Katerina Knight

Textile creator

©Iona Nicoll

©Max Blyth

©Katerina Knight

Flowers, plants, needles and threads

Katerina intricately hand-threads petals and seeds on silk thread
She is a textiles university lecturer at Hereford College of Art
Her pieces feature flowers she grows in local community gardens

Katerina Knight works with embroidery, needle lace and natural dyes to delicately handcraft textiles. Her love for traditional lacemaking techniques blossomed in 2021, while she was working with The Lace Guild, an educational charity based in the West Midlands. Katerina graduated from the Glasgow School of Art and later completed a master's in Textiles at the Royal College of Art in London. "I wanted to leave the fashion industry behind and establish my own studio out of the city, so I left London and relocated to the Malvern Hills in the countryside," she shares. From this workshop she is now able to work closely with nature. Katerina forages local plant materials and cultivates her own flowers, which she dries and uses as textile materials. “The garden and the forest are an extension of my studio. They are equally as important as my embroidery desk," Katerina says.

Interview

©Katerina Knight

Why did you decide to become a textile creator?: My affinity with making textiles has always been rooted in the process of creating beautiful things in a world that can have a lot of darkness. As a maker, crafting textiles that enrich the world with beauty feels like an extraordinary gift.
When did you fall in love with needle lace?: While studying, I worked at The Lace Guild, a lace museum and archive in Stourbridge, the UK's largest lace organisation. I studied the archive and became enamoured with needle lace, which inspired me to reimagine its possibilities in my practice and in a contemporary textile context.
What technique do you specialise in?: In my chemical-free and machine-free practice, I combine intricate hand processes of embroidery, needle lace and natural dye. Using homegrown or locally foraged materials, I transfer organic colour to yarn, thread and cloth. I delicately hand stitch with the dried materials as my alternative embroidery embellishments.
What is one thing about your work that surprises people?: I grow my own flowers in a community garden at my local Buddhist centre. While a single embroidered piece can take months, I feel like it is vital to also honour the time to cultivate materials, from sowing, planting and growing to harvesting and drying. Working with plants teaches respect for origins and time.

Katerina Knight is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2015 and she started teaching in 2023