I bought my first loom in 2012, and I had no idea what it was or how to use it. It was £3 on eBay, and I tended to buy craft materials and experiment with them to eventually blog about them. I’ve always been creative and was brought up in a creative family, so I was always excited and interested in new crafts and materials. What I didn’t know was that this loom was going to be the craft that stuck, the craft that I wanted to do most days. I am still excited by it. My weaving style has changed over the years but what has stuck with me is the want and ability to experiment with the techniques I’ve learned. I spent a lot of time teaching myself how to weave using old books and a lot of trial and error.
Around this time, I was a freelance graphic designer, so I would spend my usual 9–5 working in design studios in London or Brighton and then in my spare time I would weave. This practice grew and grew, alongside my collection of weaving looms. It was such an excitement that it was gaining quite a bit of attraction, and I was asked to teach a woven wall hanging class. From then on, for quite a few years, I would work the weeks designing and then most weekends teaching weaving. I would document my weaving on Instagram, and it gave me numerous exciting opportunities which I’m still proud of today.
In 2015, I decided I would enroll myself into a tapestry weaving short course at West Dean, which is one of the few working tapestry weaving studios in England. I spent a long weekend there learning the “correct” way to tapestry weave and how to experiment with color and how to build texture into my work. This course was such a brilliant experience for me, and I still have the samples I made when I was there as they mean so much to me. I think it was a real turning point in my weaving career. I knew I wanted to have weaving in my life more permanently.
Over the years I have taught thousands of people to weave. I have taken such enjoyment from the classes and seeing people’s faces light up when they have created their own unique woven wall hangings. I still really love seeing what people create, considering I take the same materials to each class and each student comes away with something unique to themselves. I find this incredibly inspiring, and I think that teaching has brought a lot to my weaving practice, and I hope I can carry on teaching these skills to more and more people who would love to weave. The workshops have taken me to places I’ve never visited before all over the UK and even in Europe. It really is such a joy to teach people how to weave.
The other side to my weaving business is commissions, which I’ve only had a few of, and it’s more of what I want to do in the future. I was commissioned by British Airlines to create a large woven wall hanging, which was based on the piece I wove for my husband and I’s wedding. This piece for BA was to be filmed and documented for their first-class magazine which would be on their flights for half the year. This piece got me some very exciting and large commissions which have been some of my favorite jobs.
In 2019 I had my daughter and had to make some decisions about my career. I knew I wouldn’t be able to weave and work as a freelance graphic designer, so I decided it was time to concentrate fully on my weaving business. So, the time I did have while bringing up my daughter I worked on my weaving business and writing craft books. I have written 4 books now and the latest one was on weaving with natural dyes, which was such a proud moment for me. The book took a few years to complete but I’m so proud of it.
Alongside the teaching, I have recently completed my two-year Weaving Foundation course at West Dean, where it all started. We covered tapestry weaving in detail and how to develop a unique style. I met some incredible weavers who are also wonderful friends now and it was worth the investment in time and money.
The dream was always to open a weaving school near where I lived so I could bring the workshops to my studio and to cut down on travelling, which was getting harder with a young family. By chance, a college about a two-hour drive away contacted me and asked if I could take 10 table looms by the end of that week as they had closed their weaving department. If I couldn’t collect them, they would end up in the skip. I couldn’t let these looms go in the bin, so I just said yes. Later that week I hired a van and drove to collect them. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into but luckily my dad let me store them for a few months while I figured out a space to house them. The weaving school was happening a lot quicker than I was expecting. It took a couple of months, but I found the space that I am now in. I kept half of the looms and rehomed the rest to other weavers I knew. I now teach on these looms alongside tapestry weaving from my studio. I source all the wool for my workshops from mills, so the wool is all deadstock.
The looms I use in my everyday practice are a Lillstina floor loom and a Dryad upright tapestry loom. The Dryad loom is kept in my living room at home as my studio is up 6 flights of stairs and doesn’t have a lift. We can’t carry the loom to the studio so for now it will stay at home.
The next steps for my studio will be to carry on teaching and to film an online tapestry weaving class. I would one day love to have a front-facing space, a workshop space that can be seen from the Highstreet. I would love to also have more of my work exhibited and be seen in the art world.
My process for creating and weaving always starts in my sketchbook. I’m a huge fan of Pinterest and collecting imagery. Also collecting wool! This can sometimes dictate what I will weave, as I love finding new color combinations to weave with. Recently, a lot of my work has been woven with waste; waste from workshops I have run and some waste from the West Dean tapestry studio. I have really enjoyed working in this way as, in a way, it takes the decision from you, and what you will create will be unique and I can’t weave another in the same way. Each weave will often start from a sketch, I will then develop the sketch into what we call a “cartoon.” A cartoon is what will hang behind the tapestry frame and I will use this as a guide to weave against. More recently my work has been 3D, and I am interested in weaving vessels so the cartoons are more of a guide to which warps are left free to what colors will go where. Depending on the day, though, I might just weave freestyle and see what happens when I pull the warps. I like the unpredictability of what will happen when you pull them to create the vessels. If I’m working with a client, I will often create a mood board alongside the sketches to really help tell the story.
This process is often evolving and developing and that’s what I love about weaving and the process I use. For me, it’s more about playing and experimenting in my own time. I hope to have more of that in my practice as I grow, because I believe it’s where the most exciting and original pieces are made.
