Juliette Orton

I recently gave a talk to the Bedford Embroiderers' Guild and as I presented my sketchbooks and artworks many of the attendees admitted that they just didn't know where to start with new ideas.  I explained how I went about it and how sometimes inspiration can come from the most unexpected places - such as a cup of coffee! In this instance I just loved the shapes that the milk foam formed (or 'Latte Art' as those in the know call it apparently!) and as I am a lover of nature instantly saw an emerging bud with beautifully veined leaves. This led me to open my sketchbook and start drawing and developing the shapes. I loved the flowing forms and started to think of different media that I could use to explore them further. I used wire to recreate the shapes and bound threads and papers around them to add colour and texture. I also used scrunched up magazine pages (with floral images) and machine stitching to present the shapes in another way. ...

I spent some time at my Mum's in Sussex over Easter helping her sort through bits and pieces from our family history. She is thinking of moving house this year which means going through 25+ years of 'stuff'! We came across some real treasures such as the family bible from the 1800s which I had never seen before. There was a page for births, deaths and marriages with numerous entries in beautiful handwriting and a lot of details about my ancestors which were fascinating. It turns out that I am a descendant of the Clark family who produced Clark & Co's sewing threads in the 1800s and James Clark who invented the technique used to produce a spooled cotton thread (as opposed to skeins) which we know today as the cotton reel.    Mum also showed me this amazing picture of what looks like a painting of Charles I but is in fact an embroidery that was produced by a family member called Wright Battye (!) to demonstrate the superior quality of Clark & ...