Innehållsförteckning för January - February 2025 från Embroidery

HAPPY NEWYEAR and welcome to the first issue of Embroidery magazine in 2025. If you’re new to us, we hope you like what you find, and if you’re a long-standing subscriber we trust we’re keeping up our standards. We always love hearing from our readers so do get in touch with your comments and to let us know what’s on in your area and, if you’re a subscriber, you may wish to have your work featured in Meet the Reader-Maker. Our readers span a wide spectrum, from enthusiasts to others for whom embroidery is a career, and we hope what we do is of interest to all. If our whistlestop tour of the year is anything to go by, pages 20–25, we can look forward to 12 months crammed full…

Launched through the Jimmy Choo Academy during London Fashion Week, Madelaine Atkinson’s collection addresses the pressing social issue of County Lines through innovative and contemporary streetwear, showcasing a variety of embroidery techniques. County Lines involves drugs gangs grooming children and vulnerable individuals around the UK to help them move and store drugs and money, staying in contact via mobile phone lines. Madelaine researched the topic with the help of Lennox Rodgers, CEO of the Refocus charity, and made several visits to schools. In collaboration with students from the Royal School of Needlework and graduates from Arts University Bournemouth, Madelaine explored a multitude of hand-beading patterns, bead trimmings and hand-stitch techniques. Notable pieces include a heavily encrusted embroidered puffball skirt and upcycled Nike shoes, sourced from Vinted and transformed through intricate…

How did the group meet? In 2024 we marked our 40th anniversary. The group was originally founded as The Embroiderers of Bath by a close-knit circle of friends seeking a space to share ideas and showcase work. In 1996, we adopted the name Bath Textile Artists, which we proudly continue to use. Currently, our membership consists of 12 active artists who reside in a broad area surrounding Bath, with members hailing from as far north as Nailsworth and as far south as Blandford Forum. Is there an overriding principle that binds you together? Ultimately, it is a passion for textiles. Our aim is to expand the boundaries of techniques to create textile art. The use of good design, colour sense and a novel approach to interpreting the subject matter form…

THETEXTILE SOCIETY, a community for textile professionals and enthusiasts promoting the study of textiles and celebrating their history and culture, has announced the winners of its Museums, Archive and Conservation Award. The William Morris Gallery and National Life Stories receive an award of nearly £5,000 to create an audio recording of British textile designer Sarah Campbell, to form part of Design Lives, National Life Stories’ oral history archive, held by the British Library. It will be available online for worldwide access. The partnership of sisters Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell began informally when Sarah was a student at Chelsea College of Art, and then formally during Susan’s time as head design consultant at Liberty. Working collaboratively, they created a unique and exuberant signature style that defined the Liberty look of the…

Farfield Mill is seeking entries for its textile competition on the theme ‘celebrating wool’ until 7 January. Whether you take inspiration from the heritage of the British wool industry, are inspired by the landscape where sheep graze, or use wool in your creations, you’re free to explore the theme in any form of textile art, as long as the final piece consists of at least 75% textiles. First prize is is £750; second prize £500; and the People’s Choice winner receives £250. Enter at farfieldmill.org/entry-form…

Geoffrey Squire (1924-2011), designer, educator, historian, author and scholar with a passion for textiles, was a founder member of the Costume Society. Following his death, the Costume and Textile Association (C&TA) in Norwich received a legacy which, since 2017, has funded the biennial award named after him. The C&TA encourages research into historical costume, fashion and textiles. In 2023Anna Deacon was awarded £2,000 to study Eurocentric garments from the 18th and early 19th centuries at Auckland War Memorial Museum, New Zealand. Her aim was to bring them to attention by making precise textile re-creations and discovering the garments’ history with the help of Auckland family heritage groups. Applicants need to be members of the C&TA and to apply by 14 April. ctacostume.org.uk/geoffrey-squire-bursary.html…

