If you haven’t discovered the work of Fleur Woods, then read on because you are in for a real treat for the senses!
Fleur is a New Zealand fibre and textile artists, creating wonderfully textured art using vintage fabrics and linens, embroidery floss, yarn, beads, and hand-built clay elements. Her work is inspired by flowers and the natural landscape around her, including mossy and lichen covered logs from the forests and rock pools from her local beach.
Discovering Fleur
I can’t remember now how I first came across Fleurs work, but when I scrolled through her Instagram profile the first time, I was instantly drawn in and got lost in admiration for her beautiful fabric collages and floral embroidery.
Fleurs love for flora and collecting vintage textiles instantly drew me in. Here I had found another bowerbird creative who loved hunting for vintage textile treasures, and it was inspiring to me to see how she used them to create works of textile art.
I love Fleur’s use of colour and texture, creating vibrant works, that enliven all five senses. They are intricate, with lots of different stitches creating movement, as well as beads and handmade clay elements, that add a touch of surprise and whimsy.
Her textile artworks are both playful, but also thoughtful. They are an expression of pure joy, intricately stitched by hand, slowly and with freedom, bound in love for the simple act of moving needle and thread.
Joyful Embroidery Course
Not long after discovering Fleur, I learnt about her online course Joyful Embroidery. I had a friend who was lucky enough to attend an in-person workshop with Fleur and raved about how generous a teacher Fleur was. The decision to participate in Fleurs online course was an easy one to make, and I dived in with excitement and an energy ready to be unleashed.
The online course takes you through all of Fleurs different practices used to create her art. We learnt the basic embroidery stitches she most commonly uses, how to draw and stitch what is in front of us. How to add bead embellishments and build clay elements. Fleur shared her knowledge on colour theory and composition, showed us how to paint fabric, and how to do punch needle embroidery. Then we learnt how to go about creating our own fabric collages, incorporating fabrics, little lace, or crochet doily elements, and how to stitch it all together with different embroidery techniques.
The online course is full of wonderful video tutorials that are clear and professionally filmed. Each section of the course also came with a PDF guide that went with the class and included resource guides where needed.
Throughout the course, Fleur would pop periodically into the Course Facebook group to interact with her students and do live videos where she chatted about the course, her ideas and thoughts and answered questions or addressed concerns she saw pop up.
I thoroughly enjoyed the course, though I am technically yet to complete all the components or projects in it! Thankfully, once in the course you have lifetime access to it. I would highly recommend Fleurs online course to anyone who would like to explore the world of textile art, embroidery, and fabric collage. Not only will you learn some wonderful techniques, but you just might discover a new way to set your creativity free.
You can view the artworks created by my fellow students in the Student Exhibition HERE.
Fleur’s Book
Whilst deep in the creative throws of Fleur’s online course, she released her book The Untamed Thread, which I was quick to order and devour once I received it!
This book is stunningly beautiful, from front cover to back cover and all the pages between. It is full of beautiful photography, absolute eye candy if you love pretty pictures like me.
Fleur shares not only her creative practice but also the journey in which she took to find her creative expression and artistic form and style. Just as she is a generous teacher, in her book she also generously and unashamedly shares her struggles and triumphs in her journey of art creation.
This book doesn’t have patterns or projects in it, but rather Fleur shares her knowledge on colour, composition and how she goes about finding inspiration. She talks about the creative practices and techniques she uses, sharing her art process and how you might discover your own creative practice.
Reading Fleur’s book opened my eyes and heart to what my personal creative practice looks like. I was able to dive deep inside my soul and really define what my art and creativity meant to me. I came to some conclusions that I have known for a while, but not really acknowledged. I will share more about my personal discoveries in an up-coming blog post.
Mini Interview with The Lady Herself
I thought it would be fun to ask Fleur some questions and she gracefully accepted and answered them!
1.What do you love most about teaching your Joyful Embroidery course/workshops?
The connection created with the creatives who participate is so special. There is a tangible feeling of well-being and joy when we go on a creative adventure together, we all learn so much from each other and it fills my cup so much to share my creative process as a path towards encouraging fellow creatives to hunt out the elements that make their heart sing and ignite their unique practices and processes.
