Corn

Corn has long held profound meaning in some Indigenous traditions, not merely as food but as a sacred gift that binds people to the land and to one another. In certain origin stories, life itself is born from maize, emphasising the collaboration of natural forces and human tending in the making of existence.

When I read about the ancient Indigenous folklore of the ‘corn people’, it inspired me to explore whether corn could be used for beading.

This ongoing investigation treats beading as more than ornament — it becomes a dialogue with the earth and our shared heritage of cultivation. Here, dehydrated corn kernels — coloured with red cabbage pigment and gently dried again — are stitched by hand into wool with cotton thread. In doing so, each bead carries the memory of growth: sun, soil, and water converging to co‑create with human hand.

In these compostable accents, the work honours that legacy, underlining how material, colour, and care can carry meaning without leaving a lasting trace on the world.

Wood

Wood is a hand-knitted piece realised partly on a Silver Reed knitting machine and partly by hand, using soft cotton yarn. Two distinct wood‑knot patterns emerge across its surface: each unique in rhythm and structure, yet they visually support and dialogue with one another, echoing the way knots and grains define a living tree.

The piece celebrates the beauty of asymmetry and the quiet balance that arises when contrasting forms coexist. Through stitch and texture, it honours the patterns found in nature, transforming the logic of growth, tension, and interconnection into a tactile experience. In Wood, every knot becomes a node of relation, each pattern a testament to resilience, interdependence, and the poetry inherent in natural structures.

Untouched

Untouched is an oversized, hand-knitted sweater made from raw wool in its most elemental state. The fibres were neither spun nor treated or dyed, but used as plain carded ropes, preserving the wool’s natural structure, irregularity, and natural itch-free softness. The garment honours the material before refinement, before polish — before intervention.

Only afterwards was it gently tinted with beetroot pigments, allowing colour to settle into the fibres without erasing their origin. The piece is 100% compostable and reflects on purity and process, on what it means to leave something intact while still transforming it. In its softness and slight resistance, the sweater carries the quiet presence of the animal, the field, and the hand that shaped it.

Growth

Growth is a fully compostable wool ensemble — skirt, bralette, and arm warmers — designed to honour the potential inherent in natural materials. Its sinuous patterns suggest the movement of life beneath the surface, showing how fibres, once returned to the soil, nurture new life and continue the cycle of creation.

Through its form and texture, the piece meditates on transformation, resilience, and interconnection. Growth embodies the dialogue between the living material and the earth, inviting reflection on how making, wearing, and returning can coexist in a continuous loop of renewal. Each stitch is a quiet testament to the beauty of cycles, the nourishment of life, and the enduring bond between human care and nature’s generosity.