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.

Finally, you decide that today’s the day! You’re going to start that creative project you’ve been dreaming about.

You gather some fabric scraps you’ve been saving. You find your old sewing box. You clear a space at the kitchen table and…

And then what?

You realise you’re not sure where to begin. So you think maybe you should look up some techniques first. You open your laptop to do some research.

But there’s so much information… Your inbox needs checking while you’re here. Oh, and you should probably put another load of washing on. And didn’t you promise to call your friend? And it’s almost time to start dinner anyway…

Another day slips by without creating anything.

You tell yourself you will make a start tomorrow, when you have more time. When you’ve researched a bit more. When you’re a bit more more organised. When life is less busy.

But you’re not alone. In fact, you’re in excellent company. Every accomplished textile artist started exactly where you are now, with a desire to create and uncertainty about how to begin.

The difference between you and them? They found a way to start. And today, we’re going to show you how you can too.

The time trap

“I’ll create when I have more time,” you tell yourself. But here’s the painful truth: That mythical expanse of free time will never arrive. Life has a way of filling every available moment – unless you decide to claim some for yourself.

Every day you put off starting is another day of creativity lost forever. Another day without discovering the joy that comes from working with your hands to make something meaningful and personal.

Laura Otten, a Stitch Club member, told us: “Before, I thought I had to have big chunks of time to put into making art.”

“Now I understand that’s not the case and I am working far more regularly because of it. I can get something done in 30 minutes or less, and then tomorrow, I can spend another 30 minutes.”

“And eventually, I’m going to have something to show for it.”

“Doing workshops online that I can revisit in my own time, helps me break things into manageable chunks.”

Laura Otten, Stitch Club Member

The overwhelm obstacle

You stare at blank fabric, paralysed by the fear of starting.

Or maybe your mind buzzes with too many possibilities about which technique to choose. Raw-edge or turned-under appliqué? Paint the background fabric first? Print photos on fabric? Finish the piece with hand stitching or machine stitching?

The questions keep lining up, until the weight of choices crushes your creative spark entirely.

6 simple ways to unleash your creativity (in small pockets of time)

1. Embrace the power of tiny

Forget masterpieces. Start with moments.

Celebrated textile artist Clarissa Callesen puts it perfectly: “When a child learns how to play the piano, we don’t expect them to compose an original symphony. They play Mary Had A Little Lamb over and over again, and then progress to more challenging tunes as they go.”

Try one of these ideas:

• A single experimental stitch during your coffee break
• Fifteen minutes of playing with stitch techniques or collaging colourful fabrics, first thing in the morning
• Make one small sample square per week

Your artistic journey begins with a single stitch – so why not pick up some fabric and thread and give it a go?

2. Fall in love with the process

The magic isn’t just in the completion of an art piece – it’s in the moments of creation.

And textile artist Monica Bennett discovered how even small creative moments can be productive: “Making samples gives me the confidence to tackle larger or more intricate pieces. I can try out a concept or thought beforehand, and then see how and where I could develop it.”

Try to imagine:

• The meditative rhythm of needle through fabric
• Asking yourself “What if I do this…?” instead of “What should I do next…?”
• The satisfaction of seeing your unique vision emerge, experiment by experiment, stitch by stitch

3. Use limits as launchpads

Complete freedom can be paralysing. Instead, why not try:

• Choosing just three colours 
• Working with only one type of stitch
• Using only the materials you already have

Watch how these boundaries can spark, rather than stifle, your creativity.

Sue Stone’s three-fabric, three-thread, three-colour Stitch Club workshop helps members avoid decision fatigue and unleash creativity.

Just look at the diverse, beautiful pieces created by Stitch Club members Linda Florio (above), Ruth Atkinson (below left) and Debbie Greene (below right) using these simple constraints.

4. The journey of discovery

Every perceived “mistake” is an invitation to:

• Let your “wrong turns” lead to new techniques
• Work with imperfections to develop your unique style
• Turn missteps into creative opportunities

Wendy Kirwood explains her breakthrough moment: “I wasn’t happy with the look that my pale threads were giving my piece.“

“So I started cutting the stitches to remove them, and things started fraying. But, actually, this looked really appealing, so I embraced my mistake, and kept the cut threads.”

5. Let structure set you free

Having a clear path forward doesn’t mean being inflexible or not instinctive, but it eliminates the energy-draining question of “What next?”. Your path could be:

• Following a workshop structure
• Creating your own step-by-step plan
• Setting simple daily goals

When you know what to do next, you spend less time thinking and more time creating. Your subconscious mind keeps working on ideas between sessions, leading to unexpected breakthroughs. 

6. On the shoulders of giants

Give yourself permission to:

• Learn from artists you admire
• Practice techniques that inspire you
• Combine influences to find your voice

Textile artist Sabine Kaner reassures us: “Being influenced by other people’s work is quite normal and it’s all part of the process of discovering more about yourself.”

“You will eventually pull away from that and start introducing things into your work that are unique to you.”

Clarissa Callesen adds: “Originality is a concept that we’ve put up on a pedestal as the ultimate.”

“But I think that when we concentrate too much on originality it stops us from following our own curiosity. Copying is normal as a starting point.”

“When you combine inspirations and techniques from different artists, you create the thing that is yours.”

Clarissa Callesen, Textile Artist

Your creative awakening awaits

That creative energy inside you? It’s not just a whim. It’s not just a hobby. It’s a vital part of who you are, waiting to emerge.

Every day you wait is another day of creative expression lost forever. But here’s the beautiful truth: You can start right now. Not when you have more time, or when you’ve mastered every technique. Now!

Think of it this way:

• Every textile artist you admire started exactly where you are
• Every stunning piece began with a single stitch
• Every creative journey starts with one small step

Take that step. Make that stitch. Join a community that understands and supports your creative journey.

Your artistic voice is waiting. Isn’t it time you let it speak?

We already know you’re interested in the art of fabric and thread – why else would you be here? But perhaps you’re looking for a more tactile read, and the luxury of sitting down and reading a magazine cover to cover? If you’re interested in subscribing to a print (or digital) journal exploring textile art, there’s lots of gorgeous options to choose from. 

Here’s our list of the best textile art magazines. These publications are suitable for readers at all levels. High quality, beautifully illustrated, and aiming to inspire, engage and share, each title brings alive the latest developments and inspirations in textile art. 

Read on to discover these periodical gems: Embroidery, Selvedge, Fiber Art Now, Textile Fibre Forum, Quiltfolk, Quilting Arts and Surface Design Journal.

Embroidery

Embroidery is a beautifully presented long running magazine serving lovers of embroidery and contemporary textile art. It comes from the renowned Embroiderers’ Guild in the UK and was first published in 1932.

Over the decades, Embroidery has become the most well respected review of the art of embroidery and stitched textile art. This magazine inspires and impresses with its mix of textile art features, in-depth artist interviews and colourful artwork shots. There’s a listing of the best exhibitions and events around the UK and beyond, and all the latest news in the world of embroidery. 

Subscriptions are available for readers in the UK, Europe and worldwide. Published six times a year, it will bring you plenty of inspiration. Not to mention the option for incredible access to a vast, fully-searchable digital archive of back issues!

A digital downloadable version is available through Pocketmags, or a single issue pay-as-you-go option is available for those who don’t wish to commit to a long subscription.

Selvedge

Celebrate our communal love of cloth, culture and creativity in Selvedge, an attractive feast-for-the-eyes, square-format magazine. This internationally renowned magazine was launched in 2004 by textile obsessive Polly Leonard, and is published every two months in print and digital formats.

In a magazine as beautiful as the textiles represented within its pages, it features articles on textiles in fine art, craft, design, fashion and interiors, sharing the history and importance of cloth, and its place in the modern world. 

Print magazine subscribers receive complimentary access to the corresponding digital edition. Or subscribers can choose the digital-only version. Back issues are available to buy separately.

Great pride is taken in the printing process, using soy-based inks, paper and packaging produced in an environmentally friendly and socially responsible manner.

Textile Fibre Forum

Textile Fibre Forum is a long-running Australian textile art magazine, in print since the 1980s. Produced by ArtWear Publications since 2011, this quarterly magazine shares the work of textile artists, as well as promoting exhibitions and events, and exploring new techniques and innovations relating to textiles, fibres, and textile art. It has a strong focus on Australian artists and contemporary textiles, with articles from specialist contributors in each issue. 

The subscription price includes postage and handling within Australia. International purchasers pay postage at checkout. Alternatively, you can buy a digital subscription. Print format back issues are also available to purchase separately.

Fiber Art Now

This sumptuous magazine, published in the USA, has a broad remit – perfect for those who like a little bit of everything. It explores all types of textile art, including embroidery, crochet, weaving, felting, book arts, quilting, traditional techniques like shibori and sashiko, and more.

Covering installations, wearables, sculptures, vessels and basketry, wall and floor art, plus engaging artist profiles, there really is something for everyone. 

You’ll get four jam-packed magazines a year, as well as instant access to the archive of digital back issues. Shipping is free in the USA, and international subscribers can either pay for shipping or choose the great value digital-only subscription.

Quilting Arts

In Quilting Arts, you’ll learn more about textiles and techniques for contemporary art quilting and surface design. Published in the USA since 2001, this quarterly magazine is full of informative articles dedicated to promoting the art quilt movement, and is suitable for all levels, from novice to professional quilters and textile artists. 

It provides inspiration, technical information and mixed media insights; its aim being to elevate the visibility of art quilts through education, innovation and inspiration. 

Quilting Arts is available in print format, with a supplement to cover postage outside the USA. Back issues are available separately.

Quiltfolk

Travelling coast to coast from New Jersey to California, the quarterly magazine Quiltfolk visits a different state of the USA in each edition, exploring quilters and quilt stories unique to that region.

Beautifully designed and printed, this magazine is a tactile delight, with a soft cover and gorgeous images showcasing the art of quilting, and will appeal to all quilt makers and quilt lovers everywhere. 

This print-only magazine, first published in 2016, has 164 pages brimming with inspiration, and it is advert-free. Back issues are also available to purchase.

Surface Design Journal

If you’re looking to take your art to the next level, check out the Surface Design Journal from the Surface Design Association. This magazine will help to expand your knowledge on techniques and applications.

It covers textile art, design trends, exhibitions, as well as  interviews with artists, makers, curators and collectors. The journal is published in the USA, but has an international scope. 

This quarterly journal comes with membership of the Surface Design Association, which includes a range of other benefits.

Readers can choose print and digital, or digital-only subscriptions, at different price points depending on your location worldwide. Individual issues can be purchased at the SDA store.

“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.

The two artists had known each other for a long time so they quickly grasped the potential benefits of working together. Each gained insights from the other’s work while meeting online and in the studio.

Amanda was able to incorporate weavings made by Johanna, which added an extra element of interest to her compositions. And Amanda’s experiments triggered new ideas for Johanna. This co-working experience helped to motivate them both and accelerate their progress.

