Past workshop for Birmingham Embroidery & Textile Art group

On 28th March 2026  I ran a workshop for Birmingham Embroidery & Textile Art group in Cotteridge, called Stitched Gardens.

I began by explaining my approach as a painter  – just as you would layer up a background, foreground and final focussed finishes, so we would colour our cloth, add stitches to create ‘visual noise’ and then finally focus on creating recognisable blooms, leaves and grasses.

I demonstrated ways to colour the background cloth using Inktense, fabric crayons and mono-printing with acrylic paint. Often these results are unpredictable but that adds to the fun and creates unexpected joys.

Everyone used reference material to work from and set about referencing it as we created a background to stitch onto. For the middle ground we used thin gauge threads and stitches which would work up a texture quickly such as seed stitch and running stitches.

Then whilst some held the inspiration loosely, others followed a more categoric representation – all with amazing results.

During the day I demonstrated some new stitches such as Picot leaf, Woven Wheel Rose and Giordes Knot to create the final focussed layer of the foreground.

Sitting around in a sewing circle it was a very social and relaxed day, we shared stitch knowledge and technique and we all came home with projects to finish.