A small collection of goldwork insects all hand embroidered by me, are now available at Pentlja Concept Store in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Each insect is embroidered with goldwork threads in silver and gold, with highlights of purple, green and blue. They are embroidered on black wool felt and made into brooches and sew on patches,

I will also be launching my own online shop soon, where I will be selling a selection of hand embroidered goldwork and Swarovski crystal bee patches and brooches. If you would like to be notified when the shop opens you can sign up to my mailing list. To do so please send me an email using the email form on the contact page. Later this year, framed embroideries featuring bees and insects will also be available in the online shop.

My Instagram account @theperpetualmaker is the best place to see regular updates about what I am currently embroidering. If you are not already following me, you might like to take a look!

A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by Rebeckah Kemi Apara from Embellished Talk. Follow the link to read about my work, the books that inspire me and a couple of my favourite embroiderers on Instagram. http://www.embellishedtalk.com/the-perpetual-maker/

Today I am going to introduce you to one of the samples that went on to become a part of my jumpsuit design for the Hand & Lock Prize. This sample was developed towards the end of my project and combines features of other samples that I had been developing for several months. It uses tambour embroidered honeycomb as a base, this is a tambour stitch which is normally used for cutwork but here I have just used it to create the pattern. Over the top of this I have embroidered goldwork and Swarovski gemstone bees. The honeycomb is then tambour beaded with pearls and square cut glass beads.

This sample became one of my favourites and I decided to use it as part of my garment design. As the theme of the 2017 Prize was celebration, I decided that black wasn’t the right colour and instead used golden honey coloured organza. The honeycomb pattern was used all over the jumpsuit and on the belt which also featured the goldwork and Swarovski gemstone bees. The bees were also used on the tulle overlay so that they appeared to be floating above the honeycomb underneath.

I was very excited yesterday to see that Hand & Lock had released the photographs of all the winning entries from the Hand & Lock Prize 2017 on their website. I hadn’t seen my work on a model prior to this as I finished making the jumpsuit the day before I delivered it to the Hand & Lock studio. Pictured below is the image of my jumpsuit from the photo shoot. I am so delighted with how they have styled it and very relieved it fitted the model well!

It’s very surreal to see my work and name on the Hand & Lock website! It’s such a pleasure for me to be able to embroider full time at the moment and to have my name appearing on the website of such a prestigious embroidery company.

I have been getting a lot of questions over on Instagram about selling my work and teaching classes and as I am aware that my readers here may not follow my Instagram, I will answer these questions here too in case anyone is interested. Next year I will be starting to sell a couple of embroidered products that I am currently in the process of making. There will be more updates on this nearer the time as to where they will be sold. I am also hoping to teach some classes in tambour beading and goldwork next year but I am trying to find a venue at which to hold them. However they will most likely be located in the city of Bath.

On Thursday evening the live judging and prize giving event for the Hand & Lock Prize 2017 took place at the Bishopsgate Institute in London. I am delighted to announce that I was awarded third place in the fashion open category. Thank you to everyone who voted for me and took an interest in my work, it was so lovely to speak to so many people about my project and explain the hand embroidery processes used in my final garment.

Everyone’s work was displayed beautifully at the event and there were so many absolutely stunning examples of hand embroidery on show. I have included some photos from the evening and a couple of close ups of my final garment below. If you would like to see all the photos of my embroidery development samples for this project head over to the gallery section.

The theme of the 2017 Prize was ‘Celebration’. My embroidery designs celebrated threatened and endangered animals and insects, eventually solely focusing on bees. Recently a lot of attention has been placed on the decline of bees which have become increasingly threatened by human acitivity. I decided to make my final garment a celebration of bees and drew inspiration from a bee keepers suit. I used goldwork and Swarovski crystals to embroider a swarm of bees around the jumpsuit. The bees are sewn on to tulle as if they are caught in a bee keepers veil and the honeycomb belt represents the hive where the queen bee, embroidered with purple gemstones, is surrounded by worker bees. The jumpsuit is made from four layers of organza hand dyed in different honey tones. This is embroidered using tambour cutwork stitch with sections cut away to expose the different honey colours. Sections of the honeycomb are tambour beaded with pearls and glass beads. The jumpsuit is accompanied by a wide brimmed hat which features a honeycomb pattern embroidered with beads and goldwork threads. An eye mask (here worn as a choker) also features honeycomb embroidery.

I've been in embroidery hibernation for the past two months working on a very important project and now I'm back with some exciting news. At the end of July I was selected as a finalist in the Hand & Lock Prize and have spent the summer making and embroidering my entry. I entered the fashion open category so my entry is a garment but I am keeping all other details secret for now. All will be revealed on the 2nd of November at the live judging event in London. The vote is split between a judging panel and the attendees on the night, so it will certainly be an exciting and nerve racking event!

The goldwork bee pictured here was made at the request of a relative. It is related to my Hand & Lock entry but does not give anything away. I can't wait to finally reveal my entry and all of the samples which I have worked on for the past year.

After a couple of weeks of non stop working and thinking about my Hand and Lock prize submission, I finally submitted it on Wednesday night. I have been working on it for ten months now so it feels quite strange to suddenly have finished. Although I would really love to share all the photos now, I am keeping my work secret for a little bit longer. It all depends on the outcome of the competition but I have some plans for what I am going to do next, so keep your eyes peeled for the photos and news in the coming months. I'm working on a couple of requests for embroidery pieces now and I am continuing to intern for Joe Richards and excited to start a new project with him in July. For now I will leave you with a couple of work in progress teasers of my Hand and Lock prize entry.

I've spent a lot of time making various things in my lifetime and as I've grown up and my interests have become more specialised, my need for harder to source materials has increased. In my own embroidery work I am specialsing in goldwork and tambour beading and both techniques require materials which are not readily available from a haberdashery. I have spent a lot of time trawling the internet to find items such as pre strung beads and sequins and goldwork threads so I thought I would share my recommended list of suppliers with you.

First I'll start with tambour supplies, it is necessary to buy pre strung beads and sequins unless you are prepared to string them yourself, which I personally do not have the patience for! All of the sites that I have found selling tambour supplies are French, so you have to be prepared to pay a little more postage. The absolute best place I have found is Paillettes et Broderie, they have every type of sequin you can imagine in every finish and colour and an equally great selection of beads. The only downside is it can become quite expensive especially with the sequins. Another supplier is Brodely, there's not as much choice here and the sequin and bead bundles are not quite as big but it's a good alternative. I have also recently discovered Fried Frères, they have a shop in Paris (which looks amazing) and you can request a catalogue to order from. I haven't bought anything from them yet but they sell pre strung beads and sequins as well as hot fix stones, buttons, more unusual embroidery supplies and general haberdashery items.

Since I graduated last summer I have been interning for Bath based designer Joe Richards. I have been working with Joe on hand embroidery for his Pre + Autumn/Winter collections. This has included embroidering many samples to develop the embroidery ideas for the collection and embroidering the final garments. This season Joe has also been doing a collaboration with John Smedley so all of the knit pieces in the collection are from the collaboration.  The pieces that I have hand embroidered polo necks, jumpers, cardigans and a coat, as well as socks in three different colours. They are all embroidered with extra long glass and metallic bugle beads in a variety of colours and patterns. Below I have included photos of these garments and some images of the garments in the process of being embroidered.

The collection has already been shown in a press preview and will also be shown at London fashion week later this month.

 Go to http://www.byjoerichards.com/ to see the full collection.