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Embroidery Magazine Mar/Apr issue is out now!

For a dash of early spring colour, you can’t beat the March/April issue of Embroidery magazine. Bursting with vitality, this issue brings you face to face with everything from Hikaru Noguchi’s beautiful art darning to Barbara Franc’s three-dimensional textile pet portraits.

And we hope you’re not squeamish… Our cover story comes courtesy of Annemieke Mein and her retrospective exhibition in Australia, a celebration of 60 years of exacting textile works depicting the nation’s flora and fauna.

Elsewhere, the poignant stories of women struggling with motherhood are caringly told by Ali Ferguson, using stitched text juxtaposed with vintage crisp white children’s dresses.

We also profile Sue Dove and her abstracted, highly decorative portraits; Outi Pieski, whose fringed artworks are on show at Tate St Ives in Cornwall; and Frieda Toranzo Jaeger whose life-sized cars and spaceships are embroidered with Pre-Columbian stitch.

Treat yourself to a copy…

Hikaru Noguchi, Japanese traditional mending based on the patch and sew technique. Hikaru also loves crazy patchwork, so here mixes the two techniques to mend her damaged jeans. Many of the fabric pieces she uses are Liberty Tana Lawn, which Hikaru has been collecting since she worked at the store as a Saturday job when she lived in England.

© Hikaru Noguchi

Barbara Franc, Summer Hare (detail), right side

Ali Ferguson, Story Dress: He’s a good baby, Back. When you turn the dress around you find the real story of the mothers’ welfare stitched on the back, hidden from view, just as they have hidden their physical and emotional strain.