Helen came to embroidery via adult education and the law. She was an adult educator before training as a solicitor.
Throughout her life she has dabbled in different textile activities. She comes from a family where the women always had a textile project on the go. Granny tatted; mum knitted. She has tried sewing, knitting, weaving, crochet - some more successfully than others.
About ten years ago, while still in full time work, she started attending embroidery classes. It felt like coming home.
In the last decade she has completed, with distinction, the Certificate and Diploma course at the Royal School of Needlework (RSN). She then went on to complete, with merit, their Future Tutor programme.
No longer a practising solicitor she now works as a tutor for the Royal School of Needlework and runs her own business - Stitchwork. Through Stitchwork she teaches regularly for the Warner Textile Archive in Braintree. This year she is teaching at the National Trust in Knole, Kent. Together with an RSN colleague she offers a monthly programme of embroidery courses “Stitching with Liz and Helen” in Exeter.
As a stitcher Helen is interested in teaching traditional skills well, so that they can be understood and practised by a new audience. If those she teaches interpret their skills in a new direction of their own that is all to the good.
She is interested in understanding historic stitches and using them in a contemporary context. A favourite activity is to select an historic embroidery, find out more about it, and create a class from her investigations.
Her current interests are Deerfield embroidery from the US and combining stitch with bookmaking.