My final major project was inspired by two themes, still life and cloth memory.
 

Using still life arrangements, I created mark making drawings on a large scale. I worked with a variety of materials during the drawing process to enable me to have a large breadth of marks to translate into stitch.  I  experimented with the hand stitches I used in order to create the different marks made in my drawings.

When I prepared my fabric my second theme took hold.  I am fascinated and inspired by the memories that cloth can hold; particularly the wear and tear of the clothing of those unfortunate people who had no choice but to labour away in the harsh Victorian workhouse. A way in which I developed this theme was by the manipulation of the surfaces by staining them with dye, and wearing down the fibres by using sandpaper.

 It was also the labour intensive theme that inspired me to create my work purely by hand. In an effort to replicate the atmosphere and struggle of the workhouse I adopted these repetitive, tedious and time consuming ways of working.
 

Below are two gallerys with photographs of my work. Left are my drawings, and right are my textiles. Click on the images to enlarge them and scroll through.