About Dionne
Dionne paints with stitches to create dynamic, vibrantly coloured textiles. Her needle becomes her pen and thread her ink. The scale, emotion, and energy of her landscapes are inspirational.
Dionne is a graduate of Goldsmith’s College, London University. She has a Masters in Textiles from UCE. And she has been recognised by the industry for her incredible work, e.g. Shortlisted Finalist in the Fine Art Textiles Award at The Festival of Quilts 2020.
Now based between Yorkshire [UK] and Abruzzo [Italy], she exhibits and tutors internationally.
You can watch Dionne demonstrate how to use free motion embroidery to create a range of patterns, textures, tones, and shades in an episode of The Makers Studio series, brought to you by Janome and justhands-on.tv.
Signature Technique
Painting with stitches
Top Tips
- Use a vibrant mix of thread weights, colours, and styles to build up a more dynamic texture.
- A machine with an extra wide throat makes it easier to manipulate your piece.
- Cover your hoop with fabric to give it more grip. You need the fabric to stay drum like as you manoeuvre it.
- Drawing your subject first, with pencil on paper, can help improve your observation and knowledge of your subject – try not to work from a photograph.
- Practice by stitching your signature to get started. Your muscle memory will help you.
- Think of painting with stitches as an orchestra with the sewing machine, threads, fabric, hoop, and you (!) coming together to work as one.
- Don’t be afraid of the machine. After a few hours of speed sewing it becomes second nature.
- Try not to have a set image of the outcome. You are not stitching an exact replica. The result is where you get to. There is no wrong in there. Enjoy the journey.
Videos
Patterns
Posts
Malta – Our first international retreat
Jennie and Valerie have just come back from our first international justhands-on.tv quilting retreat in Malta with Stitchtopia/Arena Travel After a couple of days sightseeing and chilling at the hotel, our ladies enjoyed 4 days of workshops learning how to twiddle and fiddle with Jennie and then creating a quilt with Valerie combining the Dresden Plate/Grandmothers Fan blocks on day one with Flying geese on day two to create small medallion style quilts.
17 November 2017
New Videos Every Friday Shisha Mirrors We return [...]
Accomplishments
Janet wrote to show us her quilt - she's very proud of her accomplishment. She retired at 61yrs and thought she would try her hand at patchwork. This is the second quilt she made. She told us "it's not perfect as you can see but an accomplishment I never thought possible." We think it's a fantastic accomplishment and a lovely choice of colours too.