I often get asked where the designs for my artworks come from. The simple answer is…I draw them myself.

The truer answer has a bit more texture to it. Before I sit down at the sewing machine, there’s a whole world of research, observation and frankly chaotic sketchbook pages. I spend a lot of time getting to know whatever it is I’m about to stitch, learning everything I can about it.

My studies often begin as awkward scribbles and quick notes. Little anatomical explorations. It’s a way of easing into the subject, letting my hand and my brain settle into its rhythms. All of this visual research lives inside my many unordered, messy sketchbooks that I rarely (if ever) share. They’re not pretty, but they’re the foundation for everything I do. It’s where familiarity forms.

The time I spend ‘becoming friends’ with the subject really pays off when it comes to drawing a design. By the time I’m ready to develop an embroidery piece, I’ve spent hours observing and redrawing until I understand its structure instinctively. When that moment clicks, I can sit down, often without any reference image, and draw the leaf (or coral, or whatever I’m exploring) exactly as I imagine it. It’s deeply satisfying to watch a design just flow out of you.

Ginkgo leaves are a long-time companion in this process. We’ve been good friends for many years now. I’ve been creating stitched interpretations of them for well over a decade, and drawing these fan-shaped beauties still brings me a calm, grounding joy.

Below is a time-lapse video of me sketching out a new Ginkgo circle design. You can watch the drawing grow from loose lines into something purposeful. I’ve also included a page from my ‘special’ sketchbook (not the messy ones I mentioned earlier, I’m not quite ready to share those). That sketchbook deserves its own story another day. If you’d like to peek inside more of it, feel free to mention it in the comments below and I’ll share more soon.