Before I started my embroidery journey, I was a huge fan of Escape to the Chateau. I’ve watched the whole series, some episodes more than once!  I love the beautiful family dynamic & the creativity that’s shaped the Chateau into the fabulous home it is now.  I remember watching the episode where Angel designed the Potagerie wallpaper and absolutely loved it. 

I was looking for a new hobby, and in May of 2022, my son gifted me an embroidery kit for my birthday. I was hooked. I purchased some design books with iron-on transfers & some basic embroidery supplies, and looked online for stitch tutorials.  I soon found myself seeing potential embroideries in artwork & nature, and whilst I enjoyed making pieces from pre-designed transfers, I soon felt the desire to design my own. 

In August 2022, my husband-to-be (now husband) and I visited my parents, who live in the Charente region of France.  I had taken photos of some of the artwork at my parents’ home, with a view to creating embroideries from them. Then, on a visit to a local café, lo and behold, the walls were adorned with Angel’s Potagerie wallpaper. 

I was delighted to see it and immediately thought of using the design to create an embroidery, as I thought it would be fairly easy to convert from a drawing to an embroidery design. I love all of Angel’s designs, but this one was my favourite as I loved the representation of the potager garden and the mix of colours. 

I chose a 100% cotton with a calico backing as my base material this time round, as it would give a smoother look to the piece. I used a light box to trace my drawing onto the fabric, using a water-erasable pen, then painted the fabric.  By this time, I had amassed a substantial stash of DMC stranded cotton, so I was able to match the colours to the photo once again.  I decided before I started stitching what type of stitch I would use on each element and how many strands of the stranded cotton thread I would use for each. 

Then I began stitching.  The process of drawing, transferring the design, and painting the fabric took a couple of days, starting on March 28th. 

The stitching commenced on March 30th and I finished on May 5th.  I work full-time, so I generally get to do two to three hours of stitching on a weekday evening and eight to ten hours over the weekend. As a result, it took me between 110 and 153 hours to complete.  The piece has the following stitches:  Silk shading, stem stitch, whipped backstitch, filled detached chain stitch, French knots, colonial knots, fishbone stitch, satin stitch & fly stitch. 

It gives me such joy when I’m stitching, and to be doing this piece again brought me so much happiness. Whilst I was delighted with myself for finishing the first version, this one was so much more enjoyable to do, and I really felt I had done justice to Angel's design.  I shared a photo on a Facebook group and had lovely comments, but only recently decided to send it to Angel, to show her how much better my second attempt was. 

Many of my pieces are designed with a particular recipient in mind. For example, I recently completed a new baby embroidery for the grandson of my friend. The parents, who are Welsh-speaking and very proud of their heritage, had a boy.  With this in mind, I drew a design of a cute Welsh dragon and incorporated a leek, a daffodil and a sheep into the design. 

Once I have an idea of design and colours, it just sort of formulates in my mind's eye, and I try to transfer that image to paper.  I always ask people about their favourite colours and themes that hold personal significance, such as favourite flowers or iconography. 

If I’m not making a piece for someone, I try to enhance my skills by trying out new styles of embroidery, so I have branched out to try silk ribbon embroidery, beadwork, and goldwork.  As with many of the designs in The Chateau, I look to my environment for inspiration and have a sketch book that I use to do little coloured drawings of flowers, etc. 

We have dragonflies at a local pond that we fish at, so after trying my hand at goldwork, my first piece that I designed myself was of a dragonfly. 

I would love to create more embroidery projects inspired by designs used at the Chateau.  I’ve had a look at some of the images of different wallpapers and would love to try my hand at creating versions of the Bamboo Folly, the Wildflower Garden, incorporating various stitches, plus the Emerald Fan wallpaper, which I’d love to create a goldwork embroidery. 

I also intend to continue to create my own original designs, inspired by the requirements of a specific recipient, who has asked me to make a piece for them and to continue my embroidery journey by designing pieces inspired by anything I see in my environment, or anything that pops into my head, as things often do.