When you read on, you’ll find inspiration and ideas for working with others, and discover how collaboration can elevate your art to a new level. Through a productive phase of shared activity, Johanna and Amanda were able to release feelings of protectiveness of their own work, bounce ideas off each other, and allow their work to evolve into a cohesive gathering of exhibits. 

There’s more than one way to stimulate your creative ideas – and collaborative working might be just what you are looking for.

Accumulating, remembering, archiving…

Can you tell us a little about the art you make?

Amanda Britton: Utilising unconventional materials including paper, vellum, resin and plexiglass, the work I make is like intricate fabrics, ‘woven’ with a variety of techniques, colours, and constructions.

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of migration – moving towards some things and away from others. The ways in which we shift, change and create patterns, rituals and repetition. 

Creating intersections, remembering, and archiving the parts that are left behind, my work takes the form of sewn collages on paper, bringing together fragments of material, paper, and found objects – or casts of those objects. 

I’ve always been interested in the perpetuation of relationships between people and the exploration of families, place, narrative and language. Concerned with documentation and preservation, my work is personal in concept, yet quirky and humorous in delivery. 

Johanna Norry: My work employs the traditional techniques of weaving, hand knitting, coiling, embroidery and stitching. Often I create work that combines comforting materials with unexpected forms. I take a similar approach when I am collaging and working with photos, whether family snaps or found images, or mining memories – working with real and metaphorical archives. 

My artistic process is to respond to my research in a way that culminates with art and installations that are themselves a sort of documentation, whether an accumulation or manipulation of evidence. The resulting work might appear incomplete, and distorted, with only a fraction of the truth remaining, as revealed by my material interpretations. 

I used to see my textile work and my collage work as separate. Recently, those lines began to blur. It began with appliqué textile collage and quilted portraits, and morphed into woven photos, piecing together my hand woven and hand knitted material in the same manner as I might assemble various photos and papers into a more traditional collage. 

The metaphors of weaving, stitching and collage are always at the forefront of my art making thought process. My work is usually about my inner life, my identity, my values and obsessions, my connection to my family and ancestors, and I combine disparate parts as a way of illustrating how I am made up inside – different parts, different experiences and different inheritances, sometimes cohesive and sometimes incongruous. 

What initially attracted you to textiles as a medium? 

Amanda: My mother, Heather Britton, ignited my passion for textile art and design. I grew up falling asleep to the hum of her sewing machine – she’s a novice sewer and also worked in the carpet industry for more than 40 years. 

Johanna: My husband’s mother was a textile artist and weaver, with a weaving studio in Rochester, New York. She had several weavers who came to her studio each day to weave her commissions. Sadly, she died from cancer just a few years after I met her. I inherited everything from her studio including her loom, her tools, her yarn and her notes. 

I was pregnant at the time and the last thing I had time for was learning to weave. It all went into storage and I made myself a promise that I would learn to weave on the same schedule she did When my son turned five, I signed up for a weaving class. I was immediately hooked and took classes for several years. 

One of my weaving teachers suggested I take a dyeing class at Georgia State University. After just a few weeks I knew that I wanted to make art and be in the textiles classroom, for the rest of my life. 

While pursuing my Textiles BFA and MFA, my work expanded beyond weaving, and incorporated embroidery, knitting, digital processes, piecing and quilting, and felting. I chose the process that I thought best suited the concept I was exploring.

As an older student, others assumed that I already knew how to do all these things, but it was all new to me. The last time I’d used a sewing machine was when I got a C grade for a wraparound skirt made in my junior high home economics class. 

My gravitation toward fibres wasn’t based on familiarity of technique, but rather the familiarity with fabric. We adorn our bodies and homes with fabric, and the textures, patterns and colours can elicit memories and nostalgic longing.

My work with fibre may have started with the inheritance of a loom, but I really can’t imagine any other medium being better suited for communicating my ideas about the human experience.

Long term support

Tell us more about how this collaboration came about… 

Johanna: Amanda and I met in graduate school at the University of Georgia. For two years, our studios were next door to each other. It was awesome. And while I think I was subtly aware of the specialness of that time, and the luxury of devoting time to making our own work within a supportive community, I wasn’t quite prepared for how much I would miss it when I moved on. 

It turned out that Amanda also missed it and, fairly soon after she graduated, we decided to meet occasionally, if not regularly, to support each other and critique each other’s work. 

While our show’s name Common Thread refers to the relationship we began to observe in our current work, the truth is there was already a thread – conceptually, if not aesthetically – in our graduate school work as well.

Amanda’s work was tethered to her family memories and the ephemeral nature of memory itself, and my work was also rooted in family, in research, and unearthing hidden family secrets and exposing them to the light of day through my art.

We had both been regularly making and showing work in juried shows since graduation. But we were also both beginning to accumulate work that felt like it needed to be shown all together.

‘Our decision to work towards a show together, Common Thread, was so organic that I cannot even remember who thought of it first.’

Johanna Norry, Textile artist

Once we had decided to collaborate, it motivated both of us to flesh out work we had started, and to make more, knowing that if our proposals were accepted, we would need to do a lot of work to fill a gallery. As we were making new pieces, that’s when the collaboration conversation began – the intentional back and forth development process, responding to elements we observed in each other’s work.

Back & forth process

Tell us about the collaboration process…

Johanna: Amanda and I began to prepare for our first duo show at Berry College, Georgia, in the summer of 2023. Initially, we worked separately in our home studios, communicating by texting photos of our work to each other.

Then we organised several joint studio days where we would bring our works in progress – works we considered finished – as well as remnants, and uncommitted bits of cloth that we had created by one method or another. 

Pieces migrated from my table to hers, and vice versa. For example, I had a long and narrow woven test sample, which Amanda saw with fresh eyes; she cut it in two and incorporated it in an installation of dyed organza strips that she had sewn ephemera into. 

Our process was like a conversation – a back and forth. I would see something in Amanda’s work, like the way she was using family beach photos, shells and references to the migration of sea birds. I realised that I also had 1970s family photos taken at the beach that I could use, and my own collection of rocks and shells.

This led to my weaving together old family photos, pairing them with collages of woven remnants, and combining rocks and shells with off-loom wovens in plexiglass boxes, as companions to Amanda’s natural history display-inspired assemblages.

How did you achieve the collaboration, logistically? 

Amanda: Thankfully, both Johanna and I live and work relatively close to one another in North Georgia. Over the summer, my university’s facilities were open and available, which allowed us a central location to meet and make. While we did call and meet online, our most productive days were those shared in the same studio space. 

Our advice for anyone collaborating or wanting to initiate a collaborative project is to let it be organic. Partner with someone you respect and are excited by their work. Ask yourself if you see a connection in your work, while still being distinct from each other.

‘A collaborative connection might be the theme, process or an aesthetic. If there’s a connection between you, that you think others could see as well, then that’s a good place to start.’

Amanda Britton, Textile artist

While it was awesome that we could meet and work together in the studio, it would equally be possible to collaborate with someone in another city, thanks to Zoom and ease of sharing virtually.

Evolution & unification

Did the project’s exhibition feel as cohesive as you hoped?

Amanda: We had a lot of wonderful feedback from both students and staff at Berry College. The work covers so many different techniques, mediums and interests, including photography, textiles, sculpture and installation, yet it was unified by colour and archiving concepts. 

We wanted to push the visuals and create an unexpected viewer experience. I think we captured this with scale variations and colour juxtaposition of the work.

However, and I think Johanna would agree with me, as soon as the exhibition went up we knew the work would likely shift and evolve as it travelled to its next location. Edits and considerations have been vital throughout. 

How did you help your audience understand the connections built through the collaboration? 

Amanda: Johanna and I are very intentional about the layout of our travelling exhibition. Not only have we considered the space of each gallery (the Moon Gallery at Berry College is expansive with low ceilings, whereas Westobou is a tight space with high ceilings), but we are also interested in conceptualising new or alternative display methods. 

Like paintings, textile works tend to be displayed in very traditional ways and we knew we wanted to activate the space differently. Whether hanging woven pieces high and then paper collages low, we are intentionally and thoughtfully curating the works by colour, technique and concurring themes.

Also in this duo display, we’re not concerned with labelling every piece with its maker and materials – we like the idea of just letting the viewer experience the work as a unified whole.

Did you have any previous experience that helped prepare you for working on a duo project?

Johanna: In graduate school, Amanda and I, along with another textile artist and two ceramic artists, collaborated on a show called Undermined. The collaboration involved the ceramic artists making work, primarily functional objects, but also more sculptural and figurative work, then the three textile artists set about undermining the functionality of the objects.

We bound plates together with thread, which included my knitted tubes that connected the cups to each other, and a web of screen printed silk organza created by Amanda. 

Undermined was my first experience of collaboration as a sort of call and response process. The Common Thread collaboration was similar, but the conversation was more of a repeated back and forth process, rather than a simple call and response.

Other group shows I’d been in were different, in that I was invited because my work was perceived as fitting into an already existing concept. The artworks in those shows were pieces I had already made and had not been created in such a conversational way.

The benefits of collaboration

Could you choose one particular favourite artwork and share how the collaborative process improved it?

Amanda: Carapace Capsules is one of my favourite collaborative pieces in the show. The piece is small in scale but allows for an intimacy with the work.

Both Johanna and I are very interested in the concept of the archive: questioning what is collected and what memories are retained through these mementoes. These transparent boxes and trays felt like precious time capsules that combine both of our unique perspectives. 

Johanna: Possibly my favourite collaboration of the exhibit relates to how we installed our work together, and how we viewed our work in relation to each other’s art. 

We decided to install Amanda’s work Hereditary Smoker Series, a pair of plexi-trapped textiles and digitally printed vellum, next to my work Sapelo Dreams: Asleep in a Live Oak, a long clasp-woven cloth and a pair of woven collages I made from weavings on hand-painted warps.

I would never have installed these collages on their own in this way, higher and lower than usual. But it was all about the interaction of the work – we invited the viewer to see my work through Amanda’s work, which was mounted on hinges perpendicular to the wall. 

Amanda’s work was about her grandmother, and my pieces were about my own family memories of places (Sapelo Island, a favourite family camping spot) and about our lives as a process of repair, piecing ourselves (back) together from a combination of inheritances and experiences.

I think both our works were elevated by their proximity and how they interacted with each other.

What were the main benefits of collaborating and would you do it again (with other artists or with each other)? 

Amanda: Since this experience, I’ve been more receptive to both working with others and using techniques, processes and mediums that I’m not as familiar with. For instance, I am in the beginning stages of a collaborative project with a local sculptor for an outdoor sculpture installation. Without this experience with Johanna, I wouldn’t have been as easily persuaded to join in on this opportunity. 