INDONESIAN ARTIST CITRA SASMITA is set to transform the Barbican’s 90-metre-long Curve gallery in January with a symbolic, multi-sensory journey exploring ideas of ancestral memory, ritual and migration. In the commission Into Eternal Land, the artist works fluidly across painting, sculptural installation, embroidery and scent. Challenging fixed ideas of gender roles, hierarchies of power and systems of oppression, her work refuses categorisation, questioning colonial ideas of traditional Indonesian art and the marginalisation of craft traditions. It speaks to universal concerns: connecting with ancestral traditions, grappling with the power and precarity of the natural world, and proposing the possibility of feminist resistance. Sasmita’s panoramic scroll paintings – a reinterpretation of Kamasan paintings by men, narrating Hindu epics – unfurl along the curved walls of the gallery, depicting women undergoing transformation and…

‘For love lost… There’s a healing that happens when we read, write and embroider poetry or prose. Words, meanings and memories become stitched into our souls and we understand their significance; why they resonate with us, why they have stayed with us. In the quiet moments of embroidering a poem we listen to the whispers from the tender, hidden parts of our hearts and we understand ourselves more. A dear friend sent me A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa during the Covid pandemic. This bewitching story is about two Irish women, centuries apart, whose lives become entwined. In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman and mother, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, discovers her young husband has been murdered. In her anguish she drinks handfuls of his blood and at…

The Embroiderers’ Guild keeps a keen eye on the textile art graduates coming out of universities across the country, every year selecting around eight to exhibit their work at the Knitting and Stitching Shows and providing a small grant to help with expenses. This year they will also have the chance to exhibit with the Guild at Fashion and Embroidery, part of the Creative Craft Show at the NEC, Birmingham, 13–16 March. Providing this promotional opportunity enables the Guild Grads to gain valuable exposure at the very start of their careers, and many go on to successful employment or self-employment working with stitch techniques and textile art. ALICE APHRA BA (Hons) textile design, Nottingham Trent University My introduction to embroidery was sparked by the treasure trove of brass buttons, sparkly…

Embroidery is pattern making where thread passes through or lies on fabric. But not always: artist Carola van Dyke uses no base fabric at all in her delicate celebrations of nature. Thread and nothing but thread demonstrates her fascination with colours, textures, layers and light. Carola’s machine stitching is contemporary, instinctual, evoking the palette and blurred edges of Impressionist painters. Her influences are far older though: growing up in the Netherlands, Carola was surrounded by images by Dutch old masters such as Vermeer and Rembrandt. Carola originally studied fashion illustration and textiles at St Joost university, Breda. After graduating she moved to the UK and worked across a wide variety of creative fields, including film and illustration, before setting up her own design business, now based in Hastings. She became…

There’s a lovely air of nostalgia to Aneeta Seshan’s playful free-motion stitched pieces, and not least in the artist’s most recent series of vintage button-card artworks. Partly inspired by the Duttons for Buttons shop in Harrogate, where she works two-days a week, the collection features buttons that there is ‘no need to remove for washing’, Briton ‘strong and durable buttons’ and the dubiously titled, brown ‘fashionable buttons’, along with cards of mending threads, such as Menda Lisle cotton ‘suitable for hosiery and lingerie’. When Aneeta’s partner bought her a gift of exquisite vintage pearl buttons secured to a card, she was already working at Duttons but it proved to be the catalyst for this collection. Duttons’ Harrogate shop (a second shop is in York) was opened in 1956 by Abe…

JAKKAI SIRIBUTR THERE’S NO PLACE Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester 15 November 2024–16 March 2025 ‘THE TACTILE QUALITY of textiles can be deeply personal, especially when I’m working on materials that have specific significance, like garments once worn by loved ones. Touching, stitching, quilting on these pieces gives me a sense of connection and comfort.’ These words, by Bangkok-born artist Jakkai Siributr, provide insight into his thinking and making process, which are informed by cross-cultural textile techniques. Siributr continues: ‘I didn’t experiment with embroidery until later in my career, telling stories by drawing with a needle and threads. Looking back, I may have been influenced at an early age by the women in my life – various aunties and a nanny who constantly mended old clothes and blankets.’ Siributr’s exhibition There’s…

