Innehållsförteckning för November - December 2025 från Embroidery

Three of the four British artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2025 include textiles in their practice. Nnena Kalu was nominated for work that often starts with cocoon-like shapes which are then bound, layered and wrapped in starkly coloured fabric, tape and other materials to create expressive hanging sculptural installations. The jury commended her unique command of material, colour and gesture and her highly attuned responses to architectural space. Nnena Kalu has learning disabilities and works with the support of the London arts organisation ActionSpace. Zadie Xa is nominated for an installation that interweaves painting, mural, bojagi patchwork and sound, exploring traditions and folklore. Rene Matić is nominated for an exhibition of highly personal photographs paired with sound, fabric banners and installation. The final nominee is Mohammed Sami, who produces…

Can you tell us a little about your background? I’ve always been captivated by the tactile beauty of fabric and thread. My grandfather started a textile business in the 1970s, and I vividly remember designing my first print for the business in my early teens. I studied art at Central Saint Martins, which helped develop my style further and surrounded me with a network of strong creative friends. Working in my family’s textile business gave me a really hands-on understanding of fabrics and production. It was only when I combined those two worlds – art and textiles – that I realised I could build something meaningful. When did your passion for wildlife begin? It was part of my childhood DNA. I spent hours drawing animals, doodling bees and turtles, and…

‘I can only speak for myself when I say I am very much amid the flowers, but I am not so silent anymore.’ ‘This quote, taken from Terence Wilde’s essay that accompanies an online exhibition of the Amid the Silent Flowers collective, feels poignant right now. An embroidery collective set up in 2023 for those identifying as queer men, it has acted as a safe space for empowerment and friendship. A space for those involved to be themselves and be vulnerable without judgement, to reclaim phrases used negatively against them, and to find their new identity – all through the power of stitch. To take you back to the beginning, Terence Wilde is a London-based gay artist and educator, whose identity, and experiences, of growing up as a gay man…

Like the celebrated musicians she portrays, Jane Sanders’ art stands out from the crowd. Recognisable faces, pop art influences and a rock’n’roll vibe combine through meticulous machine embroidery. Her work is fittingly created on a vintage Singer sewing machine allowing her to ‘interpret the subject in a completely new way, creating a unique portrayal of a familiar face.’ Jane’s lifelong passion for sewing began as a child in rural Northamptonshire. She tried various crafts popular during the 1970s and 1980s, from macramé to papier-mâché, but it was the sewing machine that caught her imagination. ‘My mum’s forte was sewing and she taught me to thread and use her electric sewing machine. I say electric; it was a manual gold and black Singer with a motor connected to the fly wheel.…

Policarpio Valencia (1853-1931) was a farmer, embroiderer, salt merchant, justice of the peace and family man according to Annin Barrett in her 2020 paper for the Textile Society of America. The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, which is hosting the first-ever exhibition of his textiles, called Appearances Deceive, until July 2026, describes him as a Nuevomexicano artist. Both are correct in that Valencia lived all his life in a small settlement just north of Santa Fe in New Mexico and created by hand, objects that tell of his life and times. It was in reading Virginia Churchill Bath’s book Needlework in America (1979) many years ago that I discovered Valencia’s stitched blankets. Four of his cloths are featured in a chapter on surface embroidery in woollen thread…

WHEN KIRSTIE MACLEOD MET Nuestro Nanamoli at an embroidery workshop in March they didn’t know that they were neighbours, both living in Bruton, and that their ‘epic works of healing resided just 200-metres apart’. They quickly came up with a joint exhibition, held in August. Kirstie is well-known for conceiving the incredible Red Dress, which has travelled the globe being added to by both commissioned artists, and stitchers at events and exhibitions. Nuestro is less well known. In 2022 he broke his neck and this near-death experience was to have a great influence on his life. He had the urge to sew, which he writes: ‘became a vital part of my healing process – both physically and emotionally.’ Hailing from the USA, this former Army Ranger studied at the University…

MARIE ANTOINETTE – the very name conjures up a vibrant pastel-coloured world of excess, filled with frills and flounces, rustling silks and satin shoes, towering hairstyles and delicious intrigue and, of course, a bloody Revolution. The first UK exhibition about this divisive figure, Marie Antoinette Style opened at the V&A Museum on 20 September, to much acclaim from the press. Curator Sarah Grant comments: ‘The rare combination of glamour, spectacle and tragedy she presents remains as intoxicating today as it was in the 18th century.’ The exhibition explores the origins and countless revivals of the style shaped by the most fashionable queen in history. A fashion icon in her own time, and an early modern‘celebrity’, the dress and interiors modelled and adopted by the ill-fated Queen of France in the…