Johanna: I’d collaborate again, most definitely. And I’m thinking of including a collaboration project in my textiles course next semester. I’d love to give my students an opportunity to experience the impact of working with another artist and the effect it can have on the direction of their work.

Do you have any tips for readers wanting to set up their own collaborative project?

Johanna: My advice would be to begin with trust. I already knew and trusted Amanda. I knew that while our processes were not the same, that they were compatible. A collaboration could be successful with two artists who were previously strangers, but you can’t go into a collaboration with a fear of the other artist stealing your ideas or accusing you of stealing theirs.

‘If you begin with respect, trust, and a commitment to honour each other in the work that comes out of the collaboration, I think it will be a positive experience and it will result in elevating both artists’ work.’

Johanna Norry, Textile artist

Amanda and I have a show coming up in 2025 where the curator has paired us with another duo of textile artists who know each other, but we don’t know them or their processes, and I am hopeful it will be successful and an uplifting experience.

Amanda: Setting and sticking to a timeline would be my biggest tip – deadlines for a show or an upcoming application can help with the planning of your timeline. 

Also, it’s handy for both contributors to be working on a similar scale or technique. For example, Johanna and I both knew we wanted to create long narrow pieces to have as a visual mirroring effect.

When she suggested creating an eight foot woven assemblage Sometimes, It Just Fits, that allowed a direction for my nine foot collection display A Sea of Sinister Dots. These pieces were displayed across the gallery from each other, and I love the effect of the scale and central placement.

How has the collaboration affected your own art practice? 

Amanda: Before this experience, I would say I was closed off to the idea of collaboration.

I am very goal-oriented and independently motivated, however, this experience has allowed me to see how collaboration is important for growth – not only as a person but to allow one’s art to grow as well.

It is amazing to have a partner to bounce around ideas for colours, techniques and concepts with.

Johanna: I’ve always sought feedback. Whenever I make something, at the very least my husband gets called in to look at it, and I value his response.

But I’ve also felt possessive about what I’ve made – or perhaps protective is a better word. Like I had some sort of parental responsibility to defend my art, since I had made it.

I think the collaborative, sharing process – where things I’ve made have been incorporated into Amanda’s work, and things she’s made have gone into mine – has expanded my emotional attachment to my artworks. I feel more accepting of what they become once they’re made.

When Elisabeth Rutt goes outdoors, she looks up, around and down, finding all the texture, colour and form she needs to create a unique piece of art. Influenced by the landscape, the ever changing skies and weather, Elisabeth selects from her favourite textile techniques to interpret the shapes and linear patterns she sees.

She applies her individual stamp by developing her own fabrics – especially by dry felting with an embellisher – or by changing fabrics she already has. Elisabeth further manipulates her materials using weaving, melting, shaping, dyeing, printing and painting, before finishing with simple hand stitching, darning and beading. But her skill lies in her command of her materials – and it’s gratifying to see just how well they obey.

Fine art perspective

Elisabeth Rutt: I am an artist working with textiles, and my work comes from somewhere between my art school training and my lifelong love of textiles and stitch. I approach my work from a fine art perspective rather than being led by a technique.

As long as I can remember the ‘feel’ of cloth has always been important to me. I’ve never stopped loving that sensation and using it for my creative purposes.

Elisabeth Rutt, Textile artist

The driving forces in my work are form, colour and excellence of design, what I can make them do, and what they will do for me in return. I’ve attended many courses over the years to gather a repertoire of textile techniques, but have come to rest on hand stitching. I like to keep it simple, not doing anything too technically difficult or overtly impressive. I want the work and what I want it to say – not the technique – to be predominant. My stitches are drawn marks that record what I’ve observed or am thinking about, and work is usually, but not always, abstract. 

I move between design work and stitching throughout the development of a project, rather than finishing design work and moving on to fabric and thread. This helps me to keep a project alive and I can stay open to new ideas for as long as I want to keep the topic active.

Lifelong love of art

When I was asked as a child ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’, my response was always ‘I am going to be an artist’, which was usually shrugged off as childish fantasy.

My father was a professional artist and illustrator, so I was fortunate to see what this meant as a way of life and I had few illusions. The elderly lady who lived next door taught me to sew from a very early age and I grew up drawing, painting and sewing every minute I could, doing each with equal importance and obsession.

After school, and taking as many art and textile related exams the curriculum would allow, I went on to complete a Bachelor of Humanities honours degree in Art and Dance at Goldsmiths College, University of London. During this study, I continued stitching for relaxation and I also sneaked stitch into my fine art course work as often as I could.

While my two sons were young, I studied for a City and Guilds Embroidery parts 1 and 2. The old syllabus had proper exams in technique, history and a three hour timed design paper… good times! I achieved distinction and highly commended in the medal of excellence scheme. 

I was also a member of the Embroiderers’ Guild and was able to do every workshop they held on Saturdays while my husband babysat. The Guild gave me the opportunity to learn from some of the most renowned textile artists and tutors at the time, for which I’ll always be grateful.

Since then I’ve worked as an interior designer, as a mentor for a textiles masterclass in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, and as a manager for Smiths Row art gallery in Bury St Edmunds.

My sons are now grown men and I work freelance from my studio at home. I make work for exhibitions, commissions and I run a tutor textile and design workshop at West Suffolk College, Bury St Edmunds, and others by invitation.

Inspiration all around

For the last few years I’ve worked with landscape, skies, patterns and the weather. They are all around me and I can’t escape them!

I’ve been focusing particularly on the patterns of our British landscape, including those of the underlying chalk and how it’s influenced the landscapes that I’ve lived in all my life. The white eroded patterns and lines of pathways, the tractor tracks, ancient buildings and earthworks, and the meanderings of chalk streams across the land has led me to make work about geology, landforms, and the many layers of underlying patterns in the land. I’ve used hand stitch and surface darning on my own dry felted fabrics, with screen printing and a small number of old paper maps to create my own ‘mind’s eye’ textile landscapes.

I’ve moved my work on by looking up at the broad East Anglian skies, making work about the sky, our weather and the colour palettes I see in different weather phenomena. I have called this body of work the Weather series. Constructed ground fabrics and hand darning still feature, but my design emphasis has developed. In this work I’ve been interested in observing, and recording in darned swatches, the colour schemes of different weather phenomena.

Continuing my interest in the weather I’ve also been working intermittently with snow as a starting point for new work. I’ve used beading, with my usual hand stitching, felting, and darning, in this continuing project.

I work within a body of work for a long time and am very concerned about making work in series. I consciously try to take an element from one series of work into the next. This gives me continuity whilst progressing and developing myself, my skills and my work.

Sketching preparation

The ideas and inspirations that inform my work are very varied. Once I have an idea, I research my subject thoroughly by reading, observing, making visits and using sketchbooks. I may work from detailed drawings and research, or use a piece of particular fabric or thread as an initial starting point. 

I try to draw in ways that will easily move into fabric and thread, often stitching directly into the paper pages alongside other media. Sometimes I stitch into a drawing or sketch, but I also stitch into blank sketchbook pages. When I stitch in this way, I have the same thought process as when I draw with pencil or pens.

Having sampled with drawing media and threads in a sketchbook I move to my fabric, which I’ve usually ‘made’ or changed in some way to make it truly my own before adding stitches.

Manipulating materials

I use very ordinary materials, always feeling a bit sceptical about the latest and newest big thing. I use a variety of fabrics, usually in small pieces that I combine to make a larger piece of cloth to work on.

I’m led by what I see, and I allow the work to grow and gain the right visual vocabulary.

Elisabeth Rutt, Textile artist

I work with materials that I’ve woven, melted, shaped, dyed, printed or painted. I rarely use commercial fabrics and am increasingly using my embellisher to make my own original dry felt, to use as my ground fabric for hand stitching; it’s rare that I use my sewing machine for embroidery. I enjoy chance and asymmetry, with a nod to geometry. The more I sew the more I want to simplify the construction of the stitches I use, although areas are often densely stitched.

My favourite thread is cotton perlé, numbers 8 and 12, but I do use other similar threads from my long years of collecting materials. Most have long lost their labels and so I’m no longer sure what they are. Some fabrics and threads are ones I’ve previously dyed myself.

I’ve tried very hard, over the last 10 years or so, to not buy anything new. Like most people who sew, I have an enormous stash of fabrics, threads, beads and haberdashery. I like to use second-hand garment fabrics whenever I can.

Meeting time challenges

My biggest challenge has been finding the time to make work. Anyone who hand stitches knows the enormous amount of time it takes. When my sons were a bit older and at school, however little time I could find to stitch, I always called it ‘mummy’s work’ and never approached what I was doing as a hobby. I think this helped them and me to take what I was doing seriously, and they were always respectful of the time I needed to work and of the artworks I made.

Magnum opus

The piece I would consider my magnum opus to date is Land Cloth from my Landmarks series. Before I began making, I decided that this piece would be designed to lie horizontally, just as a cloth would lie on a table, but raised a little higher so that it doesn’t look like a piece of domestic linen. I wanted it to be viewed as landscape features lie over the earth’s surface rather than hung on a wall in a vertical plane.

I became completely immersed in it, as it took about a year to complete. It’s not quite the biggest thing I’ve ever worked on, but there was certainly the most ‘making’ involved. I made the fabric first with dry felting techniques before I stitched anything, and then felted back into it in a limited way as I stitched.

It felt like a trip through the landscape – through my ‘journey’ making felted cloth I created the different colours and land features I wanted to represent.

Elisabeth Rutt, Textile artist

It was exhibited at the Knitting and Stitching Show but, due to its size and being made to be seen horizontally as the land lies, it proved tricky to exhibit elsewhere. It remains with me safely rolled up, but I do share it occasionally if I’m teaching or talking to students on a relevant topic.

A topical diversion

I have a second favourite piece – ‘significant to me’ would be a better way to think of it.

In 2020 I made a piece of work about the impact of coronavirus that was exhibited in the Chaiya Art Awards online exhibition Impact. I called this piece inhale/exhale. It was a one-off piece, a disruption to my then-current body of work. In a small way it was similar to the interruption and pausing of the world brought about by the pandemic. This piece completely absorbed me for a few weeks. It felt appropriate to spend time doing something different before returning to my current work.

I had pangs of guilt in creating this piece, making something to be aesthetically pleasing out of such a terrible world event seemed wrong in some ways, but as I stitched it helped me think through the issues we all had to confront.

Elisabeth Rutt, Textile artist

The artwork focuses on the breath of individuals and the world at that time, about the microscopic virus and the enormous effect it had on the planet. I darned motifs of the virus onto a piece of felt fabric I’d made but not used while I was suffering from whooping cough a few years earlier. It seemed somewhat ironic that it was made while I was struggling with my lungs and breath. I always knew it would come in useful for a piece of work at some time.

