I have to admit, I haven’t been as productive as I wanted during my winter break but I’m spending time in the studio each week and creating new pieces. My stitch activity has been helping to inspire me at the start of the day and I’m working with the fantastic Eleanor Snare who challenges me in our bi-monthly coaching sessions.

I always said that I work best under pressure and I’ve been working towards the submission deadline for the Prism Textiles 2022 exhibition Untold. The deadline is much nearer than usual as our 2021 exhibition was delayed until October but I’ve enjoyed making the work.

For the theme of untold, I wanted to share my experiences of living with OCD, a condition which is still a joke to many people. When I explain the pattern of intrusive thoughts and the compulsions that I perform, people are shocked how much it affects my daily life. You can find more information about OCD on the Mind website. Please remember that comments like “I’m a little bit OCD” when describing how you like things to be neat can be triggering and undermine the struggle that people face every day.

Broken Doll and Where is My Mind? explore my struggles with compulsions and intrusive thoughts. They are both based around objects, creating textile pieces inside them which tell a story about OCD. I’ve worked with English Patchwork, hand stitch and digital embroidery to build these pieces.

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