About Susan
Susan has been teaching embroidery for many years and loves to share her enthusiasm for a wide range of techniques.
She completed her City and Guilds Part II in Embroidery with the inspirational Anthea Godfrey at the London College of Fashion (as it then was). Over the past twenty years, she has taught a wide range of classes including City and Guilds and leisure classes, with the WI, and most recently independently in the Wivenhoe and the Colchester area of Essex.
Susan took early retirement in 2013, giving her more time for embroidery and textile related activities. She enjoys being an active participant in the local branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild, visiting more exhibitions, attending workshops and reading more about her favourite textile art topics both in print and on-line.
She has also become a student again, signing up for the City and Guilds in Patchwork and Quilting with Creative Stitch Suffolk. According to Susan, “It’s been great to take on new challenges and learn new skills.”
Susan blogs regularly on her website, Threadlines, where she gathers together various elements of her long-standing fascination with embroidery and textile arts more generally. Her hope is that Threadlines will widen her circle of embroidery and textile art friends, and encourage non-embroiderers to try it – just once (that’s all it takes!
Signature Technique
Embroidery
Susan’s Top Tips
- The simpler the stitch, often, the more you can do with it.
- One of the (many) aspects of textiles that I love is that you don’t need to be doing just one project. Try new things…several at a time!
- Doing something completely new with a group of friends makes it extra special.
- If you want to know the ‘right’ way to embroider then turn to a technique manual.
Books and Patterns
Posts
Stuttering films
Val: If you are new to the site we hope you are enjoying it. Should you find that the films aren't running smoothly, the data file to download onto your machine is quite large, so here is a little trick: once you have pushed the play arrow in the centre of the filmscreen, you will see a pause option appear in the bottom section (it looks like this II); if you pause the film, it will continue to load in the background - you can see this as a different colour line appearing and growing longer - which will allow you to pop off and make a cup of tea, so that when you come back the film will run smoothly and you can enjoy watching the films as you sup your tea (or wine and/or other beverage!)
Textile Museum of Canada
Val: Just back from a couple of weeks visiting in Toronto, Canada; while there I cam across the hidden gem of the Textile Museum of Canada - located at 55 Centre Avenue. The current exhibition runs until Feb 2011 and is called 'Drawing with Scissors' and features Molas from Kuna Yala - fascinating; there are also several other exhibits always running on the building as well as a children's floor where they can has a hands-on experience with fibres - weaving and such - as well as experience different cottons, wools etc. more info at www.textilemuseum.ca
September 2010
As you know we were all at the Festival of [...]