Emery Smith Studio

Blog

• A peregrination not a destination

  2nd Oct 2026

  A new weaving to share with you today 🌈
  
  Sometimes I start with the words, and sometimes they come into my head while I’m weaving. This one was the latter; although I have been ruminating on getting older and where my life is going for the past few years, since I hit my 40’s really. I always thought my 20’s and 30’s were for figuring it all out, but what I’ve realised is; I was never going to finally arrive somewhere. I will always be the sum of my experiences to date. And I’m finding that very freeing.
  
  Woven with recycled and scrap textiles, with natural wool fibres from @feralfibres interspersed.

  

  

• Nature provides solutions

  13th Sep 2026

  Finally finished my latest quilt: ‘Nature provides solutions’.
  
  I created this piece in response to the repeated heatwaves we have been experiencing this year, and my observations from my own neighbourhood; that those streets lined with trees felt much cooler to walk down than those without. I’d never really noticed this before, we normally have pretty mild summers in the UK.
  
  Since then, I keep reading about other examples of this sort of thing in urban areas. Where nature is considered and encouraged, there is a higher resilience to extreme weather conditions such as heatwaves and flooding.
  
  This year I read the book “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer . One of my favourite concepts from it was that we need to re-establish our relationships with the natural world – because when we love nature, nature will love us back. It’s a two-way thing. So this quilt is a testament to my love of trees and commitment to our ongoing relationship.
  
  Most of the quilt is made from reclaimed and secondhand fabrics, with the largest pieces being ex-hotel bed sheets from Renee Materials that I dyed different colours.
  
  All the embroidery and appliqué was sewn by hand and I hand-tied the quilt together which is a technique I only came across recentry but I will be using again. I love the texture on the front and dimples it creates on the back.
  

  

  

  

  

• Lounge pants

  6th Sep 2026

  Three pairs of lounge pants/pj bottoms sewn up in one weekend 😊
  
  All my existing pairs were in various states of disrepair, and beyond mending I think*, so I needed new ones. I’ve been telling myself for weeks to just buy some but annoyingly I find it hard to purchase something I could just make myself.
  
  I used three different patterns for a mix of styles:
  Patchwork: Bob pants by @stylearc
  Checkerboard: ZW block pants by @birgittahelmersson
  Stripes: Lounge wear pants by @peppermintmagazine
  
  Patchwork fabric is just some random remnants sewn together without much thought but worked out OK I think.
  Checkerboard and striped fabrics from @thegoodstitchgoring
  
  (*The old pairs don’t get thrown away – they are deconstructed; I re-used the elastic in these new pairs and all other usable fabric goes into my scraps pile for future projects. Unusable fabric goes into the compost bin – I try and only use natural fibres for this reason.)
  
  Best wishes friends, sending you all tenderness and strength xxx

  

  

  

  

  

  

• Embroidery on the beach

  15th Aug 2026

  Spent a week in St Ives, found some time to embroider some sea treasure.