African textiles Amechi is an interiors brand with an exploratory focus on traditional African textiles and cultures indigenous to the continent, offering fresh, fun and exciting items for contemporary homes. Founded by Cameroonian-born Amechi Mandi, Amechi is an Igbo name from south-eastern Nigeria and means ‘only God knows tomorrow’. Inspired by a childhood where he would draw his mother in her best clothes and admire the flamboyance of his fashionable neighbour, Amechi worked for many years in the fashion industry. Following a degree in furniture/product design in London, he launched the brand after feeling dissatisfied with West African-inspired décor on offer due to its colonial undertones, and looked into pre-colonial history for inspiration. Some of Amechi’s soft furnishings are on sale in January. amechihome.com Thanks to Pam Keeling we now…

After the highly successful Stitch by Stitch 2023 exhibition, textile artists Suzette Smart and Alison Holt are inviting submissions for the 2025 exhibition, 5 July–30 August, at The Willow Gallery, Oswestry, Shropshire. Stitch by Stitch 2023 brought together more than 60 textile artists, illustrating their diversity in more than 100 textile pieces. With unprecedented footfall for this busy gallery and many meet the artist events, the exhibition elevated textiles as contemporary art, blurring lines within the creative arts. In 2023 a sense of place and narrative was an important element; other pieces were beautiful studies in colour and texture but also thought provoking, clever, or made the judges smile or reflect. Emotional connections with cloth, memory and narrative featured too. Established and emerging artists are invited to apply, 13 January–12…

Chairman’s Award – Fiona Cowell For the first-ever recipient of the Chairman’s Award in the Hand & Lock Prize for Embroidery 2024, chairman Alastair Macleod had been hoping to discover the ‘wow factor’ – and he found it. Metamorphosis by Fiona Cowell uses both traditional and imaginative stitch techniques, illustrating the process of ageing through the changing of the seasons. Named ‘most impressive and outstanding embroidery’, this highly-detailed three-dimensional woman’s head mounted on a pole is instantly arresting and met the prize brief of ‘traces of transition’ perfectly. Fiona explains: ‘As a keen gardener, I am inspired by nature. My interpretation of the brief…looks at the external and internal changes of the passage of time upon us all. We are in a constant state of transition. The ‘older you’ becomes…

In medieval times alchemists quested unsuccessfully for the magic formula to transform base matter into gold. Award-winning contemporary embroiderer Hanny Newton has now proven that those ancient researchers were going in completely the wrong direction. Gold is not the treasure – it’s straw. A decade ago Hanny launched her career after studying at the Royal School of Needlework and Falmouth University, establishing herself as a maker and teacher of goldwork. She knew early on that thread was special to her. ‘There’s something about stitching,’ she declared, with no doubt that this was the right path. Hanny found that teaching shaped her life considerably, and alongside this built a substantial stitch-based practice with a distinctive visual and poetic language of abstract forms. Hanny’s creative flair and focus on metallic threads has…

Wild Yarn by Imogen Bright Moon Imogen Bright Moon is a British Romani textile artist who creates richly textured, highly tactile woven textile works from yarn that she spins and blends herself. In this elegantly designed book, Imogen reveals the secrets of her practice through evocative text and sumptuous images. Learn how to choose raw fibres (Imogen’s are sourced from a rescue flock of sheep on the South Downs); how to put together different types of fibres – raw sheep’s wool, plant fibres such as hemp, soya and wild silk, alpaca hair and more – to create richly textured yarn; how to blend naturally occurring pigments; the principles of hand-spinning; how to skein, soak and wet-finish yarn and how to store your stash; plus ideas for taking your yarn into…

Thames & Hudson/Victoria and Albert Museum, £35 With many barriers in their way, the women pioneers of Karen Livingstone’s book are truly inspirational. You may marvel at how each one tended to work across and master so many mediums, from metalworking, stained glass, enamelling and jewellery to painting, book illustration, designing and embroidery. Just as exceptional is how they overcame such prejudices as the notion that women can’t be architects ‘because they would not be able to climb ladders’. If they were going to break free from these constraints, the rise of the Arts and Crafts Movement would help them on their way. The Movement flourished in Britain between 1880 and 1914, at a time of radical shifts in society. The Movement’s emphasis was on the quality of works and…