These are my progress photographs for Stage 1 of the 2014 Hand and Lock Embroidery competition. It is for students of embroidery, design, arts, surface textiles, costume, fibres, interiors, fashion and textiles throughout the world. The aim is to promote the use of hand embroidered surface embellishment within fashion, costume and soft furnishing. All in the hope that contemporary design and other fresh approaches will be inspired to embrace hand embroidery, to acknowledge and value its quality and expertise.This years focus is on goldwork specifically, which was used in medieval times. It involves the use of couched gold copper wire over velvet.

After researching medieval church embroidery, I became interested in Gothic architecture, particularly the beautiful geometric church windows. I want to capture the same kind of central motif, and have its placement similar to that of the church robes. I also want to show the natural growth of flowers, growing towards a common point. Our lives are filled with overwhelming changes, but the patterns of nature stay the same, which is an idea I found comforting in this crazy world. I wanted to portray this comfort by using handspun copper from Habu Textiles instead of gold wire, and hand dyed double sided wool rather than velvet.

I separated the back from the front and sleeves because I travel a lot and it is lighter and easier to carry! I have one of the flowers filled in, using the couching method. I plan to fill them all in! I hope I make it to the second stage, but I still love doing work like this. The competition just gives me deadlines for it :)