About Catherine and Hillview Embroidery
Hello, and welcome to Hillview Embroidery! I’m Catherine, a finance professional by day, wife to an amazing husband, Mum to our little Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and to top it all off, an avid and passionate embroiderer. I have studied embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework in the UK, gaining my Certificate in Technical Hand Embroidery, and am also actively studying at the San Fransisco School of Needlework and Design.
So Why Hillview Embroidery?
‘Hillview’ is the name of the farm I grew up on in NSW in Australia. Whilst I’m not a farm girl by any stretch of the imagination, I loved growing up there, and I feel very blessed to have had the space and freedom that growing up on a farm gives you. Along with the memories of backyard cricket with my siblings and parents (and fishing through knee high burs and thistles to find the ball when a ‘6’ was hit!), shearing sheds, learning and playing music (my Mum’s a music teacher and I learnt both the flute and the piano back in the day), and lots of dogs, sheep and cattle, it is where my Mum handed me my first long stitch (a very cute, bright clown), which started my interest in stitching and embroidery. Throughout my childhood, Mum helped me complete a few more long stitch and some cross stitch projects (the long stitches are still hanging on the walls in my parent’s home).
A little bit about me….
Perhaps not surprisingly, when I left home, I also ‘left’ the stitching and the music behind (too many exciting things happening in the big smoke!). It was several years later when I picked up a new cross stitch – something for me to do of an evening when my then new hubby was off in Canada finishing his PhD. It was around this time that I first ‘discovered’ Inspirations Magazine and just what could be achieved with some thread, a needle and some fabric. I continued my cross stitch when we moved to Canada, but I also found this wonderful shop, and was introduced to stump work for the first time – and I’ve been hooked ever since! After moving back to Australia (we like to move don’t we?!), I found and joined this amazing embroidery group, where I had the great privilege to be taught and guided by the amazing Jan Kerton. By this point in time, I had been ‘bitten by the bug’ quite badly!
After moving to the UK, with a long commute, and a playful puppy, my stitching was again put to the side on the whole. Things all changed after I blacked out whilst walking to the train after work one day, and sustained some injuries I’m going to be living with for life (and others that just take a long time to get better!). I picked up my stitching again with intense passion – whilst at first it was minimal due to the injuries, every day I was eager to do at least a tiny bit of stitching. If nothing else, it helped to create a sense of accomplishment, when I wasn’t even able to walk out the front door. Since then, I have found myself more and more engrossed in my embroidery, have now completed the RSN Certificate in Technical Hand Embroidery, and am studing the programme offered by SFSNAD.
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