The Animal Kingdom of What Florence Did Next
You know that heart-squeezing, breathtaking feeling you get sometimes when you look at the thing you love the most in the world? For some it's their children, parents or grandparents. For others it's a treasured possession, an inherited item from family long-gone or a garden rewardingly in bloom after years of toil and effort.
For me, that somersault tummy feeling comes with my pets. Nothing gets my heart doing loop-the-loops quicker than my glorious (and only mildly hostile) tubby tabby cat Florence squeezing herself between me and my keyboard to demand an ear rub, or my possessive miniature dachshund Dilys flopping back in my arm like the baby she thinks she is, fluttering her eyelashes at me. They make me happy and content, even when the world outside our home seems an increasingly troubled place.
I love animals, although there are MANY exceptions to that rule. Put me anywhere in the vicinity of a reptile or amphibian and you will be impressed with how fast a middle-aged, generously padded lady can move in the opposite direction but furry and feathered animals that inhabit our gardens, farms and fields, they bring me joy, and none more so than my own mini-menagerie.
Raised on a farm in rural Northamptonshire, I grew up with far more than the standard pet assortment. Yes, we had dogs and cats (maxing out at 16 cats at one point when I was around 10 years old), but we also had pet sheep (great little mowing machines to keep the orchard grass under control and who had more than a passing weakness for digestives and cheese & onion crisps), visiting heifers and cows from my uncle’s dairy farm ahead of calving, a family of peacocks, and even ducklings that my father hatched off in the airing cupboard and raised, after rescuing their eggs in an inflatable dinghy from one of our floating nesting houses, Duckingham Palace, when predators took their mother.
Animals suffuse every corner of my life so it is unsurprising that it wasn't long, after I first started stitching my own designs, that animals started to creep in to my embroideries. Happy, fussy little creatures going about their business, with personalities of their own and a tale to tell. Beatrice Potter saw the wonder and characters in the creatures that surrounded her, and I hope that my embroideries follow that same vein. Now, whimsically anthropomorphised hares and mice join ducks and pheasants on antique French linen, and my beloved cat and dog are always front and centre in needle and thread, regularly appearing in my stitched stories.
If you prefer your animals with a little less "personality" (although who doesn't love a pheasant rocking a pair of wellingtons in a snowstorm, or a hedgehog modelling a floral crown?!), my entomological collection may be more to your taste. As a student at Central St Martins many years ago, a (not very) guilty pleasure was to disappear off to any one of London's amazing museums. Rather than heading to the popular and crowded rooms, I preferred the less populated exhibits and none gave me more pleasure, or created more fascination, than to explore their cavernous collections of specimen drawers with, tray after tray, the insects laid out in glorious rows and grids like tiny bug battalions on parade. I am very unlikely ever to have my own collection of specimens trays - I'd need a vast amount more storage space, much deeper pockets, and would really need to up my dusting regime - but creating little trays of embroidered critters has gone some way to satisfy that desire. I have so many plans and ideas buzzing around in my head to expand my entomological collection further, I just need to find the time.
Until then I will keep myself busy in my sewing studio adding animals to my embroidered zoo. I’d love to know if there are any specific creatures you would especially like to see stitched and available in kit form. Add a comment below with your requests.
And if you want to know what Florence really did do next, keep an eye on my embroidery kits, where her exploits (and those of the rest of the zoo's) will be captured lovingly in needle and thread.
TTFN, R x
