Why I Embroider
Needle and thread offer me a way to translate what I see and feel in my garden and places I visit— the hum of life, the passing of seasons, the soft chaos of wildness — into something lasting. I’ve stitched since I was a little girl, taught by my mother and grandmother, and it’s always been a place of calm for me. A way to be present. A kind of meditation, though I never called it that.
My background in Environmental Science means I see embroidery not just as decoration, but as a way to gently teach and celebrate what we still have: bees, dandelions, hover-flies, hedgerows. Every piece I make is rooted in real species, drawn from field guides and nature, sketched freehand with an erasable pen, my Bernina sewing machine or by hand with a needle and thread.
Even the tiniest bee is crafted with care — a reminder that beauty lives in the details.
There’s so much we’re losing to habitat destruction and climate change. My work is my quiet protest, my love letter to the natural world.
It’s a way of saying: Look closer. This matters.
My garden is my muse — buzzing, blooming, never quite tidy. It’s where I stitch, where I watch, and where I let the work begin.
‘and blossom haunting bee are never weary of their melody ‘
by John Clare, the Northamptonshire peasant poet
This man’s parka is made from the intestines of a seal . Aleut/Unangan people, Alaska. USA
The cuffs and hem of the parka feature a complex border of fourteen thin bands of parchment-like sealskin dyed red and black. These are over woven with fine caribou-hair embroidery in geometric patterns. There are more than 20,000 embroidery stitches in the border alone.
One of my favourite exhibits at the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford
‘There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground’
Rumi
‘You voluble, velvety, vehement fellows’
Working on a new technique by gelli printing onto the linen with leaves and flowers and then hand painting to pick out some details.
A bit of hand embroidery, a bee and a quote from John Clare resulting in a new sachet design.
Painting the pink onto the fleabane daisies
