Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

With the new year in full swing I am now trying to focus more on refining my 'brand'; my style and the direction I would like to take my work in. I usually refer to myself as a 'Textile Artist' because I like that this is an ambiguous title which is difficult to define. My work to date often blurs boundaries between illustration, textiles, fine art, craft, costume and fashion, so it's kind of easier to sum that up by calling it 'Textile Art'. The first piece I created for this 'polishing' is what I'm calling the 'Little Bird' embroidery (imaginative, I know): This is only 3" in diameter, so he truly is little; a fun and quick little piece to start the new year with. The bird itself was inspired by a carved wooden mantelpiece I saw at a museum in North Wales recently: Little Bird is in the middle there; I changed him slightly from the original to make him mine and not just a copy. I also really like the plant and clock and have

Like everyone else, I rarely have time to work on projects that are all for myself these days, but over the holidays I made time for a quick project I'd been planning for a while. I had a plain faux suede turquoise shift dress (apologies for the following terrible two photos): From meh... That I wanted to embellish and make more exciting, like so: ...to yeh! With just a little bit of embroidery around the neckline and pockets I think it looks much more interesting. Here's some better photos with detail: The yellowy greeny thread is your regular DMC / Anchor type but the blue thread is a vintage 1960s Swedish silk that I picked up from  Linladen  at the Festival of Quilts last August. This is a really good quality thread that I'll be saving for the most special projects! I chose the pocket pattern from Constance Howard's book 'Inspiration for Embroidery' and the herringbone stitch is one that I've been using in various projects for a while