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
Twiddling, Fiddling and some Magic too -A Weekend Retreat in Henley on Thames
What a super time we all had; there was sewing for two days at the Lady Sew and Sew warehouse in Henley and then dinner at the Red Lion Hotel in Henley followed by the hilarious talk from Jennie Rayment. The sewing schedule was, for me as a tutor, a little different in that I only had to prepare to teach for a one-day workshop - teaching half the delegates on day 1 and then the other half on day 2. There was a little Magic 4 from me, and some Twiddling and Fiddling from Jennie and from the delegates point of view they got the benefit of both of us without having to move!!!
40 Minute Scrap Quilt – 1,000,000 views and counting…
We have some amazing news - Valerie's 40 minute quilt video has taken the internet by storm and has been viewed over ONE MILLION times on You Tube - making her our very own internet phenomenon. Some of you may have already watched Valerie's 40 minute scrap quilt video - it's an amazingly quick and easy quilt - that's great for anyone to make.
21 April 2017
New Videos Every Friday #1million views and counting Recently, [...]