The Stitchery of Catherine Hill, a Lancashire Lass
Lancashire Courting Cake is part of the One Red Thread 2025 ‘Love is RED’ exhibition in Australia curated by Textile Fest.
This touring exhibition will be visiting Sidney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The exhibition’s first stop is at the Sydney Craft & Quilt Fair, ICC Sydney Darling Harbour, Australia, June 26 – 29, 2025.
Lancashire Courting Cake is my latest work all about my love of food. The hand embroidery centres around a delicious strawberry cake recipe and a nostalgic Lancashire tradition started in the early 1920’s.
This cake is a romantic expression of love dating back to the summers of the 1920s. Its backstory is rooted in the north of England and centred around young love, warm summers and an abundance of ripe red strawberries.
As part of a courtship, women would make the cake for their betrothed or for a man they had a crush on as a gesture of love, and also to show off her baking skills.
Prior to their wedding, Prince William and Kate Middleton tasted one on their visit to Lancashire in 2011.
The cake also made an appearance on The Great British Bake Off in 2013.
Hand embroidered with Vintage Sylko thread onto cotton cloth. Size 23 x 11cm
This piece forms part of a body of work celebrating Lancashire food.
This piece of embroidery is part of the One Red Thread 2025 ‘Love is RED’ exhibition in Australia curated by Textile Fest. It’s first stop touring Australia will be at the Sydney Craft & Quilt Fair, ICC Sydney Darling Harbour, Australia, June 26 – 29, 2025.
I’m please to share that ‘Time for Tea‘ is part of ‘Shelter‘, the Outside In National Exhibition. This travelling exhibition starts at The New Art Gallery Walsall, 28 June – 19 October 2025, before travelling to Christie’s London, 12 – 22 January 2026.
There were over 600 submissions received from artists across the UK and 80 artworks were chosen for the physical exhibition.
Although ‘Time for Tea’ wasn’t selected for the physical exhibition, all submitted artworks – including Time for Tea – will be displayed on screens at The New Art Gallery Walsall and Christie’s London. Work will also appear on the Outside In website.
This year, the selection panel included multidisciplinary artist, educator, and writer Exodus Crooks, Outside In artists Pamila Schilderman and George Parker-Conway, as well as Deborah Robinson (Head of Exhibitions) and Zoë Lippett (Exhibitions and Artists’ Projects Curator) from The New Art Gallery Walsall.
This hand embroidered piece, was created to journal a collection of warm memories, is inspired by domestic life around the open fire at my Grandparents’ home in Stacksteads, Lancashire. Winter days involved walks out in all weathers. Wrapped up tightly in duffle coats and boots, we’d wander up the lane, over the brook and ramble over the rugged moorland until it was teatime and brew time.
The piece is about the importance of family, the comfort of home and how something as simple as the ritual of afternoon tea around a fire can bring contentment.
Vintage Sylko thread. Cotton cloth from an old pillowcase that once belonged to my great grandmother. Panel measures 15 x 20 cm.