Sue Rangeley has been creating beautiful embroidered pieces since she graduated with a degree in Fine Arts in 1970. She began her career teaching but by 1976 she had become a professional embroiderer creating glorious pieces for Bill Gibb in London, exhibiting internationally and with examples of her work featured in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Sue has recently published a book called Embroidery Atelier – Visions and Passions and it was this she came to talk to us about
Sue works from her converted garage studio at her home in the Cotswolds where she is surrounded by inspiration from nature for both her water colour paintings and her embroidered pieces. She was keen to give us a feel of her studio practice and to emphasise that behind each creation is a story that both the natural world and a sense of nostalgia play into. Her latest book is divided into themes beginning with ‘Free Spirit’ inspired by the sixties, Mary Quant and the King’s Road which brought back memories for some of our members! Sue works through experiment, trial and error and has a huge collection of fabrics and completed works as she often chooses to keep things. Her earlier works included quilted waistcoats and wall hangings before she moved onto more intricate machine and hand embroidery.
The ‘Free Spirit’ pieces in the book Sue talked about were inspired by a sixties mini dress pattern and the colour purple. She loves pansies (and gardening!) and her ‘Summer of Love’ chocker based on purple pansies with it’s lace effect, applique and beading was one of her first pieces. She works on a hoop using water soluble fabric to embroider on and fine cords and wires to create the 3D effect. It is very fiddly work but the results are quite beautiful.
‘Past Passions’ is the next theme. Sue is fascinated by historical fabrics, architecture, costume and design and has collect fragments of blue and white china from her garden. She also collects old lace and vintage magazines and is intrigued by the structured clothes worn by women in previous generations. The 2018 centenary of the successful Suffragette campaign allowing women to vote made her think of the sort of clothes women wore then and particularly their gloves. That led to the creation of a beautiful pair of ladies gloves incorporating the suffragette colours of green, purple and white and beautifully decorated with corsage style flowers and edged with a frill based on Elizabethan style ruffs.
From Past Passions we moved onto the ‘Nature Notes’ theme. Sue is very inspired by nature and the natural world. She grew up on a farm and loved the wild flowers of her childhood. She enjoys sketching and painting from nature and then transferring her designs onto water soluble fabric ready to embroider often using tracing paper to get the correct sizes. One memorable occasion she used a childhood I-Spy book to make a satchel using scanned pictures like a patchwork. Sue has always enjoyed making 3D items taking inspiration from Victorian glass domes. Using a technique similar to stumpwork and incorporating machine lace work she stitches over wires and cords to manipulate recognisable shapes such as the bird she showed us.
The final theme was ‘Pleasure Paths’ and this was particularly inspired by Vita Sackville-West and the white garden at Sissinghurst. Sue was inspired by Vita’s androgenous gardening jacket which she recreated by invading it with embroidered plant life. This was an enormously time consuming project and took 320 hours to complete using a huge number of different techniques and threads. Hidcote Garden was another inspiration for ‘Pleasure Paths’ particularly the red boarder. The garden was created in the 1920s and Sue was inspired to create a piece based on the Jazz Age using parachute silk with applique reflecting the vibrant colours of the age.
