It feels like only yesterday we were lighting the first candle of December, wrapping ourselves in winter wool and anticipation… and then — blink! — the calendar fluttered its pages and nearly three whole months slipped by like silk thread through a needle’s eye.

Core Stitches and Blackwork

As the year drew its velvet curtain closed, we completed several of our sample frames — including the original, beloved Core Stitch Frame. This was our return to the very bones of embroidery: crewelwork in its purest form. Back to the foundational stitches — the steady, dependable companions that will carry us through our time at the Royal School of Needlework. There was something deeply satisfying about revisiting the “core” — like rediscovering the alphabet of a language you’re about to fall in love with all over again. And now that my frame is finished, I couldn’t be more proud. Every stitch feels like a quiet promise of what’s to come.

Then came blackwork — elegant, exacting, and far more mischievous than I had anticipated.

We began in late November, and I truly believed I would adore its precision. Order! Geometry! Delicious repetition! But blackwork had other plans for me. It demanded discipline. Patience. An almost architectural awareness of where every needle must emerge. We learned the historic stitch styles, the hypnotic repeat patterns, and how subtle shifts in thread density can conjure shadows and light from nothing but ink-dark thread.

And then — the true test — merging patterns and building shaded forms on our sample frame. Our final piece was a coloured blackwork motif, one we had originally designed for our Core Stitch Frame. A motif that will travel with us through every learning frame — like a personal emblem stitched in evolving stages of our education.

I struggled, I’ll admit it. Patterns must flow seamlessly. Stitches must align with unwavering accuracy. The needle must rise in precisely the right place, again and again and again. But perhaps that is the quiet magic of blackwork — it humbles you before it reveals its beauty.

Object Analysis Essays….

Our next adventure took us not to a frame, but into the archive.

For our Contextual Studies assignment, we were each entrusted with an object from the RSN Archive and asked to write an Object Analysis Essay. The treasures assigned across our class were wonderfully varied — Asian textiles whispering of distant craftsmanship, military insignia heavy with symbolism, embroidered interior panels, fashion pieces layered with history.

My object? A Hungarian fast fashion blouse from the 1930s–40s.

Reader… I disappeared into a rabbit hole of research so deep I half expected to emerge in another decade. Folk tradition, regional motifs, the evolution of “fast fashion” long before our modern understanding of it — the threads of history wound themselves around me completely. I adored every minute. There is something delicious about tracing the lineage of a stitch across time. And to my surprise, I discovered I have a rather keen fondness for research. It turns out I enjoy unravelling stories almost as much as I enjoy stitching them.

Creative Stitch - Abstraction and Embellishments

Then — creative freedom.

Our next assignment asked us to transform one of our previous painted works into a stitched sample. We mounted a large frame and began abstracting — pulling shapes, marks, and textures from stitches we had already learned in our Core classes. Suddenly, embroidery felt less like replication and more like spellcasting.

Beads. Straws. Recycled fragments. Sequins. Anything that could be coaxed beneath a needle was fair game. Texture upon texture, shimmer against matte, control beside chaos. It was a glorious reminder that embroidery has no ceiling — only horizons.

For my final creative piece, I chose to mount it separately in a hoop. I wanted it to feel independent — its own small kingdom. I leaned into couture techniques, building dimensional flowers that seemed to bloom right off the fabric. I embellished with beads, goldwork materials… and yes, an onion bag. Because why not? If embroidery teaches us anything, it’s that transformation is its greatest trick.

That freedom — that permission to experiment — has been quietly shaping my own style. I feel as though I’m only just beginning to understand the visual language that belongs to me.

A King, a Palace, an Inspiration

And now, another grand chapter begins.

Following the Lock & Co. Christmas ornament we created in our first term, we have been tasked with designing a head adornment to be displayed in the window of Lock & Co. Hatters next year, alongside the new first years’ Christmas decorations.

The brief? To design a head adornment inspired by Hampton Court Palace.

And so, sketchbooks in hand, we wandered the palace like textile magpies. Stonework carvings, iron gates curling like metallic vines, regal portraits, mischievous gargoyles, garden ornaments basking in winter light — every surface seemed to hum with possibility.

After pages and pages of sketching, my final design has emerged from three muses: the stained glass windows, the floral ironwork, and the winding garden vines. I’ve translated them into something almost ethereal — drifting in blue and gold, like twilight caught in metal and silk.