September 2025 Newsletter

Emma Broughton
Oct 14
4 min read

Hey lovely stitchers!

Firstly a big "hello" to all my new subscribers! How is it September already!

I would love this to be a collaborative community so do you have a general embroidery question you want answered in my next newsletter or maybe you have finished one of my kits, can I share it in my newsletter? I would love a regular student showcase section. Just hit reply or message on my socials. Feel free to share your ideas and events with me, my inbox is always open!

Wow what a busy summer I've had, I went straight into the RSN Summer School after an amazing weeks cruise to Norway. It was lovely to teach so many classes at the Summer School and I've been sent some lovely photo finishes since. It was very tiring driving back and forth from Hampton Court each day but I gave myself a day off between each class which helped.

Help us shape the future of RSN Short courses and Summer School.

RSN Education and Tutors are reviewing our short course and Summer School formats to change or offerings going forward. I'm taking part in a working group tomorrow afternoon (even though it's my Birthday). I like the idea of a retreat or cruise as well as more on demand classes for techniques such as Framing up/Mounting.

📢If you have any ideas of what you want to see us offering just respond to this email or EMAIL me directly, we would love to hear from you.

What's Been Happening at Fairy Wren

Firstly I've been having a much needed break after a very busy first half of the year!

If you have been following me on Instagram you will have seen that I've been giving my studio a much needed makeover so no stitching has taken place...I thankfully had a few helpers for the big furniture build but the majority of the carpet tile laying and boxes moving was all down to me.

This is a roughly before photo, after laying some of the carpet tiles:

I may have had a mild panic when it was clear I was going to run out of the floor tiles but thankfully a local carpet and flooring company gave me an off cut from that morning before it went on the skip, its now hidden under the new units!

This after: so much better!

It means that the bi-fold doors are now all clear and letting in some lovely autumn light. The hope is to eventually have private students in person so if this something you might be interested in just let me know.

Thanks to everyone who voted for the colour to dye my old rugs, I've ordered the Emerald Green pods which are coming tomorrow. I plan to dye them in the washing machine on Wednesday. I've also got to dye some silk soon for a new kit which is being run next year. I've decided that going forward I'm going to order white silk Dupion in bulk and batch hand dye colours for my kits.

While this might seem like a lot of work I enjoy dyeing and I want to not only make use of the additional skills I learned at University but also offer you a unique colour choice you can't purchase anywhere else. It also means I can dye the exact colour I want for a kit and replicate it so I don't have to worry about fabrics being out of stock or discontinued. I have a recipe book with some lovely colours in and I can't wait to experiment with more.

Personal

This is just one of the many photos from our trip to Norway. It was a wonderful trip with such amazing views each day, definitely somewhere I would love to go back to for longer. For those of you who have seen my previous newsletters, the injection I had in my hip thankfully wore off a week or two before so I was able to manage a lot more than we anticipated walking wise but I am still having physio so continue building my strength and improve the impingement so it still small steps but getting better.

Artistic Practice

Unfortunately there's not much to share here as I've been so busy working on summer school its had to take a back seat. Ideas are still forming and the subject has been chosen, thanks to the kindness of photographer Tim Walker I have permission to use one of his photos as a starting point so watch this space. I hope to start working on this very soon as I don't have any classes till November.