Trini Folliot

‘Every year, I have an opportunity to attend a week’s class with the talented Catherine Laurençon in France. This is my work with her, Chinese Lanterns or Physalis.’

‘Her choice of colours, her techniques are out of this world. During the week, we only had time to work on different aspects of the embroidery, then I finished the rest at home. I am beyond pleased with the result.’

What a wonderful opportunity, Trini! Catherine Laurençon’s work is truly remarkable, and your stitching reflects such skill and beauty. What a rewarding class.

Claude Andrée Lecerf

‘Lately I haven’t had much time reserved for embroidery, but I can't imagine my life without this activity.’

‘I became attached to this pretty project, the blue vase, created by Laurence Lieblich. I hope you like it.’

Claude, your vase is absolutely beautiful, and you have done an amazing job bringing this project to life. Even if you haven’t had much time for embroidery recently, this piece showcases your passion and talent for needlework superbly.

Josephine Symons

‘My mother was a very keen needlewoman and taught me to sew, knit and embroider at a very young age. I also love to paint so it was a happy combination to create my own designs when I discovered machine embroidery around 30 years ago.

Over the last few years, I’ve set myself the goal to try and create embroidery that looks hand stitched as I really love hand embroidery.

I’ve devised my own technique to achieve this by lowering the feed dogs at the machine, setting the needle to always stop in the up position and stitching extremely slowly in free motion.

I have a particular fondness for nature and birds are especially suited to this kind of technique.’

‘My latest free motion machine embroidered bird, a robin.’

‘Also, my Beatrix Potter’s Jemima Puddle-Duck done in free motion machine embroidery. Beatrix Potter’s unique style of illustration lends itself very well to interpretation as embroidery.’

How clever of you to develop, evolve and perfect your techniques and create such a unique process, Josephine. Your Robin and Jemima are gorgeous characters and you have certainly achieved the hand stitched look you were after. Well done!

Have you stitched a design in class? Have you stitched a still life? Or have you created your own technique for stitching?

Whatever you are stitching, we’d love to see it! Email photos of what you’ve created with needle and thread along with a few details about your stitching journey to news@inspirationsstudios.com