A snippet of a work in progress. I’m working this piece with split stitches in purple and silver thread.

I’ve had the needle and thread out again; as my first hobby horse approaches completion I have started work on this plush alternative which is more in keeping with hobby horses as children’s toys.

Rather than draw out a lovely pattern to make this head I opted for a patchwork affair which really was a lot more difficult than I had imagined. The intended outcome was to produce something that was more akin to a Frankenstein’s monster type creation with asymmetrical seams and the stitches on display rather than an idealised vision of a unicorn.

There’s a long way to go but I’m quite happy with the progress so far.

Over the Christmas week I got to work on a new piece of work. It’s my most ambitious embroidery to date; at least in terms of scale. I completed these two hand embroidered Celtic knotted circles over the course of the last couple of days and I’m now in the progress of marking out the rest of the fabric.

I’ve been working on a larger Unicorn-Porn drawing recently. As I develop the work I have it in mind to work a narrative element in to the drawings with one eye on producing a larger tapestry at a later date.

This is quite a departure from my usual drawing style; it’s more difficult than I had anticipated to compose a drawing like this. The picture above is very much a work in progress but I’m quite happy with the way it’s coming together.

Pigment liner on a 1:25,000 scale OS Map of the Snowdonia, North Wales

These little objects are the finishing touches for some new wire sculptures I’ve been working on for the last couple of months. That said I quite like them as objects in their own right.

*OS Sheet 171 1:50,000 Landranger Series: Cardiff & Newport

This is just a quick snapshot of the very early stages of a new work.

Following on from my recent bestial drawings and embroideries I’ve returned to my Grotesques with this new mannequin’s head that I’ve started work on. It’s part of an ongoing exploration of the grotesque themes that inform certain strands within my practice.

The nose/mouth is simply moulded on with nylon reinforced air drying clay which is easily sanded and painted once dry.

This is just a quick sketch in fabric and thread for an idea I’ve been mulling over. It’s a little squat but in general terms it worked out how I was imagining it… after one or two initial failures.

I found some inspiration at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh last week. They currently have an extraordinary exhibition of Indian and South East Asian textiles on display called Heirlooms. The works that have turned my head to embroidery were a number of hand embroidered Kantha. Kantha are hand embroidered quilts generally of Bengali origin.

I’ve been sitting on my Bestial Drawings for a little while now, slightly unsure as to how to take the work forward. Creating my own Kantha from these drawings seems quite fitting. Traditional Kantha often told stories through the images that were embroidered onto them and similarly the animals that are pictured in my series of drawings are taken from the pages of Welsh mythology.

Having never attempted an embroidery before I thought it would be best to start with a small sampler. The pictured image is of a a design embroidered onto a small piece of fabric approximately 25cm square. Having transferred my drawing onto the fabric using carbon paper I’ve used basic black cotton thread and a split stitch which seems to work quite well.

Bearing in mind that the final piece that I’m aiming to create is essentially a quilt, I’ve used a thermal lined cotton fabric which is actuallly lovely to work with as it doesn’t fray.