Stitched memories

Tilly Rose

Creating unique textile art using vintage cloth and embroidery to tell a story and preserve memories

Vintage cloth, found objects, embroidery, layered cloth and hand-stitching are all artfully combined by Tilly Rose to create unique textile artworks that tell a story, record a special event, or preserve, display and celebrate a memory of a special person or place. Tilly describes how to create these textile artworks using scraps of fabric, thread, lace, ribbon, buttons, beads, photographs and other found items that readers either already own or have sourced from elsewhere.

The projects take various forms, including cloth journals, lavender hearts, hoop art, framed collages, wall hangings and miniature quilts, and involve a variety of easy techniques that are explained through step-by-step demos at the start of the book. These include layering and collage, hand embroidery, creating your own fabrics, transferring your designs to cloth, stamping on cloth, appliqué, embellishing, patchwork, quilting, free motion embroidery and photo transfer.

Create a textile artwork using fabric and items from your wedding, a child’s first birthday, a Christening or your honeymoon, or even family heilooms that can be cherished in a new way. The whole focus of the book is on inspiration and experimentation — encouraging the reader to be creative, collecting and sourcing materials of special significance and incorporating them into textile artworks that become treasured keepsakes.