I am a textile and embroidery artist, using only vintage fabrics and where possible vintage threads, in my work. Vintage textiles can provoke an emotional response, and have an inherent history that makes transforming them into something new, a meaningful process that satisfies my urge to preserve these fragments of times past, but in a contemporary way. As well as recycling something that would otherwise be discarded, they give a resonance and sense of a past life to my new pieces. I combine them with free-motion machine and hand embroidery to create bold collages in a rich palette of colours, patterns, and textures, provided by brocades, damasks, synthetic, and natural fibres. I also create small hand embroideries on vintage fabric that capture the beauty of my subjects, which are most often birds and small mammals, and imbue them with life and individual character, colour combinations that sing, and a sense of atmosphere.