It’s been a busy few weeks in the studio, designing and making kits for workshops and community projects. This means that my own practice has been a few snatched moments here and there between meetings and answering emails.

I have picked up some treats in the last few weeks which is inspiring my work. I’ve been using DMC Cotton Perle thread recently, it’s a thicker thread than I usually work with so it adds dimension to my Stitchscapes and it’s lovely to embroider with. I picked up a multi-buy of 30 balls of thread which arrived in these beautiful branded boxes. Needless to say, I have kept them to have on display in the studio.

100 Embroidery Stitches is a fond childhood memory, I was given the book by my grandma when she realised that knitting was not a skill I had inherited. I would spend hours looking through the pages at the stitches, practising them to hone my skills. This copy came to me all the way from France and I’m still inspired by it all these years later.

On Tuesday morning, I found a few quiet hours to sit watching a Poirot (David Suchet of course) and start working my way through the book one stitch at a time. It was lovely to find this moment of relaxation and just focus on one thing.

In other news, I finally finished the turquoise Stitchscape I’ve been working on for a few weeks. The piece is inspired by a painting that my friend Miriam made for me as a birthday present last year. It’s been great to work with different fabrics and threads to create bold colours and textures.

I decided to crop the piece and make it into a round as the proportions looked better, I also love the lines of stitch on the back of the piece which people don’t normally see!

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