Florence Spurling Visited the Guild January 10th – Virtually
We opened 2023 with a contemporary London-based designer whose textile designs are inspired by the natural world. Florence Spurling studied at The Royal College of Art and received her Masters Degree in Textiles there. She described the Masters program as; first half demonstrating one’s skills, second half creative expression – in other words, unleashed. Her focus is on hand knitting, crochet, machine knitting, and embellishment (which includes beads and embroidery).
Her slide show gave us examples of her inspiration, directly from nature, or motifs inspired by nature. This includes bouquets, insects, tapestries and Portuguese tiles. She displays these images in her studio for inspiration. Her presentation showed her swatches and then the finished design created from them. Very inspiring.
While still in school Florence collaborated with industry brands under the name edie, after her mum. Upon completing her Masters Degree she moved to America and worked for Anthropologie, in their design studio. Here she gained experience simulating the handwork she valued so much, adapting it to the commercial world of mass production.
After returning to England, she published a book Machine Knitted Textiles, a Book on Machine Knitting for Fashion. The past 4-5 years have been focused on writing patterns for hand knitting. They are beautifully embellished and include sweaters and accessories.
