Felicity Billing

Graduating from the Royal School of Needlework, with a BA Hons in Hand Embroidery, Felicity pushes the creative boundaries between embroidery, design, and science. Her exploration into textured embroidery and material manipulation allows Felicity to showcase cells and natural forms in a tactile way.

Transcending cells / the unseen: tactile biology is a collection of three-body adornment garments, inspired by abstract shapes found in both human and plants cells, unseeable by the naked eye. Microscopic lens imagery allows for clear precision of the cell structure. Importantly Felicity’s work consists of tactile pieces, as a result of her use of textured embroidery, such as French knots in Crewelwork and bead embroidery combined with material manipulation to showcase these cells and natural forms. Connecting herself to the natural world means she approaches hand embroidery with technical precision in juxtaposition to the intuitiveness of human and plant cells. As a result, Felicity produces heavily embellished abstract shapes that intertwine translating initial marks into extraordinary embroidery for a collection of thought-provoking fashion and art-based garments.

Additionally, Felicity aims to develop a more accessible, wearable range, using the pleating and fabric construction elements of the main collection. These elements will focus on particular areas of the garment such as the sleeves, cuff, collar, and headbands. As the range develops, she will introduce tie-dye and later block colour. These pieces will allow the wearer to add decoration to one particular part of the body rather than an entire outfit.

Sharing her skills and knowledge with others is important and Felicity hopes to further her practise through teaching. By doing so she will have an enhanced understanding of haptic learning. This is significant as fine motor skilled tasks can help to unlock and showcase individual capabilities alongside set academic subjects.

Felicity’s showcasing can be seen with further experimentation on her Instagram handle: @felicityalice_embroidery.