My Embroidery Journey: From Iron to Gold

If you had told me a few years ago that I’d leave behind my somewhat stable life, sell my house, and move to the other side of the world to study a Bachelors Degree in Hand Embroidery at Hampton Court Palace as a mature age student, I might’ve laughed and given you a very Australian sarcastic response telling you it would be a dream come true, before going back to my Pilbara mining camp job as a housekeeper, never to speak of it again. Yet here I am, starting a new life chapter - needle in hand and heart wide open - at the Royal School of Needlework.

I was first introduced to embroidery through watching my mother as a young girl, though I didn’t pick up a needle and thread myself until many years later. I was often keeping myself occupied with drawing or other art mediums.

As you can see from my website, my main medium that I fell in love with from the age of 14 was beadwork, for years I would get absolutely lost in creating unique pieces through basic stringing and wire techniques, all the way through to more complicated bead weaving.

My real love for embroidery picked up when I was living in Perth, Australia.

I worked in mining hospitality for six years- remote, intense, hot, sweaty, gross… far removed from silk thread and the elegance of goldwork.

I had gone through a major adjustment already, quitting my FIFO mining job to spend my time at home and properly live in my house full time for the first time, I was working another hospitality job and had an off chance conversation with one of my colleagues on different techniques of embroidery and how I would love to learn to incorporate my beadwork into something bigger and more elaborate.

After this conversation, I was sent the contact information of Margot Merendino, a couture fashion designer and embroiderer based in Perth, whose brochure was conveniently pinned to the back of my colleagues toilet door, along with many other fashion related brochures…(a toilet door eh? who knew this dunny door would change my life). After this, I had the absolute pleasure of learning two couture embroidery sample boards from Margot, spending easily over 120 hours learning as much as I could while coming up with my further plan.

There was something in the detail, the discipline and the artistry that felt deeply intuitive to me. But in Australia, there was no path to formally study embroidery at the depth and standard I craved. I kept searching, and that’s when I discovered the RSN.

It was bold. It was terrifying.

But the seed had been planted… And it was exactly what I needed.

The desire to create, to reconnect with something so beautifully artistic and meaningful had massed over time. So I made one of the hardest and biggest decisions of my life: I sold my home, packed up everything familiar and thanks to my dual citizenship, I followed my dream to London.

After 4 years of living in London, Walking into Hampton Court Palace and the Royal School of Needlework was a life changing experience in the best possible way. The centuries of history, the echoes of craftsmanship, the weight of legacy - it felt both surreal and completely right. To be learning in such a place, with tutors who are masters of their art, is a privelege i still have to pinch myself about.

This blog is where I’ll share that journey: the beauty and the challenges of traditional techniques, the evolution of my practice, the moments of doubt and triumph, and all the stitches in between. I hope it becomes a space not to just document my path, but to connect with others who find joy, purpose and transformation in the making.

Thank you for being here. I’ve taken the first stitch- let’s see what unfolds.