I used a circular format for inhale/exhale, which was a new approach for me. Stylised lungs appear within the blue circle, just as continents are seen on a satellite image of the earth. The bronchioles are reminiscent of roots, rivers, roads and communication networks, with the stitched pale patterns in the lungs indicating the presence of Covid-19. I wanted to include some of the new vocabulary that we all became familiar with. The words have a deliberate light touch, giving a corona of colour with a nod to the appearance of infographics in the data we were being presented with. 

The work was exhibited and sold during The Broderers’ Exhibition at Bankside Gallery, London in 2022.

Books to inspire

For inspiration, I think any textile artist would benefit by reading anything by Constance Howard or Kathleen Whyte, also Machine Stitch and Hand Stitch, both by Alice Kettle and Jane McKeating.

It’s also worth looking at Uppercase magazine, an independently published Canadian magazine about all things design, colour, and illustration. It’s a joy to read and look at, and, miraculously, is the work of Janine Vangool alone, who is the owner, editor, designer and publisher. It’s published every three months and although not a dedicated textile magazine, I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in any area of the arts and crafts – it’s a visual feast.

A recognisable style

I’d advise any aspiring textile artist to focus on developing work that will set you apart and give you a recognisable style. Instead of asking ‘How have they done that?’, ask ‘Why and what have they done in that piece of work?’. I would advise looking at and soaking up design in many other disciplines. Good design is the core of successful work, whether it is furniture, architecture or jewellery. 

I would also recommend finding a group of peer artists to bounce ideas off of and critique each other’s work. Such a group gives great support and you will learn much from each other.

Plus, go to as many exhibitions as you can get to… (sadly I don’t get to enough!).

She specialises in free motion embroidery and textiles and delights in depicting the unexpected. Whether it’s pushing boundaries of scale – embellishing the façade of her house with a huge textile for example – or capturing the intimacy of a mother nursing her baby.

Alison shares how she has learnt the value of taking risks. She actively creates and seizes opportunities in order to develop her work and grow as an artist, as well as support others. She relishes the freedom of working in mixed media and her work is constantly evolving because of this.

Whether it’s learning a new technique or exploring different materials to bring a particular idea to life, embarking on an overseas residency or co-founding a community textiles festival, Alison’s process is one of making by doing and experimenting – and the results speak for themselves.

Alison Carpenter Hughes: I am inspired by so many different things and I hate to tie myself down to any particular element. 

“I feel drawn to how transient life can be, and creating a connection with a second of time that perhaps reveals vulnerability and intimacy.

I am capturing a moment, knowing it is going to pass away.”

I’m inspired by process and understanding of the materials I use. I enjoy the challenge of working with new materials and techniques. This is combined with the pleasure of learning and knowing that I’m creating a ‘brain store’ to work from, that I can come back to, if needed, on a future project.

I am also regularly drawn to birds and eyes, aesthetically and symbolically, as well as dreams, words, lines from songs, poems and books, all of which spark off ideas.

I am interested in taking textiles out of the gallery to more unexpected places.

In the last few years, I have been commissioned independently and collaboratively for large scale works, such as Vehicle Arts, Up Your Street project, where I transformed the entire front of my house into an art installation Blooming Lovely and the Heritage Action Zone/LCB Depot Beta X space, where I created a 12 metre (39ft) textile mural A Stitch In Time, on the front of the building.

In 2023–4 I was involved with an installation taking over a large shopping centre unit with a number of textile and repurposed interactive scenes.

Over the last couple of years, I have worked on some big public commissions and projects, which have taken up a lot of time and energy. Creating the odd smaller project such as a bird has been a fall-out space to enjoy making without pressure.

“I find most creating has some form of problem solving that drives me to despair, but the process can be quite satisfying once worked through.”

Planning

I have so many ideas running through my head and one of the joys of working on commissions, either public or private, is that it helps me think outside of the box in a way I might not have done if I hadn’t been working on that project.

I enjoy doing a lot of research on commissions to become as informed as I can be before deciding on a design. Generally, I don’t have a development process. I’ll have an idea and then start making it, working out any challenges as I go along.

I am lackadaisical with using sketchbooks. I sometimes use them – or scraps of paper – for brainstorming, or to record a word or line from a song or a book I’m reading. I occasionally make very badly drawn doodles or a collage of an idea which I’ll come back to. However, for the most part, I carry it all around in my head and will keep turning it over, or something will set-off an impulse of an idea strongly enough until eventually, I start making it.

Making

I use different methods to get my design together. I might draw with charcoal, pastels or pencils onto brown packing paper, before transferring the design onto fabric using different techniques.

Sometimes, if it’s a smaller work I will draw straight onto fabric. I often only need a simple drawing because, once I start sewing I work out the stitch and colour detail by eye as I go along.

Before starting a piece, I take the time to go through whatever materials and colours I’m considering using. I enjoy the process of sifting and sorting – I like deciding if something will work or whether I need to take another approach.

As I work with all types of materials, I usually have to stabilise the fabric in some way, such as with canvas, water-soluble stabiliser or interfacing.

As I’m making, I spend a lot of time carefully observing the image I’m working from. I often step back from the piece and take photos as this helps me if anything needs changing. 

I work with various techniques such as free motion embroidery, standard hand and machine sewing, appliqué, basic patchwork, hand embroidery, tufting, basic weaving, felting, soft 3D sculpture, French knitting and acrylic painting. I’m mostly working out how to do things as I proceed.

“With free motion embroidery, sometimes less is more: less stitching and less density.

Working subtly can be more effective visually.

It also reduces the impact on the nature of the material I’m working on, so there are fewer problems to sort out.”

Persevering

A number of my pieces have been challenging but Little Connie stands out. It was a true labour of love to create, taking about a month to complete all the sewing. There was quite a long gap between starting and finishing it.

I had used a lot of yellow for the base colour, and the baby started to look like a jaundiced Mini-Me! The nose had to be redone three times. Unpicking the threads by hand was a nightmare as the denser the free motion stitches became, the harder they were to undo and the fabric below started to disintegrate.

“I set it aside for a month as I needed time to step back, to feel less frustrated and see it with fresh eyes.

It really helped to take some time away and create some other artworks – when I worked on it again I finished it quickly and without further issues.”

At that time I was a relative beginner to free motion embroidery so every new piece was a steep learning curve. There was an element of a happy accident in each one.

The sewn threads became so thickly layered on Little Connie it was impossible to use an embroidery hoop, so the piece started to attain a natural curvature. The dense sewing changes the structure of fabric.

I loved this element and worked with it further while sewing and in the finishing process. It adds to the three-dimensional presence of the baby. 

Little Connie is a deeply sentimental creation of a family member, but it was also my totem that year. It opened doors and brought unexpected opportunities for me, including two awards.

I completed Little Connie in 2018 and as it has spent quite a lot of time being in exhibitions. Each time I’ve seen it afresh, I have had the strangest feeling.

I can remember making it – particularly all the frustrations I had – but there is also a disconnect, as though someone else made it.

Experimenting

There are always some pieces that I feel happier with than others. A favourite is Kissed by Neon Lights because it was technically interesting to create and in a style I’d not used before. I work in collaboration with Aurifil as one of their Artisans.

I enjoy their challenges because, as with my commissions, I have to work to a brief, which makes me consider factors beyond the norm. For this project, Aurifil gave me three of their Tula Neon threads to try out and on this occasion, my brain went on a wild walk.

Neon made me think of the future and science fiction. Then I started to visualise a cross between the android character Rachael in the film Blade Runner and Miss Scarlett from the board game Cluedo (known as Clue in the US), both with their stylised hairstyles.

I remembered that the characters on the Cluedo playing cards look strangely elongated, like board game pieces. 

One of my nieces is an actress and was very obliging in letting me use her as the model.

I wanted the neon threads to contrast against the subject so I considered what colour might do this. Vladimir Tretchikoff’s Chinese Girl with her blue skin was then thrown into the mix. So I settled on blue. 

I used a wallpaper design as inspiration to create a neon pattern behind the portrait and used the brightest neon a bit like a halo around the figure.

“The neon really makes the portrait pop.”

Elements of the pink base fabric show under the blue of the skin. The blue is stark against the neon, and the red lips and the texture of the stitch contrast with the flatness of the appliqué.

I love how the work can look three-dimensional and flat at the same time, depending on the angle it’s viewed from.

By the time I made this piece, my embroidery technique had improved. I discovered better ways of dealing with issues such as warping.

It was a joyous and fun piece to create, and it currently sits on my studio desk waiting to be framed – I’ve not quite decided what is best for it yet. It makes me smile whenever I see it.

Focusing

My first residency was at StudionAme in Leicester. I was made redundant in 2016 and decided to work part-time for a while. I started to paint and do photography again and wanted to feel more involved in the local art scene, so I applied for a job working in an independent cinema and arts centre.

I was also looking for art events to attend. I spotted a Facebook post about the residency and applied, writing about a project I wanted to do and why. A short time later, I was asked for examples of my work.

I had virtually no work to show and so I did lots of drawing for the deadline a week later. I was over the moon to be selected after an interview.

The residency began in January 2018. I had free studio space for six months, critical support, a stipend for materials and a solo show at the end of it. It was a particularly bad winter and there was even snow in the studio.

However, despite being absolutely freezing, it was a wonderful experience to be given the time and space to be creative in any way I wanted. 

As well as guidance and support from the studio directors, Yuka Namekawa and Steven Allbutt, the other artists working at the studio were also incredibly generous with their time, energy and advice. It was a lovely, nurturing environment for someone just starting out.

“During this time, I made very personal pieces that I am still proud of.

I developed my style of free motion embroidery and it gave me the chance to network with many people, which led to further opportunities.”

Travelling

My work at StudionAme led to a two-month stay in Tokyo, at 3331 Arts Chiyoda, an arts centre and studio (now closed). I’d wanted to visit Japan since I was 14 years old when I was given an antique dressing gown by my sister that had been my great grandmother’s.

It was a silk patterned kimono-style gown, which would have been bought at the height of the Japonisme trend. Since I was a teenager, I’ve been hugely inspired by artists such as Klimt, Bonnard and Van Gogh, who were also influenced by Japanese art and design. 

At StudionAme, I knew exactly what I wanted to work on as soon as I started the residency. But in Tokyo, although I had researched thoroughly and planned to follow particular interests, concepts and cultural experiences on arrival, I had not really factored in how certain elements of a residency abroad would affect me.

I had jet lag. I had to learn to navigate the city and cope with a new culture, language and different foods, all while living with strangers from other countries.

“I started to explore straight away, seeing and experiencing amazing things.

I felt a slight sense of panic that I wasn’t sure how I would fit everything into my art practice.”

Although I was gathering and absorbing inspirational material on a daily basis, it did take time before I knew what to do with all this information.

There is so much to experience in Tokyo alone. Certain events and trips really stand out, filled with moments of adventure, joy, breath-taking beauty and plain bizarre. Local festivals gave me some of my favourite moments.

