December 2011  

The workshops and teaching that I've been doing at Stag and Bow, Stitches in Time and the Dulwich Picture Gallery are nearly at an end for this year. More are booked for the New Year.

I will also be teaching my "Hand-knitting and sewing for you and your home" class again in 2012 at the Marlborough College Summer School (5th to 11th August).

 
     
   
     

 

 

  

 

 
     








In November of 2009, I began working on a part-time basis, with a charity called Stitches in Time, based in Limehouse in the East of London. This organisation works with the community on publically and privately funded textile-based projects. In January 2010, Stitches was commissioned by Historic Royal Palaces to knit a throne, to be installed in Kensington Palace as part of the Enchanted Palace exhibition. I have been the lead artist on this project, which has occupied most of my time since the beginning of the year. Working from a watercolour sketch provided by Bill Mitchell, the artistic director of Wildworks, an international theatre compnay based in Cornwall, who have been responsible for creating the exhibition, and using as a base a throne-like wood and leather chair which the Palace already possessed, I translated the various elements of the throne into hand-knitting patterns and sourced materials. Where possible, I divided those patterns into smaller units and led knitting workshops of elders and younger people who knitted sections. Other pieces I knitted myself. With the help of the production team at Stitches, the whole thing was stitched together and attached to the chair. The completed throne was delivered and installed in Kensington Palace on 19th March, The Enchanted Palace exhibition opened to the public on 26 March 2010, the exhibition will be open until 2012.

In October and November of 2010 I worked again with community groups, under the auspices of Stitches in Time, to create knitted decorations for a Xmas tree which was installed in the Throne Room at Kensington Palace in early December.

And now we have knitted some Crown Jewels - a crown, an orb and a sceptre, delivered to Kensington Palace in early May 2011.


Details can be found on the Kensington Palace website www.hrp.org.uk/kensingtonpalace