Hello!
Welcome to my small stitched world.
My name is Jane and I design and make quirky things in fabric. I also encourage others to be creative with huge community quilts and workshops. I hope you enjoy looking around my pages and find something to inspire you. But where did it all begin.....
Starting of course in First school where I vividly remember learning how to knit in Reception class with my teacher Miss England (a pale yellow purse with a sparkly button, if you are wondering).
I was often given drawing or fashion designing activity toys for Christmas and birthdays, mum is sure it spurred my interest in designing and making clothes.
I remember designing knitted rainbow accessories including legwarmers, all the rage in the late 70’s!
Vintage inspired little trees, hand embroidered, vintage fabrics.
A cute little vintage sewing machine, owls and cotton reel trees.
An eco printed and hand embroidered fabric pouch with glass button detail.
Vintage inspired little trees, hand embroidered, vintage fabrics.
After O and A levels in Needlework and Art and a one year foundation course, I went onto a degree in Fashion and Textiles at Leicester Polytechnic in the mid 80’s. Thoroughly enjoyed my time at Leicester, I often remember back to things we were taught then and apply them to my practice now.
I had a chequered work history for around ten years, making dance costumes for Performing arts students and then some contemporary dance companies and designing casual wear for one of the larger Leicester based companies. But times were tough in the early 90’s and I found myself working in retail until 1998 when I stopped work to start a family.
Fast forward ten years and three children and I’ve been self-employed for almost fifteen years now. Starting off with just making small things out of felt while the children were little, venturing into teaching in Adult Learning and going into Primary schools to do textiles projects nine years ago. I was outgrowing the house and took up studio space in Milton Keynes in
Nine years later, I am still in the same Artist Hub, making small things for my Folksy shop and huge quilts for schools and the community. I’m very lucky to have done so many projects over the years, I am slowly adding big quilts in and around Milton Keynes, which is a real honour. Ironically, since the pandemic I have been really busy with large community projects, silk flags for the MK International festival and the Queens Jubilee pageant with Kinetika.
Thank you for liking my work, do contact me if you are interested in a commission, workshop or a talk about my work.
Jane
January 2023