The sound of school band parades; small children holding hands singing; people dressed up in traditional costumes, some playing folk instruments with flutes, bells, pieces of wood and drums – some of the music lively and some meditative, but all with an almost hypnotic energy.

There was an explosion of colour and pattern in the exquisite costumes. The definitive element of these festivals, however, was the sense of community in such a massive city.

The few trips I made out of the city were also some of my favourite days. Kamakura and Enoshima are two of many beautiful places that run along the Enoden electric railway line, where the train is essentially like the little train from the Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away.

There is an abundance of cherry blossoms, shrines and temples, walks in the hills and views of the sea. I visited the area twice and still didn’t manage to see everything.

It was all wonderful but particular places, such as Hasedera Temple in Hase, stood out. It’s built into the side of a hill, with stone steps and cute Jizo stone figures that protect children in the afterlife, as well as hundreds of other stone statues in all sizes.

There were waterfalls, ponds full of Koi carp, multitudes of flowers, forests of greenery, amazing views and caves to explore – all added to the feeling of being somewhere otherworldly. Getting to Enoshima on the first trip, just as the sun was setting over Mount Fuji was magical and moving. I watched it until the last bit of sunlight had disappeared.

Collecting ephemera

As well as constantly taking photographs, I picked up lots of ephemera on my trips out. I collected what others might see as rubbish, to use as a visual resource and incorporate into mixed media work, for collage in my sketchbook and for my textile pieces.

“My aim was to create multi-layered imagery that I would work over with free motion embroidery.”

I enjoyed hunting for resources to use in my work at the flea market held at the Ohi Racecourse, just a ride away on the monorail.

I purchased vintage kimono, obis and haori (a man’s garment) for about a pound each, plus old maps and postcards and kitsch ornaments. I also had the chance to learn a little sashiko, a traditional hand sewing technique meaning ‘little stabs’.

Near the end of my visit, I was able to try SAORI freestyle hand weaving, using a small loom with no rules and restrictions. Unlike traditional hand weaving, where weavers value the regularity and cleanness of the woven cloth, in SAORI more importance is placed on free expression. Irregularities are embraced and become a celebration of individuality. 

I have a wealth of material from my time in Tokyo, which I am still working with and I hope will become part of new work in the future.

Growing

I discovered a lot about myself personally and professionally while away. Living with artists from other cultures was stimulating. I enjoyed the artistic dialogue and sharing of perspectives. It helped to have the camaraderie of others who were having similar experiences.

Although I met and got to know different people, essentially you are on your own – pushed out of your comfort zone, often exploring by yourself and experiencing a sense of alienation because of cultural and language differences.

It was a case of Me, Myself and I, and there was no escape from that. It was an emotional experience, cathartic, but also very liberating.

The residency was extremely rewarding. I was able to give full attention to my creative practice, with none of the normal everyday distractions. I was able to take risks, explore, experiment and conceive new projects.

It created other opportunities, some of them unexpected, including presenting my work to new audiences through exhibitions, talks, teaching, networking and writing, which helped to raise my profile.

Additionally, it focused my thoughts on professional development and how I could progress in creating a sustainable art career on my return to the UK.

As an artist, you need to build resilience. If there is an area you feel is lacking, such as self-esteem, motivation, organisation, networking, then find ways to work on it, to help you move forward professionally and creatively.

I’m naturally quite shy and I struggle with all of the above,  but I keep exploring ways I can improve, for example through reading, mentoring, training and online videos.

“I force myself to face issues and go for the things I’m interested in. It can be slow, but it does start to pay off.”

Early influences

I loved creating from an early age. When I was small my mum gave me a drawer in the kitchen that brimmed with pens, pencils and the computer paper ends my dad brought home from work.

She kept the wallpaper collage cards I made at school and came to all my events up until she passed. My mum was my champion in so many ways.

Both my parents were avid readers and my dad wrote me poems and stories. They took me to museums, historic buildings and galleries.

I come from an absolutely huge sprawling family that loved to socialise and dance, so I feel these elements all add to a rich mix influencing my imagination and love of words.

“My direct family also has a strong interest in a spiritual, non-material and alternative side of life, which has definitely shaped my view of the world and leaning towards symbolism.”

A slow burn

I completed my Fine Art degree in the 1990s but I married and had a child soon after graduating so my main focus became raising my son.

I have had a varied career path, working in other areas until I decided to become a full-time artist in 2021. I have participated in exchanges living abroad in the US and Canada, as a student and when my son was small.

I didn’t do anything with my creative practice for a long time. In 2016, I took a weekly two-hour creative textiles course and asked the teacher if she could show me how to do free motion embroidery. It was a big, busy class, so she got me started but I have been self-taught since. 

I didn’t really do much with it until the beginning of 2018 when I won the residency at StudionAme and started to create partial portraits in stitch, which the directors of the studio encouraged me to take further.

I’ve learnt other textile techniques since, mostly through self-exploration, apart from tufting, which I did a day course in.

“Try to follow what feels right to you but realise how much you can learn from others.”

My advice

It’s really helpful to learn business and marketing skills. A freelance artist needs to be able to juggle many different aspects along with the creative side. 

Plan ahead and strategise – I’m still working on this one. If you want to be consistent with time, energy and finance, forward planning is so important.

Where do you want to be heading? What do you want to be doing? What do you want to be making? Who do you want to collaborate with?

Keep looking forward and give yourself time to plan future projects while you are working on a current project.

“You have to create your own opportunities and events.

Don’t sit around waiting for others to do something.

Do it yourself.”

It’s a huge learning curve; it can be massively challenging and it might not always work. But it can also help you get out there, meet people, open up possibilities of new projects and create something of worth, not just for you, but for other people too.

Co-founding and organising the Textiles Takeover events and the Leicester Textiles Festival have opened up creative and work opportunities for lots of individuals and have brought together people in the community, allowing them to see creativity in a new way.

Exploring

Because I focus on materials and process, I feel my work is continually evolving. Although a lot of my work is created through free motion embroidery, as with subject matter, I hate being pinned down to just one technique.

I want to give myself the freedom to explore different textile techniques, such as tufting. One day I might go back to drawing and painting. I’m still learning a lot with free motion though, particularly using new materials and improving my technique.

With big projects, such as the textiles festival or working on community projects, I get to exercise another side of myself, including the organising and event planning.

“As a freelance artist, one can get caught up in the mechanics of making a living, so I’ve made a resolution to reverse a little.

I want to rediscover the connection and freedom I found in my work during my residencies, to create a new body of work.”

I’m looking forward to working on more personal pieces that have been brewing in my head the last few years. These will explore different elements of myself and will cover aspects of relationships, female sensuality, ageing, grief and mental health.

Living and working in the Scottish Borders, nestled among the spectacular scenery of her native Scotland, the landscapes and vistas of this unique terrain – vast open skies, ever changing seasons, heather-laden hillsides and the solitary bothies and cottages that intervene – are inspiration enough.

Initially trained as a painter, Moy was accustomed to distilling this unique sense of place through her paintbrush. But three decades ago, she started to develop what she describes as felted paintings, answering an urge to create images that resembled a painting but were more than the sum of pigment on canvas.

Painting with merino fibres and stitch, Moy creates vibrantly hued, textured textile landscapes, which resonate with rich colour and vitality in a truly magical way.

Magical because the method of carding and wet felting fleece, whilst forgiving, can be unpredictable. Working with her fibres in this way, a process that borders both spontaneity and control, hints at the untamed wilderness of the natural world around her, bringing her closer to the landscape. As Moy says, she’s no better advice for burgeoning textile artists than to look around yourself for inspiration. Read on to find out why.

In the beginning

Moy Mackay: For as long as I can remember I have been drawing, painting and making things, nurtured by a crafting mother, a creative father and an uncle painter who I observed painting, and was taught by, from a young age.

Through the years I have possibly tried every artform and craft there is, and could have happily made a career out of any of them as long as I am creating.

On leaving school I travelled and worked in various countries. Art school came a few years after travelling. I hadn’t really considered it for some reason but whilst at a family gathering (where I drew someone on a balloon!) my aunt, the late Helen Crummy (a pioneering woman who brought community art to a deprived area of Edinburgh and set up the Craigmillar Festival Society) suggested I should be applying for art school.

Nobody had ever suggested this as an option, and I guess I hadn’t considered it. She planted the seed, and the rest is history.

I studied at Glasgow School of Art. Although painting is my passion really, I felt it would be sensible to learn a trade, so I went on to specialise in printed textiles. There I learned how to create textile designs both for fashion and furnishing textiles, how to create repeat patterns and how to screen print. It was a great time, and I learned a lot being in such a hub of creativity.

On graduating I was offered various jobs in design studios both in Paris and London but instead chose to move to the countryside in the Borders where I became self-employed.

All things equal

To start, I worked as a freelance textile designer. This progressed to painting onto wood and furniture, which I did for a few years, and still do very occasionally. This slowly progressed to painting onto other surfaces, and then to using fibres in place of a paint medium. From this, my felted paintings were born.

I think one thing that stuck with me throughout my time at art school, and in the art world in general, was the sense of inequality or sense of snobbery that seemed, or seems, to exist between fine art and craft.

“To me all artforms are equally worthy, so that may well have given me the drive to go on to create something that combined both.”

In the early days, it was hard to persuade many galleries to show my work as it was fibre and not paint. Those who took the risk did not regret it.

It has been a long slog. I can’t believe I have actually been creating my felted paintings now for over 30 years! But over three decades on, I have managed to make a career of doing what I love doing which I am so appreciative of.

Milestones

A few years back I was commissioned by Search Press to write my first book, Art in Felt & Stitch. This has been published in four languages and is still on their best seller list. Another two books have followed and, to date, I think have sold around 60,000 copies worldwide, which still seems crazy to me.

Due to this, my work has been seen in places I could never have dreamt of and has resulted in offers to teach worldwide. To date, I have been invited to teach and share this fantastic artform in Australia, New Zealand, US, Canada, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, which has afforded me some wonderful travels and working holidays.

It has been an honour to share what I have created with so many others and help them along their own creative journey.

Over recent years I’ve stayed within the UK to concentrate on teaching from my own studio in Scotland. I moved to my current studio a few years back with the intention of setting it up as a bit of an arts hub. I’m currently in the process of having a larger one built, complete with a larger workshop and retreat space adjoined to my house.

I am incredibly excited at having such a studio but it’s a lesson in patience for me, as building it’s been a slow process. I am trying to look at it as my biggest art project to date. I am so looking forward to welcoming students here to share it with me in this special space.

Another fun experience was being a contestant in 2016 on Sky Arts’ Landscape Artist of the Year. I had enjoyed watching the series but was aware it was, at that point, mostly including works in paint. I applied as I wanted the opportunity to introduce a textile artform to this art show. It was a great experience and helped introduce other mediums to the viewers. Judge Kathleen Soriano kindly went on to write the foreword for my third book.

