.

I also plan to continue to expand my library of scents to capture other places and memories dear to me.

A natural dye palette

I experiment with different combinations of dye matter to build my palettes. I mix various natural dyes in different proportions with a base of wax and natural resin.

The shades of brown come from walnut, natural earth clays and cutch extract from acacia catechu wood. Ocher pigments, reds and pinks are from madder root, hibiscus and beetroot. The orange colours come from safflower and chilli, yellows from turmeric, and blues and greens from a combination of indigo and turmeric.

“Each work’s dye palette features colours I associate with the memories I hold for each of my fragrances.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

With jasmine, I associate its sweet scent with delicate soft hues of pinks, creams and pastel green. But sandalwood is more a musky, powdery and creamy wood scent, so for this I use more earthy browns and deep wine reds.

Experimental weaving

My first interaction with weaving and using a handloom was during my undergraduate education. I find the repetitive motion of weaving so meditative. I think I truly fell in love with the process of weaving after travelling to Patan, a city in Gujarat, India.

There, I met master weavers who specialised in the complex double ikat weaving technique called ‘patola’ where the warp and weft are resist tie-dyed. I was absolutely mesmerised by its complexity and seeing each step in the process come together to weave the patterns.

I use a handloom, and I’ve more recently begun using tapestry looms or making my own frame looms. 

I call myself an ‘experimental weaver’, as I love weaving with different materials and moving beyond using only yarn. Vetiver roots are a favourite, but they definitely pose challenges that lead to a great learning process.

The roots themselves can be quite brittle, but I enjoy leaning into its limitations. I’m exploring ways to combine machine embroidery with wet felting to help tame the material in ways that keep its natural wildness.

I still have so much to learn and discover, and I primarily teach myself by reading and watching online tutorials for embroidery and weaving. I’m also grateful to live in a city that has access to great libraries, museums, art galleries, talks and seminars that provide great opportunities for inspiration and meeting others in the field.

Vetiver embroidery

In addition to weaving, I also wet felt and embroider on top of the fragrant vetiver (khus) grass root. It releases the most divine petrichor-like scent (like the earthy smell after rain) when activated with water.

I have tried to use vetiver in my woven pieces as well as using it as a dye, but it produces a very light colour that fades quickly.

For my embroidered works, I carefully choose yarns and threads for each piece. I like the simplicity of the running stitch. I also use quite a bit of free-motion machine embroidery, as well as hand smocking techniques on silk organza.

I tend to use cotton threads for embroidery, and polyester or nylon threads for my vetiver root artworks that involve interaction with water.

Tree of life

For my undergraduate final thesis project, I worked on a sculptural hand-woven installation called The Kalpavriksha. I’d say that project was a key turning point in my textile art trajectory.

The work was inspired by South India’s ‘Tree of Life’, which is a coconut palm eulogised as the mythological tree that grants all life’s necessities. Every part of the tree, from its leaves to its roots, can be used for food, drink, shelter, medicinal purposes and more. In Indian tradition, a tree is not just an object of nature. It’s treated as a shrine and source of bounty. 

I collaborated with handloom sari weavers and cane-work artisans from Bangalore. The sculpture symbolises the dissected coconut and represents how every layer of the tree and fruit is valued. The spreading roots made from braided coir (coconut fibre) represent its ever-evolving nature.

The coconut fibre was donated by the coir cluster of Gandhi Smaraka Grama Seva Kendram (Alleppey, Kerala), a non-profit organisation that promotes sustainable agricultural development.

Six fabric information panels accompany the exhibit, with details about why the coconut palm is revered and how it travelled to the Malabar region. The last panel features a folktale from Kerala about its origin. The installation was part of a travelling exhibit funded by the Dutch Consul General and Embassy in New Delhi.

“I find it challenging to put my work out there. Many times, I don’t feel that an artwork is ready, or I overthink some of my pieces.”

Pallavi Padukone, Olfactory artist

Navigating social media

There are times I have ideas in mind, but I need access to more resources or collaboration with an expert to bring them to life. Networking and self-education can provide good advice and guidance, but sometimes I can’t find the information I need to move forward with a project. It’s all a slow learning process.

At other times, just mustering inspiration to make something can be a challenge. When that happens, I’ll visit museums and art shows or travel. Trips back to India to visit my family and source materials always fuels my creativity.

I have mixed feelings when it comes to using social media. I do realise it’s become the standard way to showcase and promote your work as an artist. More people ask for an Instagram handle versus a website or email.

But I do struggle to maintain consistency when posting. Quite often I don’t post because I feel intimidated sharing my work, or I question if a work is ready to be posted.

It’s a challenge I need to overcome. I do use Instagram to follow other artists and designers, and being a textile designer working in the area of home interiors, I use it to stay informed about new developments and interesting projects in the industry.