Kate Wells - Machine Embroidery

Programme Outline

Kate Wells sews a picture.

The programme opens with Kate near her home painting a landscape in watercolours. She paints the outlines of fields and trees, then fills in the landscape with carefully mixed colours.

Back in her workshop, Kate starts to sew on her specially adapted, electric sewing machine. First she sews the outline of the fields and hills, which she has already drawn on the fabric. Then she fills in areas of colour, ‘painting’ with stitches of coloured thread. Sometimes she uses zigzag stitches, sometimes running stitches. As she chooses threads and sews the picture, she is continually looking at her original watercolour. Sewing inside a hoop, she moves the material backwards and forwards and from side to side. For her final embroidery she makes different stitches to add texture and overlays different colour-mixes.