There is an alchemy that happens when people gather to create, whether in person or online; we all thrive with the sense of being connected with other folks who love colour, texture, textiles, fibres, and creativity. There is a tangible feeling of well-being and joy when we go on a creative adventure together that is.
2. What emotions did you feel when you had your creative ‘aha moment’ and defined exactly what your creative practice was or looked like?
It felt like the women of generations past were all around me in support and smiling ‘finally’. I had such a deep sense of comfort and homecoming to a way of creating that felt like it was part of my creative DNA.
3. Did you enjoy the writing process for your book? What inspired you to write it?
I absolutely loved writing the book. It felt really natural once I got out of my own way and just let the words arrive. I’d never tried to write in that way before. My publisher approached me asking if I had a book concept in mind, I didn’t immediately but knew that it was something I’d like to attempt. It was such a privilege to have the opportunity to try.
4. Do you feel like you have found your creative tribe, and do you think it is important to surround yourself with community and people who understand your love for creating art and stitching?
It is so special to connect with fellow creative kindred spirits across the globe. Having other creatives, you can share your creativity with is really encouraging and affirming. I don’t think it matters what stage of your career or creative practice you are in, we all need others who see us, get us, and support us to continue to share our soul’s work.
5. When you come across a particular beautiful piece of vintage fabric, or linen, or other vintage treasure, what is your first reaction? What is it about these vintage treasures that calls to you?
It is usually a few things, the colours, patterning, warp and weft and quality of the fibres that draw me to a piece but then once the initial connection is made there is a ‘feel’ to vintage textiles that is very special to me, it is like an invisible thread that links me to its heritage. I’m often awed by the possibilities of the many hands that the piece has passed through to now be in my hands and I feel a desire to continue its story (known or imagined). When a piece joins my collection, I don’t feel like it’s end destination, just another pair of hands on its journey.
6. What would your spirit animal be?
I just googled spirit animals and took a quiz…the quiz said my spirit animal is a bear…but I actually suspect my black Labrador George is my spirit animal.
My Joyful Embroidery
Through Fleur’s course I created my stitch sampler, which you can read and see more of in this blog post. My other two class projects are still being worked on.
For my observational drawing and embroidery class, I sketched a variety of flowers from my garden and created a pretty floral composition. I sketched my flowers onto a lovely piece of green cotton, printing some leaves with green watercolour paints.
I have now finished embroidering the flowers using a variety of different stitches and threads. I’m not entirely happy with the flower in the bottom left which is supposed to be a dianthus. I think I’m going to unpick this one to a degree and turn it into a different type of flower. Once that’s done, I’m going to do some light stitch work on the leaves and in the background to tie it all together.
The class project I was most excited to start was my fabric collage. At the very start of the course, Fleur asked us to go to our stash and pull-out fabrics, vintage treasures, and threads and create a mood board. I love this part of any kind of project, it so fun to go rummaging through ones treasured stash, fondling with love and admiration all the pretty bits you have collected.
In typical Leela fashion, I have gone slightly large with my fabric collage…always love a challenge! I’ve used some green gingham as a backdrop to my pieces of vintage fabrics, lace, doilies, and embroidered linens.
When I started Fleur’s course, I knew I wanted to incorporate an element of English Paper Piecing in my art. Combining EPP and embroidery in new creative ways to create art has been on my mind for awhile now. I must thank Fleur for giving me the push through her course to finally experiment with this idea. So, I pulled out one of my ¼” hexie hearts with the idea of including it in my collage.
I’m calling this piece Joyful Heart for a couple of reasons. The first is that it includes a hexie heart, but more importantly because working on this project fills my heart with joy. When I pick it up to make my marks with thread, I let the needle and thread guide me, listening with my heart, and not my head as to where to place my stitches. Feeling my way through the creation of this piece is so different to how I most often work which is planning things out in advance. It’s quite liberating to just go with the creative flow!
I hope you have enjoyed reading this post and learning more about Fleur and my experience with her course and book. I hope you feel inspired to set off on your own journey of slow stitching discovery, in whatever form or style that may take you.
Happy Stitching dear friend,
Miss Leela x