Unfinished works by William Morris have been ‘completed’ by modern-day designers and launched as a collection of fabrics and wallpapers in a collaboration between Morris & Co in the UK and The Huntington in California. You may remember the controversy in 1999 when the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in the USA won the bid to purchase a William Morris archive. Twenty years later the Huntington approached Sanderson Design Group, a collective of brands that includes Morris & Co, to invite their Chiswick-based design studio to work on over 50 unfinished works of Morris and his creative director, John Dearle, that they had discovered. Morris & Co is the company founded by William Morris following the separation from his business partners, to produce his Arts and Crafts designs.…

JUST A STONE’STHROW from her house, and flanked by a pine forest, Swedish photographer and embroiderer Erica von Essen’s studio is a small Scandinavian wooden hutte. Having left Stockholm nine years ago in search of a more peaceful life, and to be closer to their families following the birth of their two children, von Essen and her husband built a house in the rural outskirts of Umeå, a city in North East Sweden. Her garden workspace was finished a year later. Though just a few steps away from her home, von Essen talks of her studio, with its melded smells of wood, paper and faint traces of developing fluid, as having its own distinct ambience and rhythm. ‘Working in there feels like I am entering a quiet pause, a space…

I WOULD DESCRIBE MYSELF as a naturally curious collector with an urge to record and preserve the forgotten. Driven by the process of fragmentation, I approach my practice as though a modern-day archaeologist, carefully uncovering, conserving and reimagining materials to tell new stories. Fascinated by adhesives and their ability to secure and fasten materials together, my focus is on the binding capabilities of thread, using fibres to conceal and repair. My aim is to preserve an object’s history, acknowledging the past while recognising new potential. I collect discarded ‘curios’, mending and combining matter to assemble small sculptures, juxtaposing the unlikely to create a tangible record of the environment and people. I curate these ‘objects of intrigue’ in ‘families’ based on instinct or the relationship between materials or textile processes. Material…

‘I WORK ENTIRELY WITH medieval images, materials and textile techniques, but I like to add a modern twist. It’s usually the humour of medieval art that appeals to me the most, and that’s clearly reflected in my work. Frequently, when I meet embroiderers who have read my blog they will give me a strange look and say “You do know embroidery blogs aren’t meant to be funny, don’t you?” But, to be honest, I think the world already has enough embroidered flowers, so I’d rather stick to ‘fart ponies’, if it’s all the same. ‘I adore the narrative, storytelling aspects of medieval art, which have far more in common with modern cartoon strips than people realise. I like my images to tell a story, like The Lady and Cat, ‘patron…

A new sewing machine? 1 If a new sewing machine is on your gift list, now is the time to visit an authorised JANOME retailer, with a wealth of offers. Model 224A is a great starter machine, and will handle all your essential sewing tasks with ease – offer price below £150, or try the J3-18 with a free fashion and finishing kit. Save £50 on popular models 230DC and 5060QDC, and £100 on the 5270QDC. Overlockers and cover stitch models are on offer, too. Go ahead… get creative. janome.co.uk/special-offers janome.co.uk/retailer-search Jane Austen-inspired ribbons 2 Collaborating on a project involving the critically endangered craft of silk ribbon weaving, Whitchurch Silk Mill and Jane Austen’s House have produced a collection inspired by the colours and collections of her home. Choose from…

When choosing which workshop to deliver at West Dean next year I followed my heart, working with materials central not only to my practice but my whole life. I’ve surrounded myself with vintage sewing tools, materials and ephemera for as long as I can remember. Like many children of the 1960s, I was brought up by parents with a Make Do and Mend mindset. Things were made and repaired, not replaced with shop-bought, including clothes and tools for making them, such as my great-grandmother’s Singer treadle sewing machine – celebrated in an ink drawing on my work Made in Norfolk, part of a triptych made with my Soulful Stitch co-author Cas Holmes. I find the patina and story held within old sewing artefacts a source of pleasure and inspiration and…

Textiles are a powerful medium for expressive storytelling, both familiar and exotic. We relate to cloth as the stuff that surrounds us, as garments, furnishing, exotic costume, celebratory robes, ceremonial hangings. The sheer versatility of thread and fabric enable narrative as both text and visual depictions, in myriad ways. In troubled times, tales and histories become ever-more important. We need to share joy and horror, to remember where we come from, and to express hope about where we will go. Aotearoa / New Zealand’s 2025 major exhibition Pupuritia: Storytelling and Contemporary Textiles was a rich celebration of this power, textiles’ unique ability to express large and small stories, sadness and hope. Envisioned by curator and artist Melanie Tangaere Baldwin for leading craft gallery Objectspace, the exhibition included 19 artists and…