The foreword for my first book was written by Kaffe Fasset. That was a bit of a wow for me. He had been an early inspiration to me, along with the late textile designer and painter Bernat Klein. Many years ago, I was delighted to have Bernat sit in on a workshop I was giving. I’d hoped he would have taken part but sadly declined my offer and said he just wanted to watch me work. These are possibly my biggest honours to date.

Creative leanings

As soon as I could hold a pencil, I was off and have never stopped. I can honestly say I have been practising my art pretty much every day of my life. I can’t not!

I studied textiles at art school but, long before that, I always had a penchant for colourful textiles from around the world. I travelled to India and learned the art of making blocks and how to block print.

At Glasgow School of Art, I experimented with all forms of printing and painting onto fibres. I did not actually use felt as a medium then but I did see someone make a felt coat.

“I remembered what wonderful colours the fibres were, and that drew me more to using them, rather than the felting process itself.”

Currently, I work from a studio within my house. I endeavour to get in my studio pretty much every day however, of late, too much admin and the non-creative parts of running a business seem to have taken over, which is not ideal. I have just taken on an assistant to take over all these tasks for me in the hope I can get back into my studio full time.

Taking on tradition

I love the vibrancy and textures of textiles. Whilst I love painting, it’s textile paintings that bring a depth and warmth that often paint alone cannot.

“A felted painting seems to change at different angles and in different lights. They seem more of a living art to me. I particularly like the spontaneity and lack of total control I have while using this medium.”

It’s great also that I am using sheep fleece to create something that traditionally would not have been used in artworks. I am surrounded by sheep where I live, so I like the connections.

Creative colour

“Colour is my passion so whatever I create seems to hold colour combinations to me that evoke a sense of something. What that is, changes in each work.”

I am inspired by landscapes foremost. I am lucky enough to live in a very beautiful place, so I don’t have to venture far to find inspiration. Having said that, I do like to travel and, most recently, have ventured to the far north of Scotland for the odd week to work from new landscapes, which is always a refreshing thing to do.

“I take photos pretty much daily of anything I see that may, somewhere down the line, appear in a composition.”

More recently I have worked on some still life and figurative pieces, which has been a nice change for me. I have so many ideas for future works, but the only problem is finding the time to fit them all in.

“To document ideas, keeping a visual diary or sketchbook is a must. Words, scribbles, colour swatches or anything can be added to a page to aid a composition.”

Having sketchbooks to refer back to can be a fantastic resource to offer up ideas or jog the memory.

Breaking it down

When starting out on a new piece of work I will firstly, when possible, visit the place, take photos from many angles, and do a few sketches if time prevails.

Due to the nature of this medium, it is near impossible to work outside in Scotland, sadly, so I return to my studio to work. I don’t sketch the design out but work directly onto the merino base I make, from my reference images – be that sketches or photos – or sometimes just from my imagination.

Firstly, I lay my base using merino tops. I then build up the composition using pre-coloured merino fibres very similar to the way you might approach a painting, except laying on fibres rather than paint. As the piece progresses, I start to add finer detail using a variety of techniques and additional fibres including coloured silks.

Once I’m happy with the overall composition it is covered with mesh, and then soap and hot water are applied. This is the magic part for me.

With agitation and rubbing with a tool I developed to help speed this up, it quickly matts the fibres together and within a relatively short time it becomes a durable piece that I can start to embellish with a variety of methods.

These include needle felting to add shading, finer detail and to fix anything that may have migrated. Thirdly I use free motion machine stitching (stitching without a foot) to add fine lines.

The final of the four processes is hand stitching, embroidery – or mark making as I like to call it.

Rainbow walls

For the last few years, my studio has been a room adjoined to my home. The walls are a rainbow of colour, with every shade of merino tops hanging along them, which I find uplifting and inspiring.  

With an abundance of different materials, I have resorted to having sealed plastic storage boxes stacked ceiling-high to avoid any moth issues. I usually have some of my framed originals on the wall, along with some of my products. My studio doubles up as my workshop space and retreat studio space, so I need to keep it relatively tidy when it’s workshop time.

It is not the lightest or warmest room in the house. This led me to take steps to have a studio built in my garden. This has been a huge undertaking as I was quite adventurous with my plans. Patience has been a lesson in this build, but it is going to be well worth the wait. It will house a large airy and light workshop space, which would easily host around 20 students.

The second part to it is glass-fronted with spectacular views down the Tweed Valley and will be where I will work.

“As a location I plan to work for as long as I can, I figured out it is important to create in a space that has a good outlook, is warm and with north-facing light.”

I am sure it is going to be a great hit with anyone who attends my workshops.

Textile heritage

As well as having an appreciation for textiles and texture, I like the idea of working with a material that is not utilised to its full potential. Surrounded by sheep farms in the Scottish Borders, it is sad to think that the actual fleeces are often not used.

The Scottish Borders was home to a buoyant textile industry in the past, so I like the feeling that I am continuing that tradition in my own small way.

Working in textiles and developing an artform, which was something quite unique when I first started over 30 years ago, has allowed me to introduce a traditional craft with a painterly application to some art lovers that may have previously not appreciated work made with fibres as credible fine art.

Growing a gallery

In 2012 I was given the opportunity to take over the rental of a gallery in Peebles. It had not been my intention, but it seemed like it was meant to be. Stupidly I thought I could run a gallery and do my work in it at the same time. Very quickly I realised that could not happen: I needed to be in the zone and immersed in my work fully. I found interruptions really stopped my creative flow. 

I moved my work to a separate studio space and employed staff to work in the gallery. Over the years I have worked in the gallery but never full time. As the business has grown and expanded to an online gallery too, it has impacted on my own work and the time I can be in my studio, which at times has been frustrating.

I now have an assistant who is taking over all my administrative roles in the hope of freeing up more time for me to get back to putting all my energies into creative development. The prospect of getting into my new studio full time to give my art my full attention is more than exciting. I cannot wait!

“What inspires me to keep making is that I am passionate about it and love what I do. I have so many ideas I still want to explore that I think I need to live till I am 300!”

Still learning

I have learned many lessons on my creative journey, always learning and developing my work, and I hope to continue to push my own boundaries and challenge myself with new ideas along the way to keep my work fresh and relevant.

I think a big lesson I’ve learned is the importance of the business aspect of working as an artist. To create art as a livelihood requires a good understanding of how business works. It’s essential to succeed, I would say, yet often an aspect that is overlooked for many creatives. 

If I had some advice to offer others who are starting out, I would urge anyone to work hard to develop their own unique style, to think out of the box, and look at what’s around you for inspiration.

There’s nothing like the thrill of learning from the most innovative and skilled textile artists in the world – inspirational tutors you might never have the chance to meet in person. Or the joy of discovering an array of innovative processes, techniques and styles that could transform your approach to making art. And the beauty of doing it all online is that it’s far more cost efficient, time efficient, comfortable and convenient.

Imagine breathing new life into your process by immersing yourself in the world of felted textiles with Maggie Scott, or unleashing the power of collage and imperfect memories with Cas Holmes.

How would it feel to discover unexpected and unusual ways to express yourself with humble blanket stitching, guided by the expertise of Mirjam Gielen, or unlock endless possibilities for your art with thread colour-mixing studies with Katherine Diuguid?

Perhaps the idea of sculpting exquisite scrap thread bowls with Meredith Woolnough, or diving into the realm of watery paints on fabric under Monique Day Wilde’s guiding hand gets you excited about bringing depth and beauty to the art you create?

The TextileArtist.org Stitch Club gives you access to these innovative artists and many more. It’s a place we’re proud to call our creative home, where you can come together, learn and share your creative adventure with like-minded embroidery enthusiasts – online learning, without compromising the interaction and personal touch you experience through in-person classes.

In this article, we’ll share a glimpse inside a handful of Stitch Club workshops and share some key creative takeaways to inspire you to experiment in your own practice, whether you’re a Stitch Club member or not!

Experimental blanket stitch with Mirjam Gielen

Mirjam Gielen’s artwork references the colours, patterns and textures found in nature. She uses her favourite processes beautifully, including eco-dyeing, crochet and hand embroidery.

‘For me, the stitch process is an organic process. I enjoy the slow development of the stitches and the way they adapt and respond to their environment, the fabric, and to each other.’

Mirjam Gielen

Mirjam’s workshop explores an experimental and intuitive use of buttonhole stitch along with some simple appliqué, to create organic-inspired forms. When the result is displayed in an embroidery hoop, it resembles the effect of looking through a microscope at cell structures.

Stitch Club member Christina Buehrer describes buttonhole stitch as one of her favourites. She ended up making several works in response to Mirjam’s workshop, including one which incorporated a dried and pressed leaf.

‘There are so many possibilities! Yesterday an autumn leaf fell into my hands and I realised something can also be done here with buttonhole stitch…’

Christina Buehrer

Luza Lema created a beautiful and delicate cell-like structure surrounded by french knots: ‘I loved this exercise, and the possibility of playing with colour and stitch sizes generates very beautiful effects. Looking for a fabric in the centre I found some blue waxed tissue paper, and when I crumpled it I saw that it integrated well. I want to continue trying different shapes and textures with other fibres and threads.’

Gopika Nath chose a colour scheme to complement her background fabric. She relished watching Mirjam’s process: ‘I always knew the ubiquitous blanket stitch had a lot of potential but Mirjam has taken it to an altogether different level. I couldn’t wait until I got back to the studio to try this out, so grabbed whatever I could – limited fabrics and palette – but I had such fun. Such a deep sense of serenity washed over me as I engaged with my imaginary organism.’

Mirjam thoroughly enjoyed the experience of teaching in Stitch Club: ‘I was quite overwhelmed with the response to my workshop. So many people joined in and posted such amazingly creative and beautiful pieces. It was very inspiring! I loved how supportive everybody was towards each other. It felt like a warm bath being able to share, to inspire and be inspired in this community of fellow textile enthusiasts.’

Workshop takeaway

In this workshop, Mirjam Gielen explores a simple stitch in an unexpected way. By placing rows of blanket stitches around an appliquéd shape, and by adjusting her stitch sizes and lengths, she was able to build an imaginary organism. Why not try a similar experiment using your own favourite stitch?

Felt and stitch textiles with Maggie Scott

Maggie Scott’s workshop demonstrates how to make a unique tactile wall hanging using the wet-felting technique. Her design is inspired by the appliqué shapes found in the woven raffia Kuba textiles from Central Africa. Kantha-style embroidery adds a pop of colour and a touch of texture to the artwork.

For this exercise, Stitch Club member Jenny van der Gaag produced a beautifully balanced design with a pop of blue stitching: ‘What a great workshop! I have quite a bit of experience in felting, but this method was new to me. I enjoyed using the African design inspiration and the coarse wool. I was fascinated by the effect the circle has on the whole piece and I am very happy with the end result of my project.’

