I’ve created two workshops for Stitch Club: Say Something with Stitch, about finding your voice and putting meaning into your work, and A Cast of Stitched Characters, bringing figures to life in fabric and thread.
Both come with Stitch Club membership from TextileArtist.org, alongside over 70 workshops from leading textile artists and a community I’m really proud to be part of.
Join with my link (see link in Linktree on Threads) and the code STITCH-25 to get 25% off your first month. Cancel anytime, so you’re free to come just for my workshops.
I am delighted to announce that tickets are now on sale for my weekend workshop ‘People & their Stories‘. It will take place on 26 & 27April 2025 at Beth Morris Workshops in Cardiff.
Spaces are limited so please sign up nowto secure your place. I am looking forward to meeting you in Cardiff next Spring!
About the weekend workshop
This 2 day workshop, ‘People & their Stories’ will introduce you to creating illustrative, stitched portraits using hand stitch and appliqué.
My teaching style is one of individual, personal tuition throughout the workshop. I will start by guiding you through the straightforward techniques that I use in my work.
I will also bring a collection of my small works and personal samples. You can use them as inspiration for your own work.
The workshop is suitable for all abilities and will include:
How to transform your own drawings or photos into a starting point for a stitched piece
How to get started using uncomplicated techniques of image transfer to fabric
Drawing with simple stitches, like back stitch and running stitch
Using sampling to help decide on techniques and designs
Exploring appliqué techniques
How to add simple background details like text to help tell your subject’s story.
By the end of the workshop, you’ll have begun a small portrait to continue at home. You will also be equipped with skills to develop your own figurative work further.
Your portrait can be of a real or imaginary person. They can be known or unknown to you. Each picture has its own story to tell.
Materials and fabrics will be provided but please feel free to bring some of your own favourite fabrics and threads. This will give you a deeper connection to your work.
The aim of the workshop is for you to produce work that is personal to you. It’s also helpful if you choose colours that love and which suit your starting image.
Please bring a choice of your own drawings or photographs to use as inspiration. I will send you some guidelines for selecting and adapting suitable images before the workshop.
Important: If you are a beginner, you should choose a simple starting photograph or drawing like those shown below.
About Sue Stone
My work is inspired by people and places. I’m best known for textural, figurative work which tells a story. My emphasis is on hand embroidery, often mixed with machine stitch, appliqué, and paint.
I have exhibited my work widely throughout the UK and Europe. I have also exhibited in Australia, Japan, Pakistan, and the USA.
I have taught ‘in person’ workshops throughout the UK, and in France, USA and Canada. I also teach online courses for textileartist.org which is run by my two sons Joe & Sam Pitcher.
Discover my works “Coalescence’ and ‘Integrated’ at the 62 Group’s ‘Making as Learning’ exhibition. Read more about the 62 Group I’d love you to visit the exhibition in person to see the amazing work of the 62 Group members.
This wonderful exhibition is taking place in the roof space at the historic Salts Mill in Saltaire, near Bradford, Uk. It runs from 8th September to 3rd November 2024.
‘Making as Learning’ is an exciting exploration of how the creative process itself can be a journey of learning. I’m thrilled to be showcasing my work in such a remarkable space. Salts Mill is open from 11am-4pm, Wednesday to Sunday. Read more about Salts Mill
For this exhibition, I’ve created two double-sided pieces ‘Coalescence’ and ‘Integrated’. The work establishes a dialogue between the visible and hidden aspects of the composition. This dialogue transforms the making process into a voyage of discovery.
Coalescence
This work is a construction of teaching samples and studies for completed pieces. It showcases a diverse range of techniques and explorations. Each piece is distinguished by additional stitching. This stitching leaves a distinctive footprint on the back, adding a unique element to the artwork’s structure.
By including self-portraits, I pay tribute to the late Audrey Walker; artist, and educator. Audrey was a former 62 Group honorary exhibiting member who was known for her stitched portraiture and still life compositions.
This homage highlights the inspiration drawn from Audrey’s legacy and influence. It also calls attention to the personal and introspective nature of artistic expression. The blend of teaching, experimentation, and tribute really encapsulates my creative journey.
This work consists of digital prints of finished pieces that have been showcased in 62 Group exhibitions. This artwork is uniquely marked by additional hand and machine stitching, visible as a distinctive footprint on the back.
This stitching not only adds texture and depth but also symbolises my commitment to blending modern and traditional techniques in my creative process. The integration of these elements highlights my approach to contemporary art, creating a dialogue between the visible and hidden aspects of my work, and inviting viewers to explore the layers of meaning within each piece.
Materials: Digitally printed waterproof fabric, Cotton threads, linen fabric Techniques: Digital printing, appliqué, hand and machine stitching
Size 63 x 182 x 2 cms
A footnote: I waterproofed both pieces of work because the roof in the roof space leaks! It’s good to be prepared for all eventualities!
The aim of this workshop is to encourage exploration and experimentation and to question what we really mean by portrait.
We usually think of a portrait as an artistic representation which captures the likeness of a person but even more important is to capture their personality and tell their story and in the case of a portrait of more than one person to capture the interaction or lack of interaction between them.
I’d love you to join me in the USA and have fun telling your stories with needle and thread.
A Grimsby Girl’s World Tour version 1 30 x 30 cms & version 2 • 33 x 28 cms
Version 1 was shown at the Uk Knitting & Stitching shows in the 62 Group of Textile Artists Essence exhibition celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Group.
