This article appeared in The World of Embroidery (now known simply as 'Embroidery') in 2000 and describes my inspiration and working method.

I thoroughly enjoy embroidery - the many different structures of the stitches fascinate me. I wanted to create a series of kits that would allow people to make an interesting design. I hoped that the finished designs could be used as a base on which to add many of the wonderful embroidery techniques that are now available in a free way. I also wanted it to enable me to indulge in my own love of design, dyeing and embroidery!

The initial inspiration came from a William Holman Hunt painting that had a delicately embroidered quilt draped over a table. It looked exquisite and precious; I wanted to capture its detail and beauty in a contemporary way. Many pre-Raphaelite painters portrayed textiles in a very indolent fashion. They were trying to capture the some of the charm of 15th century painting. The fabrics folded with a perfect drape, the colours and threads shimmered, the embroidery looked exquisite and all in all they actually looked quite unreal! This was the inspiration - the colour collection, the motifs, the composition and the technique came from entirely different sources.

Seeing the large colourful paintings of Bonnard at the Royal Academy enlivened my passion for colour. His colours are vibrant but not synthetic. The combinations are ecstatic. Bonnard used a lot of colours in each painting, and many have ‘patchwork’ type area’s which are actually multi-coloured descriptions of tiled floors or walls. Out came my pastels and recordings of the complex pallet that he used went into my sketchbook as I roamed around the gallery. The beautiful tints (colours with white added) and tones (colours with grey added) and hues (pure colour) of oil paints seem to be hard to capture using commercially produced fabrics and threads. Dyeing one’s own seems to be the answer. Recording the colours in the correct proportions is important if you want a similar result. There may be a tiny amount of an unexpected colour that is essential to balance the collection as a whole.

The motifs I chose were the favourite things of mine that Julie Andrews sang about in the Sound of Music– butterflies, bees, flowers and animals. The animal motifs came from a collection of drawings using photographs (to keep the creatures still) taken at our local zoo. Once the outline shape had been modified for the appliqué I simplified the details into patterns for use with embroidery embellishment and beads.

As I was designing projects for other people to use I needed the compositions to be easily reproduced. I wanted people to be able to have fun laying out the appliqué shapes to their own arrangement and not to have to follow a complicated design. Popular illustrations in children’s books particularly those of Jane Ray and a visit to the V&A to look at the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries of the 15th century supported my desire for simple unrepeated arrangements. The huge tapestries are composed of simple motifs of people flowers and animals arranged in an equally simple style. Some of the individual motifs look very similar to William Morris motifs - I wonder if he was inspired by these designs and used them in his own work. It is possible, Morris along with the pre-Rapaelites, was looking backward to the medieval period for inspiration. He is known to have visited the V&A regularly and was particularly interested in the historical textiles. Morris used motifs in a very different way, forming highly complex repeat designs. The complexity of his designs is one of the aspects that make them so special. But I didn’t want these swirling perfect compositions. I preferred the original, with its childlike simplicity. Having my own collection of motifs to arrange in a pictorial fashion made this possible.

Then to decide on the all-important technique, which of course turns the work into an embellished textile rather than a flat-print, painting, engraving, stained glass or stenciled work. To go back to the original inspiration - the luxurious drapes of pre-Raphaelite paintings - how I could capture the essence of these bourgeois and rather baroque (think catholic churches- over the top gold and glitz) textiles and be able to add my more contemporary pallet and my motifs?

Tapestry might be matt and rather too rigid. Complete embroidery would have too much texture be too dense. Appliqué would allow me the detailed motifs and the option for the background to be a strong contrast. Using silk satin (a heavy weight weave that has a long thread on one side giving it a sheen) for the appliqué gave me the luxury of vibrant colour and I was able to cut very detailed shapes from its close weave using transfer adhesive. Deep dusky coloured cotton as a ground gave the contrast to the shimmering silk and added a little ‘roughness’. Adding the cotton wadding gave the elegant drape and added quality and weight to the piece therefore supporting the embroidery embellishment.
So the base for my embroidery would be a quilt. Quilters seem to be a different bunch to the embroiderers and it was a while before I realised I had crossed the line! I now appear to have a foot in each camp - a very happy position.

The embroidery embellishment is my favourite part. Once I have a strong design on the completed quilt I can stitch in a free way on the machine with gold, silver, copper and turquoise metallic threads or a selection of shimmering rayons. I hand-dye the multi-coloured threads that I use for stitching by hand in the same colourways as the silk. Twisted chain, French knots, cross-stitch, needle lace and blanket stitch are some of the stitches I add. I work lightly slowly building up layers of texture and interest using the drawings on the templates as a guide. I don’t try to copy these exactly. I would loose the ‘freedom’ if I did. As with painting or hand writing every technique has its own style. It is important to use a complementary weight of thread and size of stitch to keep in harmony with the piece as a whole.

A variety of magpie-like bits and pieces –tiny embroidery beads, copper foil, shisha mirrors and hand-made papers are stitched to the work. These are fun to add and they satisfy my over-the-top baroque tendencies and can make the piece look rather eastern.

They say nothing is new. I used to wonder why so many people’s inspiration came from nature - of course anything else has to be credited to someone else! What I have used has been done before, the composition, the palette, the motifs, the technique - but I have put it together in what I feel is my own unique way.

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