I bought my first loom in 2012, and I had no idea what it was or how to use it. It was £3 on eBay, and I tended to buy craft materials and experiment with them to eventually blog about them. I’ve always been creative and was brought up in a creative family, so I was always excited and interested in new crafts and materials. What I didn’t know was that this loom was going to be the craft that stuck, the craft that I wanted to do most days. I am still excited by it. My weaving style has changed over the years but what has stuck with me is the want and ability to experiment with the techniques I’ve learned. I spent a lot of time teaching myself how to weave using old books and a lot of trial and error.
Around this time, I was a freelance graphic designer, so I would spend my usual 9–5 working in design studios in London or Brighton and then in my spare time I would weave. This practice grew and grew, alongside my collection of weaving looms. It was such an excitement that it was gaining quite a bit of attraction, and I was asked to teach a woven wall hanging class. From then on, for quite a few years, I would work the weeks designing and then most weekends teaching weaving. I would document my weaving on Instagram, and it gave me numerous exciting opportunities which I’m still proud of today.
In 2015, I decided I would enroll myself into a tapestry weaving short course at West Dean, which is one of the few working tapestry weaving studios in England. I spent a long weekend there learning the “correct” way to tapestry weave and how to experiment with color and how to build texture into my work. This course was such a brilliant experience for me, and I still have the samples I made when I was there as they mean so much to me. I think it was a real turning point in my weaving career. I knew I wanted to have weaving in my life more permanently.
Over the years I have taught thousands of people to weave. I have taken such enjoyment from the classes and seeing people’s faces light up when they have created their own unique woven wall hangings. I still really love seeing what people create, considering I take the same materials to each class and each student comes away with something unique to themselves. I find this incredibly inspiring, and I think that teaching has brought a lot to my weaving practice, and I hope I can carry on teaching these skills to more and more people who would love to weave. The workshops have taken me to places I’ve never visited before all over the UK and even in Europe. It really is such a joy to teach people how to weave.
The other side to my weaving business is commissions, which I’ve only had a few of, and it’s more of what I want to do in the future. I was commissioned by British Airlines to create a large woven wall hanging, which was based on the piece I wove for my husband and I’s wedding. This piece for BA was to be filmed and documented for their first-class magazine which would be on their flights for half the year. This piece got me some very exciting and large commissions which have been some of my favorite jobs.
In 2019 I had my daughter and had to make some decisions about my career. I knew I wouldn’t be able to weave and work as a freelance graphic designer, so I decided it was time to concentrate fully on my weaving business. So, the time I did have while bringing up my daughter I worked on my weaving business and writing craft books. I have written 4 books now and the latest one was on weaving with natural dyes, which was such a proud moment for me. The book took a few years to complete but I’m so proud of it.
Alongside the teaching, I have recently completed my two-year Weaving Foundation course at West Dean, where it all started. We covered tapestry weaving in detail and how to develop a unique style. I met some incredible weavers who are also wonderful friends now and it was worth the investment in time and money.
The dream was always to open a weaving school near where I lived so I could bring the workshops to my studio and to cut down on travelling, which was getting harder with a young family. By chance, a college about a two-hour drive away contacted me and asked if I could take 10 table looms by the end of that week as they had closed their weaving department. If I couldn’t collect them, they would end up in the skip. I couldn’t let these looms go in the bin, so I just said yes. Later that week I hired a van and drove to collect them. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into but luckily my dad let me store them for a few months while I figured out a space to house them. The weaving school was happening a lot quicker than I was expecting. It took a couple of months, but I found the space that I am now in. I kept half of the looms and rehomed the rest to other weavers I knew. I now teach on these looms alongside tapestry weaving from my studio. I source all the wool for my workshops from mills, so the wool is all deadstock.
The looms I use in my everyday practice are a Lillstina floor loom and a Dryad upright tapestry loom. The Dryad loom is kept in my living room at home as my studio is up 6 flights of stairs and doesn’t have a lift. We can’t carry the loom to the studio so for now it will stay at home.
The next steps for my studio will be to carry on teaching and to film an online tapestry weaving class. I would one day love to have a front-facing space, a workshop space that can be seen from the Highstreet. I would love to also have more of my work exhibited and be seen in the art world.
My process for creating and weaving always starts in my sketchbook. I’m a huge fan of Pinterest and collecting imagery. Also collecting wool! This can sometimes dictate what I will weave, as I love finding new color combinations to weave with. Recently, a lot of my work has been woven with waste; waste from workshops I have run and some waste from the West Dean tapestry studio. I have really enjoyed working in this way as, in a way, it takes the decision from you, and what you will create will be unique and I can’t weave another in the same way. Each weave will often start from a sketch, I will then develop the sketch into what we call a “cartoon.” A cartoon is what will hang behind the tapestry frame and I will use this as a guide to weave against. More recently my work has been 3D, and I am interested in weaving vessels so the cartoons are more of a guide to which warps are left free to what colors will go where. Depending on the day, though, I might just weave freestyle and see what happens when I pull the warps. I like the unpredictability of what will happen when you pull them to create the vessels. If I’m working with a client, I will often create a mood board alongside the sketches to really help tell the story.
This process is often evolving and developing and that’s what I love about weaving and the process I use. For me, it’s more about playing and experimenting in my own time. I hope to have more of that in my practice as I grow, because I believe it’s where the most exciting and original pieces are made.