These are very poignant pieces which capture the essence of my creative practice: textural stitch, appliqué and paint combine to create the allusion of a journey to another place and time. It is a poignant work depicting the visit of grandmother to a grandson she never met. He was born 3 weeks after she died. The Grimsby girl, my Mum, Muriel is shown as a child in this piece. She never had the opportunity to travel outside the UK in her lifetime; here she travels to Copenhagen where her grandson, Sam currently lives with his wife, Eliana.
A Step into the Unknown 2022 – revamped version • mixed media • 74 x 52 cms
Lost in a Strange World 2022 • mixed media – 74 x 52 cms
A selection of samples made for my Cast of Characters workshop for Textileartist.org
A selection of samples made for my Off the Grid workshop for Textileartist.org
This experimental workshop will focus on combining several images to create a real or imagined journey. The aim of the workshop is to encourage exploration and experimentation to capture the spirit of the journey and the people, real or imagined, who will accompany you on that journey.
Here’s the concept behind the ‘Journey Through Time’ workshop
Brooklyn:Recollection, Return & Repartee 2021
Your journey could take the form of a Travelogue as in my USA Travelogue work Brooklyn: ‘Recollection, Return & Repartee’ (above) or it could take the form of a journey through life by incorporating more than one image of a specific person as in ‘My Portrait of a Grimsby Girl.’ (below)
Portrait of a Grimsby Girl 2014
You could push your imagination and take a real person on an imagined journey. In ‘A Grimsby Girl’s World Tour’ series I take my Mum to places she was never able to visit but that I think she would have loved.
A Grimsby Girl’s World Tour – Copenhagen
Or ask ‘What if?’ And make a portrait of yourself or of your chosen person in another time or place .
Enjoy historical details by asking ‘What if I visited the Tudor period?’ or a different culture by asking ‘What if I could go to Japan? ‘A Grimsby Girl’s World Tour – Tokyo’. Or simply ask what if I take some 1930s Grimsby Girls to modern day London as in ‘RIP Grimsby St E2’ as in RIP Grimsby St E2 which is set in the east End of London.
A Grimsby Girl’s World Tour – TokyoRIP Grimsby St E2
This is primarily a hand/machine stitch workshop but you will have the option to focus entirely on hand stitch, or machine stitch, choose to combine both techniques or add appliqué and mixed media.
The techniques used in this workshop are suitable for all abilities.
You are asked to bring a selection of drawings or photographs, text or anecdotes you wish to include or use as personal inspiration for your work. A full guide to choosing suitable images to work from will be sent out in advance of the workshop.
Exhibition runs from14 January to 12th March 2023 in the ground floor gallery.
I have been busy sorting out the work to show in my Shifts & Allusions exhibition and in this exhibition I will be inviting you to find the stories behind my compositions and work out for yourself what they mean.
Most of my work contains a nod to my Grimsby heritage. The fish has become my signature and it often appears somewhere in my work. This exhibition includes a selection of larger narrative works made between 2013 and 2022, some of which haven’t been shown before. They are shown alongside some new smaller studies and a selection of tactile handling samples which show some of the techniques I have used in the finished pieces.
I will be giving a gallery talk at 2pm on Sat 18 February 2023 and a teaching a one day workshop at the Hub on Sunday 19 February
‘A Focus on Faces • an introduction to illustrative portraits
The opening of the 62 Group Ebb & Flow exhibition is getting closer but the project itself has been almost two years in the planning.
It started with an invitation from Grimsby Minster to show our work in the Minster which is a busy and vibrant resource for the people of North East Lincolnshire, an “architectural gem” tracing its history on this site for more than 900 years. I soon realised, however, that because we are such a large group of very diverse artists that there would not be enough suitable hanging space and display for smaller 3D work in the Minster for all of our work to be shown.
A second venue was sort and we were offered the upper floor, the mezzanine, of the Muriel Barker Gallery at the Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby. The Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre was purpose built and opened in 1991. Its permanent exhibition tells the story of the Grimsby Fishing Industry in its heyday in the1950s. The white-walled space at the Fishing Heritage Centre contrasts nicely with the grandeur of the Minster.
Lucy Brown All at Sea
The Ross Tiger, GY398, is an ex-working 1950’s trawler and the largest item in the heritage collections. Lucy Brown, one of our exhibiting members has made site specific work to be shown on board the Tiger. The image left shows Lucy’s ‘sea bags’ which will be installed around the living quarters on the Tiger. Once the venues were in place we worked on the detail of the project and funding bid to Arts Council England by Grimsby Minster which was successful. This enabled us to work with freelance writer and curator, June Hill who has been on hand to advise the group throughout the project and who will be opening the exhibition on 13th September. It also helped the group to put together a full education programme and to produce a full colour catalogue with professional photography which will be on sale at both venues.
Details of our education programme can be found here. Many of our members visited Grimsby in February when we were given a tour of both venues and of the museum collections store. All of our exhibitions are selected by a selection panel of 5. The panel is different for each exhibition and can include a representative from the venue. The selection process has now been completed and 37 pieces of work were selected for the exhibition made by 28 artists.
Photography Day at the Minster
This week we also completed the photography for the catalogue which is now in the design stages. The catalogue will be on sale at both venues.
The photographer for the majority of the pieces isDavid Ramkalawon who came to Grimsby from London for 2 days to photograph work at both venues.
The snap left shows David photographing work in Grimsby Minster.
Next week the hanging process begins. Watch this space for more ‘behind the scenes’ glimpses of Ebb & Flow.
womanwithafish 