My introduction to stitched textiles came through the final exhibition of a friend who said ‘you should have a go too’. Hence my decision to enrol on the City and Guilds (Certificate and Diploma) at Godalming in Surrey in 1995 and life was never the same again.

I spent all my working life as a university maths lecturer, so art and design were completely new to me although I had done, and got bored with, a lot of cross stitch kits. I had enjoyed art at school and was very much the Blue Peter kid who stole my family’s toilet roll middles, cereal packets, washing up bottles and sticky backed plastic to create the latest ‘make’.

My first love is hand stitch. I love the calm rhythm as the design evolves and I enjoy the process where the next development presents itself as I work each stage. My stitches tend to be quite geometric either individually in themselves or within their groupings, and I would describe most of my work as either abstract or semi-representational. I like my work to read well from a distance on a wall but also to reward closer inspection where the building block stitches are interesting in their own right.

My earlier work tended to use a lot of colour and be quite busy, but I am now finding myself enjoying quieter, more subtle, variations in both tone and design.