Our graduates have stories to tell. Read through our Graduate Stories and discover how our courses have enabled them to begin new textiles careers, gain creative confidence and become more focused. Through these stories we aim to help prospective students decide what courses to study and demonstrate how they can benefit so many people.
Our graduates are shaping the world of textiles. They’re designers/makers who supply clients and stores in all corners of the globe, they’re authors for magazines and books, and business start-ups. Some even go on to work in TV/ theatre, teach or simply take pleasure in evolving their textile skills to a new level.
We are frequently asked about the direction that our students take after they have graduated from their courses at School of Stitched Textiles. So we ask our graduates to tell their stories.
We have combined their narratives with images of their work to showcase their very individual styles in our graduate stories publication. We hope their accounts inspire you to undertake a course yourself and see where it can take you.
Some knitters start with a pattern. Others start with the sheep. Long before enrolling with SST, Rachel Hewitt was following the thread right back to its source: a childhood fascination with fleece and spinning, a mother who knitted Aran sweaters, and a decade of teaching herself patterns while raising young
Somewhere between a pandemic and a ceremony at London’s Guildhall lies one of the most quietly remarkable journeys we have seen at SST. For now, it ends with opus anglicanum, the medieval English embroidery once prized across Europe. It began when Bronagh Sullivan enrolled at a time when the world
For most people, discovering that free-motion embroidery means you can draw with your sewing machine would be a mildly interesting thought and nothing more. For Cheryl McNay, it was the beginning of everything. A qualified finance professional with three children and a career that left creativity with only the smallest
There is a particular kind of expertise that comes from teaching textiles for many years. You know the techniques, the tools, the possibilities. And yet, even with that knowledge, the most important question can remain unanswered: which creative direction is truly yours? For Kerry, free-motion embroidery had always held the
Sarah Crowe hadn’t studied formally since finishing her MA back in 2007. Ten years into a career teaching in secondary schools, she found herself longing for a way back into her own creative practice, and it was patchwork and quilting that gave her exactly the route she needed. At first,
It took a glassworker’s eye to see the possibilities in wool. Wendy Sellers had spent years shaping glass when a felt artist moved into a studio nearby, and one workshop was all it took. “That was it,” she says, “I had the bug.” What began with a single afternoon of
A Chance Find and a Long-Awaited Return to Hand Embroidery There are discoveries you make in charity shops that change things. For Elaine Fraser, it was a partly finished embroidered linen tea tray cloth, its original threads still neatly bundled alongside it, waiting for hands confident enough to continue the
Some people come to knitting late. Rhona Arthur came to it through memory: the click of her mother’s needles, the grannies who could turn a heel without so much as glancing at a pattern. She grew up surrounded by the craft, taught herself as a student, and spent decades producing
Some creative journeys don’t begin with a blank page. They begin with a lifetime of collecting, observing and quietly wondering what might be possible. For Sara Watson, that journey stretched back decades, from treasured barkcloth curtains inherited from her great-grandmother, to wax resist fabrics gathered on travels through West Africa,
Claire Frampton’s journey with the School of Stitched Textiles is a powerful reflection of what can happen when curiosity meets commitment. Beginning her studies during the uncertainty of lockdown, Claire set out to build confidence in her embroidery skills and learn how to develop her own design ideas. What started
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