Ashmolean Museum, paperback, £25 Lynn Hulse, with her focus on the collection of needlework designs by May Morris (held at the Ashmolean Museum), has written a beautifully illustrated synthesis of the historical and practical which celebrates the pioneering work of this leading light of the Arts and Crafts movement. We are invited to explore May’s life and work against the movement of change that was happening in the craft and design of the period. The early Victorian industrial period saw the increase in manufactured goods, which were perceived as having an impact on the standards of design. Patterns printed on to canvas for embroidery and Berlin woolwork became popular for stitching at home and discouraged creative expression and originality. The Arts and Crafts movement, with its focus on design and…

With the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth on 16 December, this year has been one long celebration, as the novelist’s reach continues to grow. In February, the Jane Austen Centre advertised Regency summer balls in Bath, which sold out in 10 minutes. But for such a famous author, we know comparatively little about her personal life. It seems clear though, that Austen was also a fine needlewoman. Jennie Batchelor and Alison Larkin reveal in Jane Austen Embroidery that she was not only skilled at ‘plain-work’, the stitching of household linens and undergarments, she was also a dab hand at decorative needlework. In the early 1800s, Jane helped her mother and sister make a linen and cotton patchwork coverlet. Measuring 262cm by 232cm, the patchwork was created using the English…

‘The Hand & Lock Prize is the largest embroidery competition in the world, uniting a global community of makers. It’s a chance to meet extraordinary people, from finalists who travel across continents to be part of it, to the mentors and judging panel who give so much of their expertise. It’s more than a competition; it’s a celebration of embroidery as an art form and a craft,’ explains Madeleine Wozencroft, events lead at Hand & Lock. With categories comprising Open Textile Art, Student Textile Art, Open Fashion and Student Fashion, the 2025 exhibition features 24 prize finalists. Wozencroft notes that the exhibition, running from 5 to 7 November, includes everything from traditional hand techniques to contemporary perspectives: ‘Inspirations range from Renaissance paintings and 18th-century embroidery traditions to ancient scrolls and…

JUST ASTHE JOURNEY of a thousand miles starts with a single step, the world’s longest embroidery – a monumental project created by the Embroiderers’ Guild in August 2003 – began with a single stitch to which people have enjoyed adding over the years until the world record had been attained, and long after. At any venue where this astonishing artefact is displayed, there is a quiet hum of happy activity around the table on which a length of it is unrolled, with members of the public invited to stitch whatever they want. Generations sit and stitch together, passing on skills and telling stories of their journeys with embroidery. Through this simple yet powerful project, some people reconnect with a pastime they have long since forgotten they enjoyed, or fall in…

All creatures great and small – and confections bright and beautiful – spill from the pages of Winsome Forster Douglass’s instructional book Toys for Your Delight. From a smiling alligator, goat, griffin and giraffe to loving lions and lizards, and the more festive donkey, Bactrian camel and reindeer (with quills for horns), the ever-inventive author tackled much of the animal kingdom in embroidered cloth, even a fish and a fly. Unlike the mass-manufactured toys of today, these playthings were imbued with the love and care of the individual makers. treasured third edition are adorned with the stylised motifs of a cockerell and hen. First published in 1957, the book has enduring charm, but nevertheless reflects its era. During the 1940s toy factories were diverted to make munitions for the war…

After completing a fashion MA at Central Saint Martins, Lissie Baldwin began her creative career designing dreamy and fairy-like garments that combined imaginative textiles and freehand embroidery. Her work is a symphony of texture, detail and a bold illustrative style, transporting the viewer into an enchanting world, where magic and mystery abound. During her MA, as imagery became more important in her work, Lissie felt increasingly constrained by the need to produce wearable clothes. ‘In the early 2000s, I began making pieces to be displayed on walls rather than people, producing artworks using the unique techniques I had honed through my fashion design and freelance textile work.’ Her early works were embroidered and appliquéd pin-up girls from the 1940s–1950s, reimagined as strong, empowered women. ‘I used vintage scarves and designer…

Could you describe the origins of your group? In 2005, five tapestry enthusiasts gathered around a table to discuss how to promote tapestry weaving, help weavers liaise more closely and support fellow tapestry weavers in the UK. Tapestry weaving was in decline: formal courses were closing and the number of opportunities decreasing at an alarming rate. From this early meeting, the British Tapestry Group was formed and following our first exhibition in Hebden Bridge in 2006, we have continued to hold exhibitions. Some of the original exhibitors are still members of the group and it’s wonderful to have that continuity as our organisation moves forward. Is there an overriding principle that binds the group together? We all share a love of tapestry weaving and seek to promote better understanding of…