Marion Carroll, a fibre artist and maker, injected a personal approach for her abstract artwork, The Gathering: ‘I used symbols from my Aboriginal culture, depicting two mobs coming together under protection of a spirit being. The symbols represent man, woman and human, and the hand stitching is representative of the spirit being that guides them. The wool I used was Jacob, Icelandic, Welsh and Shetland, a gift from a Scottish friend. The embroidery thread I used belonged to my late mother. I always incorporate her threads in my work.’

Maggie commented on Marion’s work: ‘It’s so lovely to see your piece and the way you have personalised the symbols so that it references your cultural heritage. The stitching style really adds another layer of interest and, of course, connection.’

Suzanne Russell based her abstract design on Arabic letters and used materials that she had in her stash. She thought that the deep blue colour was lost after felting, so she added lots of tiny stitches and a splash of hot pink, producing a cohesive result that draws the viewer’s eye.

Maggie was pleased to see how much the workshop inspired Stitch Club members and how many people adapted the composition ideas using colours, shapes and symbols that were significant to them: ‘It was intriguing to see the experiments with adding extra elements, and the personalising of the colour choices for the symbols and Kantha stitch – I really enjoyed looking at the strong colour combinations!’

Workshop takeaway

Maggie Scott draws inspiration for this workshop from the bold patterns on Kuba woven raffia cloth from Central Africa, which is often appliquéd with shapes and symbols. And her circular stitched motifs are inspired by Kantha fabrics, which are made using an ancient upcycling handicraft technique of layered fabrics joined together with stitch. It’s good to spend some time researching patterns and shapes from the world around you, or from your own cultural heritage – they can provide valuable ideas for your next textile project.

Colour mixing studies with Katherine Diuguid

Have you ever chosen a thread colour only to run out of it, or find that it is unavailable in your favourite store? Katherine Diuguid treats Stitch Club members to a technical but playful colour-mixing exercise. She reveals how to stretch colour usage by mixing threads in the needle, almost like working with a set of watercolour paints. 

Starting with a dab of stitched colour, threads are combined in a methodical way to examine the colour effects they could create – producing some surprising results! 

Armed with this knowledge members can use thread mixing to achieve a more painterly look within their embroideries, just like the Impressionist paintings Katherine adores. After completing this workshop, Stitch Club members began to view their threads from a new perspective – as a palette of infinite possibilities.

Esther Montero liked the systematic approach of the exercise – which allowed her to analyse her colour-mixing results as she went along – and loved all Katherine’s tips on how to handle embroidery threads. 

Taking a linear approach, Hyosook Lee really enjoyed blending colours with fine threads, using white thread as her base colour.

Debbie Rose-Lewis started with a base colour of mossy olive green: ‘Adding the blue surprised me – it looked very pale, almost white, as a single strand, but really popped out next to the other colours. I stitched an extra blob of each colour at the end of each direct line to the centre base colour, for reference. This was a fun and interesting workshop, and it will definitely help with colour blending in future projects.’

Anne Crowther chose Aida cloth to stitch on, and red for her base colour: ‘I realised that the red and orange I chose are very close in colour to the base thread, after I started stitching, so I continued with them. I was surprised to find what subtle changes in colour I ended up with.’

Katherine Diuguid relished sharing her knowledge with Stitch Club’s members: ‘Seeing the enthusiasm members channelled into their work was exciting, creating a fantastic group of colour maps that displayed our ability to stretch colour in stitch. The camaraderie and encouragement of the group struck me.’

Workshop takeaway

Katherine Diuguid is keen on making samples. She recommends testing out colour and stitch options before bringing them into your work. In this workshop, members mix different colours of threads in the needle to find out what effect they have on one another. So, if you’re struggling to find that perfect colour, grab some threads and a small piece of fabric, and make a quick sample. Choose a couple of thread colours, take one or two strands of each colour and thread your needle with them. Then create small areas of stitches using different thread mixes – you might be surprised with the results.

Imperfect memories with Cas Holmes

Do you use photographs to inspire your work? In Cas Holmes’ workshop, members consider the conceptual processes behind the use of images, and how using images as a source material can inform your creative process. 

Memories are never completely sharp and accurate – they always become hazy over time – and this workshop leans into the idea of imperfect memories. Cas shares a low-tech way to include printed text or personal photographs in a collaged and stitched fabric composition. The quality of the transferred image varies and is not intended to be perfect, but they help to capture a sense of time and place, becoming ‘imperfect snapshots’ of memories.

Cas Holmes: ‘Members embraced imperfection as part of the process of learning about media usage in image transfer. Combined with stitch I was able to see a growing confidence in each individual developing their own narratives and response to the processes. We worked together, shared and exchanged ideas in an open and safe community of stitch artists.’

Heléne Forsberg took her cue from a photo of the horses she encounters on her local daily walk, creating an atmospheric winter scene.

‘I really liked taking my time with the pieces of fabric – looking at them carefully while assembling them and deciding where to place them, like how Cas showed us in her video. The slow process is satisfying to me.’

Heléne Forsberg

Nancy Luna-Walker based her serene and cohesive collage on her morning ritual of coffee while watching the garden birds: ‘My main intention was to experiment with blending the different fabrics and the black and white print into the collage, by extending patterns and stitches across the fabrics. I put a light yellow watercolour wash on the mug. This piece will go in my sample book with lots of notes on what I learned from this workshop.’ 

Gill Tyson found inspiration in her family’s photo album, as well as from personal stories about her great aunt Marjorie and the work she did during the First World War. Gill used a picture taken at The Barbour Institute, Tattenhall’s village hall since 1898, a building requisitioned as a military hospital during the conflict. Rust-dyed fabrics and cotton scrim added to the strength of this composition.

‘This workshop has finally spurred me on to start Marjorie’s story in a series of stitched works. She was one of a whole army of women who supported the war effort at home, all with their own stories to be told.’

Gill Tyson

Workshop takeaway

In her workshop, Cas Holmes reveals that successful collages take some effort to get right. After she transfers her images using an intriguing low-tech method, Cas allows herself a good chunk of time to play around with the balance of her composition. She considers her colour and pattern choices, and how the materials work together as a whole. 

The next time you’re building up layers of different fabrics into a collage, allow yourself the time to keep moving things around and trying out different options. View the work from a distance to see if the balance of the composition works. Step away from the collage and return to it later – you might find you’ve changed your mind. During this process, take photographs of combinations that you like, so that you can recreate them later.

Making a sculptural vessel with Meredith Woolnough

What do you do with your offcuts of thread when you’ve finished stitching? Do you throw them away, or collect them in a jar to use in other projects? 

In Meredith Woolnough’s workshop, Stitch Club members are asked to turn those thread snippings into a stunning collection of moulded bowls and flowers, unlocking some of the sculptural possibilities of working with embroidery and water-soluble fabric. The process is quick and easy, with limitless outcomes. This workshop became addictive for many!

Meredith loved seeing the amazing, varied and imaginative creations posted in Stitch Club, and marvelled at the creative and supportive community she encountered. She was delighted that Stitch Club members were open to trying this unusual form of sculptural embroidery.

Stitch Club member Zane Shumeiko was curious to take this idea further by incorporating alternative materials.

Zane Shumeiko: ‘Before starting this work I questioned myself about what materials are leftovers or waste materials that I encounter daily. The answer was my hair. Human hair is considered a waste material generally. I decided to incorporate it into these experimental small 3D objects. I enclosed white and black threads that represent my good and bad days. The red, golden and metallic threads represent life force, friendships and connections.’

And Maggie Rastall decided to experiment with hand stitching on the water-soluble fabric, rather than using her sewing machine: ‘I’ve made a few before but never with hand stitching. Thanks to Stitch Club for giving me joy in hand stitching – I would never have spent a whole afternoon hand stitching when I could use a machine. It is made with waste silk thread that I use in felt making. The joy is that you can really see the hand stitching.’

Workshop takeaway

In this workshop, Meredith Woolnough encourages us to think about sustainability. She incorporates waste thread snippets into stitched bowls made using her signature technique of machine stitching on water-soluble fabric. Waste threads and leftover fabric snippets can be included in almost any project. How can you use up waste materials in your own projects?

Painting on fabric with Monique Day-Wilde

In her workshop, Monique Day-Wilde invites Stitch Club members to play with watery paints, showing ways to create a variety of effects. Painting on fabric can have unpredictable results, so the challenge is to embrace these. 

Members are encouraged to enhance the fabric by experimenting with their embroidery stitches and thread colours, to create a cohesive finished work. This project bears similarities to the mindful ‘colouring in’ graphic design illustrations that Monique also creates, and the act of relaxed experimentation and play is the ultimate aim of this workshop.

Catherine Dewhurst was unsure when to stop with her stitching, but with the support and encouragement of Monique and other Stitch Club members she added a few more embroidered adornments to the hair and running stitch details on the dress, creating a beautiful and whimsical scene using her painted fabric.

Grace Megnet also sought advice: ‘At Monique’s suggestion, I stitched some more on my artwork (including backstitch, seed stitch, buttonhole stitch, stem stitch, french knots, and trellis stitch). I think she was right.’ 

Richard Tremelling wasn’t happy with the muddy look of his painted fabric: ‘The base fabric was as old bed sheet that I had buried in my compost bin a year ago. I was wishing for some interesting marks but it just turned out a dirty grey, so I decided to paint over it.’

Using Promarkers to add more intensity to the colours, Richard then stitched the lower part of the composition, creating a horizon effect and the sense of dark dystopian landscape.

Tammy Vanderbur created a striking work and Monique particularly liked the strong graphic approach with its bold straight stitching and layers of colour. 

Monique Day-Wilde loved the response to her workshop: ‘I was hoping for different ideas and creative interpretations, and the members certainly delivered – I am delighted with the wonderful work they have produced.’

Workshop takeaway

There are lots of ways to use acrylic paints on fabric. Monique demonstrates how to wet the whole fabric so that the paints blend together. Or for a more controlled effect, how to paint small areas of fabric with water before adding paint. She also paints on dry fabric, and on patchworks made using different fabrics. 

When paint is added to fabric it can take on a life of its own, leaving the end result a little unpredictable – every result will be different. That’s what is so exciting about this technique. It’s a great way to start a project when you’re feeling uninspired. Simply paint some fabric, choose some threads and start stitching.

How to join Stitch Club

We only open registration for Stitch Club occasionally – this means we can spend the majority of our time creating the best experience possible for everyone in the Stitch Club community. All members can really get to know each other and share what they’re discovering, in a supportive and thriving community-driven environment. 

Our members often share with us the immense satisfaction and thrill they experience as active participants in a vibrant global community, able to learn from a diverse range of some of the world’s most exciting textile art practitioners – and each other.

If you’re keen to join the waiting list or find out more about Stitch Club, sign up here.

