Welcome to my textile world
embroidery
I design and make contemporary needlelace and embroidery
I want to share my passion of lacemaking and embroidery
My workshops are open to all who have an interest in textiles and stitching.
Learning to make needlelace presents you with a new world of textures to create.
Needlelace is a textile that can be used to embellish a piece of cloth or incorporate it within a piece of embroidery.
Welcome to my textile world!
Learn The Basics
Beginners will start with a simple pattern to learn the foundations of making needlelace.
Master The Basics
Developing your vocabulary of stitches using different thread types and beads.
Become a designer maker
Bringing your personal style into the making of needlelace
Things You Will Learn
Starting your Pattern
The foundations of making a good piece of needlelace
Needlelace Stitches
There are numerous stitches based upon the humble blanket stitch
Experimental options
Being open to how to create different textures using a variety of threads and beads
Designing
Creating a unique piece based upon your own ideas and interests
Please email susan@susanbradshaw.co.uk if you want to be notified of future events.
Student work
I think you will enjoy the world of lace & embroidery
It takes me to another place and helps me to focus my mind.
I love to work with colour, texture and shape.
All the textile work shown on this site is the property of Susan Bradshaw
About me
My love for making and designing intricate textiles combined with my desire for learning is rolled into one. It helps me to develop my passion and inspire others.
With a family background of weaving in the cotton mills of Lancashire and my childhood of making and stitching, textiles has continued to stay with me during my life. I studied three-dimensional design at Manchester Polytechnic. Since graduating in 1981 I have worked in the studio glass industry as a new designer/maker, as an archive conservator in the County Archives of Devon and most predominantly in training and development for the professional body the Institute of Conservation.
Throughout my working career I have continued to design and make lace, tutor adults locally and on residential courses. I am also a trained professional development coach.
Bringing traditional techniques into the limelight and use in contemporary work is fascinating. I learned how to make Honiton lace in my twenties when I moved to Devon for work. Through this evening class I met with a likeminded group of people that balanced out my working day in a hot glass studio. I soon wanted to use my design skills
to create contemporary lace patterns and experiment with the traditional techniques that abandoned some of the rules. I have received a variety of awards including the Elsie Luxton Prize, a Lace Guild award for my Honiton Lace.
Needle lace and embroidery gives me the chance to use a full range of colourful palette of threads in all gauges and incorporate beads and other materials that will create the desired textures I need to interpret the content of the desired image.
Most recently I have discovered a form of bobbin lace that is free in form and allows me to create texture with colourered threads.
My inspiration is drawn from the world around me, be that an urban scene, a rural landscape, or a beautiful object.
I like to work towards a specific goal that will help to keep me focused. I am driven to identify new challenges that feed my personal love to learn and the continuous need to develop my work. I have recently been invited back to The Westhope Lace Group after a 20 year gap and am delighted to be making some new work for the next exhibition in 2026 themed Freeform.
I am an Associate maker member of Make Southwest, and Creative Textiles at Totnes (CTaT).