Welcome to my website. Thank you for visiting! NOT always up to date as too busy finding out about textiles or stitching or drawing.
Artist, researcher, stitcher, tutor, and textile enthusiast, Combining a love for drawing with the tactile world of textiles to create unique, meaningful work. For enquiries or collaborations, feel free to reach out. I explore questions of identity through my art and stitch practice. Images and lines in my work are informed by drawings of my surroundings and connections between communities and cultures. See what I’m up to and follow me on Instagram and FB …..click the links below.
📸 Instagram | 📘 Facebook
Or email me @ helenamandasill@gmail.com
I absolutely love talking about and working with textiles. If you would like to book me for a talk or workshop please email me. I deliver a range of talks about textiles and teach a variety of classes centered around hand stitch , drawing, mixed media, including stitch based – Indian style, kawandi, sashiko, free style, indigo dying and more as well as developing sketch books.
TOURS/TRAVEL
I have a fascination for South Asian textiles and fell in love with India when I first visited Gujarat and Agra in 2018. I currently host textile tours there with an Indian based tour company Aahilya. My last trip with them was to West Bengal and Odisha. Prior to that Bengal, Nagaland and Assam in December 2024. And also Delhi and Rajasthan I I visited Uzbekistan with Aahilya for textile research purposes in 2024. I will be leading tours to Jaipur in February 2025 and Uzbekistan in March 2026….. more dates willbe announced for 2027 join me! They are amazing trips! Not long back from Gujarat and Nepal (channeling my closet Sheila Paine not that I am any where close to this amazing woman ..but you got to aim high…) to work with dyers and embroiderers and find out more about amazing stitch entrepreneurs. I also went trekking on Morocco and Nepal at the end of last year.
Check out the Aahilya holidays website for details of my UPCOMING Textile Tours:
https://www.aahilyaholidays.com/tour/bd8a/crafts,-culture-&-textile-tour-of-orissa-with-helen-sill-
https://www.aahilyaholidays.com/tour/d083/a-textile,-craft-&-cultural-journey-of-uzbekistan-with-helen-sill
I am currently researching South East Asian textiles and teach a range of hand stitch classes…. Contact me by email or social media (not through this website) for details or look at SewCreative Workshops and Talks for classes I teach in Petersfield, Hampshire.
Other stuff:
https://mrxstitch.com/helen-sill//helen-sill/
BIT OF BACKGROUND
I was an Embroiderers’ Guild Graduate and Guild Scholar and completed a Masters Degree in Fine Art in 2021 where my research interests were around making and community focusing on the rich textile traditions of Gujarat in North West India and the North East of England.
Past commissions have included work for West Dean Gardens, the Petersfield Museum and being Artist in Resident at Chichester Festival Theatre. My work is in private and public collections.
Granularity of language….
helen sill 