It’s been a busy few weeks in the studio, welcoming people during North Yorkshire Open Studios and working on some new pieces for Fancy Goods. I’ve also been teaching in Leeds on my creative embroidery course at the Central Library and continuing my Heydays embroidered rockpools class.

During NYOS, I worked on my beaded spade which looks so good. I’ve discovered that it’s very hard to photograph well which is a shame. I’ve also started to create my collectors plate series of beaded circles. I’m looking at a new way of creating the circular shape as the metal rings aren’t working how I expected.

My stitchscape is growing as I add more fabric to enhance the details, I also tried some free motion embroidery to blend the layers together. I love having a piece of work that I can pick up and put down easily. I’m looking forward to adding more layers of hand embroidery with cotton perle.

The digitally embroidered portraits are part of the research for Warped, the 2023 exhibition theme for Prism Textiles. They are just the starting point for how I want to build an exhibition piece of selfies exploring the warped perception of identity.

I’ve also started making more collages, something that I’ve found helps me free up my thinking and allows me to play with imagery without worry about the finished piece. I’m thinking about adding some stitch to the pieces too but my terminally minimal nature can often take over.

For regular updates about my practice you can follow me on Instagram or sign up to my monthly newsletter.