Welcome to A Silken Thread

Well hello, and thank you so much for joining me on my first blog post!

First of all let me introduce myself. My name is Sarah Smith and I am the ‘face’ behind this exciting new venture that I have called A Silken Thread. I will tell you more about why I have chosen that name a little later, but first I want to tell you a little more about myself.

I am based in Binfield, Berkshire. I have two grown up children and it was their flying the nest, or at least the thought of it, that prompted me to follow my heart and try and make a living out of something that I have always enjoyed and felt passionate about, namely Hand Embroidery.

My first attempt at Embroidery was when I was a teenager and typically for me it was something ridiculously ambitious. I fell in love with a beautiful iron-on transfer (remember those?) of a peacock in a cherry tree and knew I had to have a go at creating it. Needless to say the finished result didn’t quite match my expectations, but I loved the process and found stitching it, choosing and identifying the threads and colours and trying to make my stitches smooth, neat and professional, one of the most relaxing and satisfying things I had ever done.

Many years later, the memories of this experience together with the enjoyment of various projects in between, prompted me to enroll on and complete a City and Guilds Certificate in Embroidery at Missenden Abbey. This gave me the confidence to begin further study at the Royal School of Needlework, Hampton Court from which point I was hooked and smitten in a big way by this wonderful skill. I wanted to get better at it, I wanted to do it perfectly and I wanted to create something wonderful. These are three ‘wants’ that haven’t gone away and continue to motivate me in what I do. Over time they have been joined by two more. I want to pass on these vanishing skills to others and I want to create designs and kits for other people to enjoy stitching. Hence where we are now, with the launch of A Silken Thread and me chatting to you in this blog post!

I have so much I want to share with you. I want to tell you about things I have discovered over the past few years, about my journey from amateur to professional embroiderer and what it is like to study and work at one of the world’s centres of excellence for Hand Embroidery, the Royal School of Needlework, as both a Tutor and Studio Embroiderer. I will show you pieces of embroidery that will literally take your breath away and point you in directions that you might want to travel in yourself.

It won’t always be about stitching. Almost as much as Embroidery, I am also passionate about History so there will be posts on that too. You can also expect to see posts on other things I love and find beautiful as well as the work of other artists and embroiderers that inspire me. Are you up for it? I do hope so. It will be great to have your company!