About Kate
Kate grew up in North Wales and originally studied costume at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff before graduating in 2001 with a BA Hons in Theatre Design. Following this she worked as a freelance costume maker at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and then as part of the Touring Wardrobe department at the Welsh National Opera. Kate has always loved hand embroidery, and got the stitching bug from her Nan at an early age, so in 2013 she decided to take the plunge and re-train as an embroidery tutor at the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) at Hampton Court Palace.
Kate graduated from the Future Tutors Programme at the RSN with distinction in 2016. During the course she studied many traditional hand embroidery techniques including goldwork, Jacobean crewel work, blackwork, stumpwork and silk shading. In 2015 Kates Advanced Silk Shaded budgie “Smuggler” was accepted by the Royal Academy of Arts for their annual Summer Exhibition. The piece was also made into a greetings card.
Kate loves to design her own embroidery kits, using traditional techniques in a contemporary way. She also likes to combine her embroidery with her love of historical dress, creating kits based on original pieces. Her classes can cover all levels of ability, from absolute beginners to more advanced stitchers. When she’s not involved in freelance projects Kate works as a stitcher for the RSN in their commercial studio, working on conservation, restoration and private commissions.
Kate has taught for the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace, RSN Bristol, Bath Fashion Museum, Williamsburg School of Needlework in the U.S., and the RSN 2018 Summer School in Lexington, Kentucky. She also teaches for The Craft Sanctuary, Needlework Tours and Cruises, The Alpine Experience, Crewelwork Company, and justhands-on.tv !
In 2018 Kate was runner up in The National Needlecraft Awards 2019 Embroidery Designer of the Year category.
Signature Technique
Silk Shading
Top Tips
- You invest a lot of time and love in your stitching so always buy the best quality materials and equipment you can afford. This will give you better results and will create pieces that will last and hopefully become heirlooms!
- To help stop your threads from becoming knotted and tangled, work with a fairly short length in the needle. About 30cm is a good length and it will also help to maintain the condition of the thread.
- Don’t be afraid to have a go! Even the best stitchers get very good at unpicking! One of the nice things about hand embroidery is that you can take things out if you’re not 100% happy.
- Use traditional techniques in a contemporary way to create beautiful textile art.
- Practise, practise, practise. I know it’s a bit of a cliche but every has to start somewhere are the more you stitch the better you get.
- Don’t underestimate the healing effects of hand sewing. Your projects don’t need to be complicated, even simple stitching can bring great pleasure and calm.
Videos
Posts
Filming with Sylvia Critcher
What a great day we had with Sylvia learning about her new book and seeing all the wonderful samples she made for it. The book claims to have 10 projects in it, but the quilt alone has 9 patterns and then there is the winter table runner which I just fell in love with - full of snowflake patterns so great value for money - keep watching for the workshops!
The Wordsmith by Janet Clare
Follow-up hospital appointments mean lots of waiting around so this time I took something 'nice' along to read; well how understated is that - this book is fabulous; Janet combines delightful little stories about her life and the inspiration for her memory quilt, with her line-drawings which makes this book very readable and memorable; THEN you get projects too! I've already mentioned the Memory quilt, but there is also the Alphabet quilt and then taking those letters there is the poetry quilt: hers reads Warm Sighing; quiet settled but she gives you tips on how to translate your phrase into a quilt too - just brilliant!
Creative Quilting Open 7 days a week – Classes and Workshops
We stock 1000's of fabrics as well as books, notions, beads, buttons, wadding. We run classes during the week and at weekends and attend major quilts shows Visit www.creativequilting.co.uk for products and the latest class listing can be found here. Contact : Izzy
Email: isabelle@creativequilting.co.uk
