Rachel Nettles

My name is Rachel Nettles but I trade under the name Cabbages & Nettles. I have my own studio in Manchester UK where I’m passionate about Free Motion Machine Embroidery. I enjoy studying detail forms (presently vegetables) then creating 3 dimensional sculptures. Each sculpture is individual and made from sewn layer upon sewn layer of stitch using different machine tensions. Each stitch is made from different thread weights and three different colours. Once the sewing process is finished I sculpt to form my vegetable. For me it’s important to push the boundaries of stitch.
I love seeing peoples reactions to my work and appreciating the stitch that makes them look again.

My creative background started in the mid eighties when I worked in thread and cloth making full size bicycles and lawn mowers to stitched ladies in tights. This background is the basics of my present work. I enjoy all forms of art, especially those who express emotion through their work, for example, Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse.
After having qualified in Fine Art Sculpture BA Hons. I worked in television, making props, puppets and puppeteer. I also undertook dinosaur installations working with palaeontologist in museums across the United Kingdom.

-March 2015 - Emerge Exhibition , featuring the best of Greater Manchester craft/makers - Royal Exchange Manchester

-May 2015 - Simply Cheshire, Arley Hall, Cheshire

-July/August 2015 - Stitched allotment on King Street
Manchester "Dig The City".

-December 2015 - The Whitworth Art Gallery , Manchester

-May / July 2016 -Solo exhibition in Anthropologie Gallery,
Kings Road, London.

-May 2106 -Artist in Residence in Anthropologie Gallery,
Kings Road, London

-May 2016 - Pansy Stitching Workshop in Anthropologie
Gallery,Kings Road, London

-October 2016 - Handmade In Britain at Edinburgh

-May 2017 - Simply Cheshire at Arley Hall

-July 2017 - Royal Horticultural Society, Tatton Flower
Show.