Hannah Thompson has always loved crafting, quilting & textile art.  In 2017, at a crossroads in her life, dealing with emotional & family upset, she left her corporate career and set up Stitching Kitchen. On Stitchery Stories textile art podcast, Hannah shares her story and we dive into what she describes as her transformational business year in 2023! Susan Weeks chats with Hannah Thompson about: Her love for textile art, quilting, crafting and creativity Family life and a career pushing textile creativity to the background Turning to textile art to deal with a challenging time T ..read more

Textile artist Holly Jackson shares her recent journey in developing her art career. Developing her 'sneaky' stumpwork embroidery using modern materials and mixed media, there are plenty of exciting 'firsts' to celebrate with Holly! We join Holly at the start of her first art exhibition. She shares her preparation and hopes from the show. We chat about her very interesting inspirations for her emerging body of work, and how she is developing her own 'take' on stumpwork, scaling it up, and using modern materials and mixed media to produce larger pieces, faster, yet still using hand embroidery ..read more

Textile artist Jayne Emerson revisits the Stitchery Stories textile art podcast today! She takes us on a journey on how she has pivoted her creative business to focus on teaching people around the world through her online courses and her unique membership The No-Rules Textiles Society. Jayne was a guest here back in 2018 and gives a quick update as to where she was and what challenges she was facing back then. And then we dive into the details of how she created her courses, and the practicalities of running her creative membership. The financial benefits and the fabulous network of new friend ..read more

Cornwall Cross Stitch Kit designer Emma Horan shares behind the scenes of her 'accidental' creative business based around counted cross stitch hand embroidery kits of the beautiful Cornish coast. For the last 10 years, Emma has grown her cross stitch kit business from a therapeutic hobby as she recovered from illness, to a thriving creative business, shop & studio based in St Austell Town, Cornwall. With the beautiful Cornish coast as her never-ending inspiration, with the desire to make bright colourful kits, Emma shares her journey from her first design made with 20p cross stitch softwar ..read more

Back in 2014, textile artist, academic & designer Vanessa Marr posed the question: Women & Domesticity - What's Your Perspective? And invited those thoughts to be embroidered upon a yellow duster, in red thread. Little did she realise what she had unleashed... Nine years later, Vanessa has an amazing collection of embroidered dusters and an even more amazing collection of stories from the people (mostly women) who have sent her a duster. There are so many fascinating elements to this project, we barely scratch the surface! We do have a laugh as we start our conversation highlighting th ..read more

Floriane Schmitt loves to experiment with creative fabric manipulation ideas. Under her brand name of FloHomeDesign she creates accessories and home decor items from smocked neoprene and is writing a fabric manipulation book, due out end 2023. Floriane shares her story of how her dream of a career in fashion evolved into specialising in fabric manipulation and creating her own collections bringing a very modern twist on some traditional Canadian Smocking techniques with very modern materials. Neoprene + Smocking = Neosmock Floriane has packed a lot of experience into her education and career s ..read more

Cath Janes is an award-winning human anatomical embroidery artist. Under her brand name of Kraken Kreations she combines anatomically correct illustrations with colourful hand embroidery which all have a story to tell. Cath shares her honest and hilarious story of the ups and downs of the creative life of an artist, and her unique and distinctive art. There is so much entertainment as well as valuable creative business lessons contained within this episode of the Stitchery Stories textile art and embroidery podcast. Maybe you dream of going viral on Instagram, worry about being artistically lo ..read more

Susan Hensel is a multidisciplinary artist with a long-established career. She combines mixed media with digital machine embroidery to create beautiful sculptural forms flooded with colour. Alongside runs her gallery & curatative experience, giving us a fabulous guest sharing her art practice wisdom, on Stitchery Stories textile art podcast. Art is all about communication. Creating art to interpret your thoughts, inspirations, perhaps trying to make sense of the world. And the communication continues long after the art is finished.... you need to tell everyone about it, so they can enjoy i ..read more

Jennie-maree Tempest is a textile artist living on the Bass Coast of Australia. After many years creating art quilts and portraits, she has decided to challenge her textile art skills and creativity by creating textile art botanical sculptures. Jennie-maree focuses her creativity inspired by the native Australian species that grow around her coastal home. The latest is a flowering yucca that is around 6ft / nearly 2m tall! It has been a massive undertaking, and has taken over four months of hard work to create. It's not only a challenge of textile art but also of construction. How did she make ..read more

Today on the Stitchery Stories textile art podcast, Nikki Parmenter shares her life in fabric & thread & a wide range of interesting materials too! She chats with Susan Weeks about the wide range of inspirations and materials that she uses to create her large scale art. And although Nikki has a Fine Art background, she is very much self-taught when it comes to incorporating textiles and embroidery into the mix! Plenty of experimenting has developed a vivid and exuberant style. Nikki 'escaped' the world of education back in 2016 but her absolute delight in teaching people still shines t ..read more