About Abigail
Textile artist Abigail Mill has recently returned to her childhood roots in the Waveney Valley on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. She is surrounded by the beauty of the Waveney Valley and has just published her new book “ Waveney Valley Wildlife- Embroidered by Abigail Mill”. This beautiful publication is a combination of Step by Step chapters for textile fans to be inspired and make their own pictures, landscape photography, history, and local knowledge of the Waveney Valley, which acts as a tourist guide or gorgeous coffee table book.
She runs face to face Creative Machine Embroidery courses from her workshop in Redenhall, alongside Zoom workshops. She is also available to hire for talks to private textile groups and guilds. She sells collections of Sewing kits, Hand dyed Fabric packs, and personally selected variegated Mettler Threads from her online shop, as well as Original Artwork, Greetings Cards and Giftware.
Abigail trained in embroidery at Cumbria College of Art & Design in 1990, following a passion for art throughout her childhood. She made things from an early age and was nic-named ’fiddle -fingers’ as she was always creating, keeping busy, and could never sit still! Her father used to come home at weekends with an array of camera tape, the colours of the rainbow, and they were her first materials at her fingertips. The obvious path was for her to follow a creative career where she discovered textiles at art school; a means of incorporating texture, and her big passion, colour.
Her style is very distinctive using a self developed technique of layering up hand dyed printed cottons, combined with free motion machine embroidery to create landscapes and other imagery. She leaves the fabric edges raw and frayed and more recently have been interested in creating three dimensional forms. The overall effect looks ethereal and is sometimes confused with watercolour, when viewed from a distance. Her artwork is a little whimsical and nostalgic which makes people smile and reminds them of their holidays, which can’t be a bad thing!
She initially set up her business with a grant from the Princes Trust, setting up her first studio in Muspole street, Norwich. She started selling her work through exhibitions and trade shows. Over the years the business grew and she moved to London where she exhibited at trade shows, and with the Crafts Council in New York and San Fransisco.
She has featured in many craft and embroidery magazines. In 2005 she was invited, alongside three other artists, to take part in a community arts project at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital, to create coastal images for the children’s Buxton ward. It was the first time that she collaborated with other artists and had to consider the environment surrounding her artwork which she found very rewarding.
Abigail has exhibited at shows across the country, from RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Tatton Park , RHS Wisley, to table top events at Burnham Market and Blackthorpe Barns. For updates on product launches, workshop dates and shows, follow Abigail on Facebook at Abigail Mill Embroidery, and on Instagram as abigailmill_embroidey