If you’re interested in learning how Stitch Club came about and you want to discover more about some of the workshops we’ve featured in the past, check out Stitch Club: The story so far.

Get ready to meet some very generous textile artists who are sharing their tips and techniques in book form, that super convenient, tactile and long-lasting format. They’re not holding anything back, and the wealth of information and instruction they provide is guaranteed to inspire.

There’s nothing like being able to sit with a book to study gorgeous images of an artist’s work and read step-by-step instructions to try out their techniques at home. And, as you tackle a book’s tips and projects, you can jot notes in the margins along the way. Most importantly, you can learn at your own pace and revisit ideas over and over again.

This is a long list filled with a variety of textile art genres, from traditional stitching to surface design to sculpture. And all the authors are indeed experts at what they do. We’re confident there’s at least a title or two you’ll want to add to your bookshelf. Enjoy!

Mixed media textile art in three dimensions

Ann Goddard draws her inspiration from natural landscapes, organic materials and a concern for the environment. She combines textile and non-textile elements to create intriguing juxtapositions. Linen, loose fibres, paper and yarn are complemented by concrete, wood, lead and bark. 

Readers are introduced to techniques ranging from stitching, wrapping, couching and knotting to sawing, drilling and casting. Instruction is aimed to help artists create eclectic works in which boundaries are crossed and expectations are challenged.

Ann Goddard is part of the prestigious 62 Group. She exhibits globally, particularly in the UK and Europe.

Mixed media textile art in three dimensions by Ann Goddard (2022)
^{ISBN 9781849946926}

Organic embroidery

Learn how to use your sewing machine to turn natural forms into exquisite art. Meredith Woolnough offers a behind-the-scenes look into her organic embroidery technique. Readers will learn how to create replicas of nature using a delicate system of tiny stitches. 

Twelve different creativity-prompting activities are included to help master her method, with emphasis on achieving varied shapes and patterns from sources like leaves, shells and coral. Instruction on working with your sewing machine is also included, as well as gorgeous images of Meredith’s works for further inspiration.

Meredith Woolnough is based in Australia, where she teaches workshops at textile studios and schools. Her work has appeared in Handmade, Fibre Arts Now, Stitches, Embroidery and other magazines.

Organic embroidery by Meredith Woolnough (2018)
_{ISBN 9780764356131}

Contemporary weaving in mixed media

This modern guide to weaving contains a wealth of practical advice and loads of inspiration for every aspect of weaving. From gathering materials to making and exhibiting ambitious woven masterpieces, this book celebrates the meditative and calming effects of the loom. The best part is readers won’t need expensive equipment to create something beautiful. 

Rachna Garodia clearly explains how to choose a loom, take inspiration from the natural world to design and plan, gather varied materials, personalise your work, and explore unusual weaving techniques. The book is also filled with gorgeous images of Rachna and other global weavers’ incredible textile art.

Stitch Club member Louise J. Jones is a big fan of this book, especially its chapter called Walk with a poem in your heart.

“I’m delighted by the way Rachna creates ‘poetry yarn’ by combining poetry with textile art, and it inspired me to make my own version.”

Louise J. Jones, Stitch Club member

The chapter also describes how Rachna created her Ode to Sylvia Plath piece, which incorporates a dried fig leaf to echo Plath’s fig tree metaphor for the heroine’s turmoil in The Bell Jar.

Rachna Garodia runs workshops, works to commission and exhibits widely. She trained at the National Institute of Design in India and The Royal School of Needlework in London.

Contemporary weaving in mixed media by Rachna Garodia (2022)
^{ISBN 9781849947657}

Textile creativity through nature

Jeanette Appleton has come up with a guide packed with practical ideas for rewilding your creative practice. Written for new and experienced felters alike, Jeanette shares her philosophy and methods of working with nature as a way of nurturing creativity and sustainability. 

Learn how to create exciting felt surfaces that are both beautiful and versatile. From lines of sea, hedge and grass to cracks in parched earth or frosted puddles, Jeanette reveals her techniques for translating natural phenomena into subtleties of texture and stitch. She also shares a variety of strategies for overcoming artist’s block, including transforming recycled cloth, and studying the routes and patterns of your local environment.

Jeanette Appleton is a member of the 62 Group, and she exhibits her work in the UK and across the globe. Her work is featured in many magazines and books.

Textile creativity through nature: Felt, texture and stitch by Jeanette Appleton (2023)
^{ISBN 9781849947732}

Fragmentation and repair

‘Fragmentation’ and ‘repair’ are buzzwords in textile and mixed media art, and Shelley Rhodes is a master of both. Learn how she reconstructs and reassembles cloth, paper and other materials to create new pieces. 

Shelley also describes how she uses found objects collected over the years to add depth and emotional resonance to her work. From piercing and devoré to patching and darning, the author shares a wealth of favourite techniques, including the Japanese concepts of ‘wabi-sabi’ (finding beauty in imperfection) and ‘mottainai’ (using every last scrap).

Shelley Rhodes teaches workshops covering all aspects of design, stitch, drawing, sketchbooks and mixed media work. She has also written for a variety of publications, including Drawn to Stitch and Somerset Studio.

Fragmentation and repair for mixed media and textile artists by Shelley Rhodes (2021)
^{ISBN 9781849946100}

Embroidering the everyday

Cas Holmes explores the everyday and the domestic to help readers re-examine the world and make use of their geographic limitations or individual circumstances as a rich resource for creating. 

Cas shares her own and other leading practitioners’ works to demonstrate how to be more resourceful, to rediscover a family history, to draw from one’s local landscape and to transform materials. Homemade dyes, mark-making, stitch, image transfer and collage are just a sampling of the book’s many techniques, which readers can use to create mixed media textiles in a more thoughtful way. 

Cas Holmes exhibits widely and runs courses at West Dean College in West Sussex. Her other books include Textile landscape (2018), Stitch stories (2015), Connected cloth (2013) and The found object in textile art (2010).

Embroidering the everyday: Found, stitch and paint by Cas Holmes (2021)
^{ISBN 9781849947114}

People and places in textile art

Anne Kelly is known for her evocative and nostalgic work that often incorporates portraits. This book gives readers a look into the variety of techniques she uses to achieve the nuances of facial expressions and personalities, including hand and machine embroidery, quilting and appliqué. 

Topics include self-portraits, cultural expression, abstraction, incorporating narratives and even pet portraits. Anne also features the work of other textile artists from across the globe who specialise in portraiture.

Anne Kelly is a textile artist and tutor. Her work is exhibited globally in solo and group exhibitions, and she is the author of Textile travels (2020), Textile folk art (2018), Textile nature (2016), and Connected cloth (2013).

Textile portraits: People and places in textile art by Anne Kelly (2023)
^{ISBN 9781849947534}

Targeted truth

Nneka Jones felt extremely vulnerable when she decided to transition from a painter to a mixed media artist, and Targeted truth documents both her courage and artistic process. 

This isn’t a typical embroidery book highlighting different techniques or types of stitches. Instead, it provides a visual experience emphasising the marriage of art and activism and the physical work it takes to bind the two. 

Nneka’s portraits resonate with colour and feeling, and this sneak peek into her process allows readers to appreciate embroidery through every stage, ultimately leaving us with a greater appreciation for her final artwork.

Nneka Jones graduated with a BFA from the University of Tampa, Florida, US. One of her most notable achievements was a TIME magazine commission to produce the cover artwork for the 31st August 2020 edition. 

Targeted truth by Nneka Jones (2020)

Stitch and pattern

Learn how even basic squares, circles and triangles can create stunning impact in stitch and textiles. Drawing inspiration from across the globe, Jean Draper provides practical and simple instructions for developing and experimenting with patterns using grids, symmetry, rotation and repeats. 

Jean also provides instruction on creating bands and borders, strip patchwork and strip piecing. Even body ornamentation is explored to help interpret the human form in stitch. Inspiration, design methods and stitching techniques fill the pages of this gorgeous book.

Jean Draper is an exhibiting member of the 62 Group of Textile Artists and the Textile Study Group. Her work is in public and private collections throughout the UK and abroad.

Stitch and pattern by Jean Draper (2018)
^{ISBN 978184994439}

Poetic cloth

Discover how cloth, stitch and surface can create personal meaning in textile art. This book explores the connection between process and material by focusing on stitch, print, surface manipulation and construction to create seductive textile surfaces.

Hannah Lamb emphasises a sensitivity to material, a quiet attention to detail and thoughtful application of textile technique. Her techniques include hand stitch, shadow work, patching, darning, devoré and cyanotype printing.

Stitch Club member Elizabeth Stephenson especially loves this book because it has a good balance of technical and practical information, along with inspiring images of completed works.

‘I’ve been very focused on process and am at a point where I need to consider meaning and purpose a bit more in my work.

This book is a great prompt for thinking about those aspects.

It also has a lovely textured cover, so it’s nice to handle as well.’

Elizabeth Stephenson, Stitch Club member

Hannah Lamb has lectured in embroidery and design at Bradford School of Art where she is currently Programme Leader for Textiles. Hannah exhibits nationally and internationally and is an exhibiting member of the 62 Group of Textile Artists.

Poetic cloth: Creating meaning in textile art by Hannah Lamb (2019)
^{ISBN 9781849945363}

The wildlife artist in textiles

Annemieke Mein is known for extraordinary sculptures borne out of her passionate commitment to the environment.

She uses a variety of materials, such as silk, wool, fur and cotton for their colour, texture, credibility and aesthetic appeal. She then meticulously paints and stitches her subjects using hand and machine embroidery, appliqué, quilting, weaving, trapunto, felting and more. 

While her approach sounds complex, readers are provided with detailed instructions and gorgeous imagery of how to combine Annemieke’s numerous techniques for limitless combinations.

Annemieke Mein was the first textile artist to be accepted as a member of both the Wildlife Art Society of Australasia and the Australian Guild of Realist Artists. She has exhibited at galleries in Australia and her work is included in private collections across the globe.

The art of Annemieke Mein: The wildlife artist in textiles by Annemieke Mein (2019)
^{ISBN 9781782217657}

Sculptural textile art

Priscilla Edwards takes stitch to impressive new levels within wire sculpture. Working both two and three-dimensionally, Priscilla layers colour, stitch, shape and texture to transform surfaces into beautiful and whimsical sculptures full of character, curiosity and charm.

Readers can explore a playful mixed media approach to create 3D sculptures using a variety of media to transform plain papers, fabrics and memorabilia.

Priscilla also offers tips for including both hand and free-motion machine stitching. The book wraps up with five separate projects designed to build upon complexity and inspire development of one’s artistic voice.

Priscilla Edwards exhibits her work globally and lectures in higher education for the University of Creative Arts (UK). Priscilla also hosts independent workshops and talks in galleries, museums and schools.

Sculptural textile art: A practical guide to mixed media wire sculpture by Priscilla Edwards (2022)
^{ISBN 9781782219002}