Darning Sampler

Darning Sampler - hand stitched red thread into a vintage white child's garment

There’s something about working with cloth, it’s thread count and how the cloth is woven that fascinates me. This was the starting point for my latest project Darning Sampler.

The piece started with a vintage child’s garment that’s been in my collection for a number of years and an idea that’s been swirling around my head for even longer.

Darning Sampler - hand stitched red thread into a vintage white child's garment
Work in progress

Next followed extensive research into vintage and antique darning samplers. Given the very fine cloth and the weave of the cotton, only a select number of stitches were chosen. Some patterns were also adapted for this project.

I experimented and sampled with different weights of thread and settled on a very fine thread called Madeira Cotona.

Darning Sampler - hand stitched red thread into a vintage white child's garment
Work in progress
Darning Sampler - hand stitched red thread into a vintage white child's garment
Darning Sampler complete

The piece took nearly two months to create. Hand darned. Size 28 x 28cm.

Darning Sampler - hand stitched red thread into a vintage white child's garment
Darning Sampler – detail

Completed with a tiny vintage Mother of Pearl button on the neck of the garment.

This piece is part of the Embroiderers’ Guild ‘ Layers’ Members Challenge.

You can find one of my previous Members’ Challenge artworks in this post.

Update July 2023:

I’m thrilled that Darning sampler has won a First Award in ‘The Artistic Director’s Category’ in the Members’ Challenge 2023. For more details please follow this link.

Summer 2022

For the past few months I’ve been busy designing & stitching a new artwork named ‘Summer 2022’ . 

Last year I was honoured to be invited by artist Harry Meadley to take part in Free-For-All at Touchstones Rochdale from 7-10th September 2022.

I created an event called ‘Stitched Memories’ to collect Rochdale’s memories of the 2022 heatwave for a new artwork – a companion piece to Summer ‘76. The responses were handwritten on postcards and displayed within the gallery.

My original idea was to create a single artwork of around 400 words. In reality, after collating so many wonderful hand written phrases a unique story started to evolve – enough for two artworks.

The artworks cover the period from early summer, through the heatwave and drought and end with the loss of HM Queen Elizabeth II (which occurred during the time I was at Free-For-All).

Each piece is 21 x 21cm, hand embroidered and hand stitched with vintage Sylko thread onto cotton cloth. 

Summer 22 Part 1
Summer 2022 Part 1
Summer 22 Part 2
Summer 2022 Part 2
Part 1 - detail
Part 1 – detail
Part 1 - detail
Part 1 – detail
Part 2 - detail
Part 2 – detail

This is the first time I’ve created an artwork from a ‘Stitched Memories’ event and would definitely like to host another one in the future.

Thank you the curators at Touchstones, Harry Meadley and all the visitors who contributed to Summer 2022.

Tribute to HM the Queen

‘Tribute to HM the Queen’ is my latest artwork featuring hand stitched text.

The central panel features a hand stitched couched image of our late Queen and the embroidered panel includes a hand sewn aperture and text.

Size 12 x 16 cm. Hand stitched with vintage Sylko thread onto cotton cloth. Assembled onto a Union flag.

Tribute to HM Queen
Tribute to HM Queen
Tribute to HM Queen detail
Detail

The piece was designed shortly after the loss of our Queen and is taking part in the ‘Stitched Tribute’ exhibition at the Knitting and Stitching Show 2022 in Harrogate.

Artwork on exhibition
Artwork on exhibition

(Thank you to textile artist Lesley Wood for taking this photo for me