Making you think with a needle and thread - April 2026

Holly Searle AKA The Subversive Stitcher is an award-winning Textile Artist was born in Central London during the last century. 

An analogue child, she grew up closer to the make do and mend generation, than the digital one of the 21 century. She hails from a line of creative women who liked to stitch, embroider, and knit.

" I always loved being creative, but as the years flew by and my time became more focused on other life stuff, there was no window for it. 

Then one day, several years ago, I attended an exhibition on mental health at The Wellcome Collection and saw the most incredible sight. It was a sampler that had been made by an inmate of a Victorian Asylum.

The inmate Mary Frances Heaton had used a needle and thread to petition Queen Victoria about her individual experiences of the social injustices that had befallen her and that had led to her confinement.

That moment, seeing her work changed my entire perception of how working with textiles could be used as a platform for raising awareness about issues that weren’t normally associated with samplers. I found it very emotive and extremely inspirational.

Her passion reignited my own desire to find the time to create again. By using embroidery and textiles as a basis to draw attention to issues I feel strongly about, especially those that affect women, my aim has always been to echo a likeminded integrity for the truth by subverting the norm.

Mary was incarcerated for 41 years and during that time, she never gave up sewing samplers as a platform for her voice to be heard.”

Holly has collaborated on several community projects as well private commissions. She also hosts Subverted Stitching Workshops as well as continuing with her own art practice.