The textile wizard
- Aimee masters knotting, braiding and embroidery techniques
- She is a tutor at Goldsmiths, University of London
- She made a wearable piece with yarn created from waste carrier bags
From lamps to jewellery, soft furnishings and furniture; Aimee Betts has worked with them all. Looking at the wooden pull handles she intricately works into small masterpieces by applying fibre and leather cords into rich patterns, one can realise the fine mastery that goes into her creations. Her approach to making is usually process driven, she loves to explore materials and techniques and apply them to different surfaces. This theme of making her own cords and applying them to 3D surfaces is central to Aimee’s practice. Following a BA in Multi Media Textile Design from Loughborough University, and an MA in Constructed Textiles (Mixed Media) from the Royal College of Art, London, she moved into her first shared workshop in South East London in 2011.
Interview
- How would you define what you do?
- As someone who works across product design and craft, it can be difficult to define what I do. I have been describing myself as a mixed media textile designer specialising in embroidery and braiding, with the intention of leaving it quite open.
- Why did you choose to work with textiles?
- I think this craft chose me. I recently discovered that I come from a long line of textile makers from the East Midlands; my ancestors can be traced back to the frame work knitters and lace makers of 19th-century Nottingham, my grandmother and her sisters worked as warpers in a Leicestershire mill.
- What materials and techniques do you use?
- For making cushions, I work with the best vintage linen and hand dyed cotton velvets that I can find and embroider using hand made cords, and wool, silk and cotton threads. For lamps, I work with hand turned metal and timber bases, and then braid and knot around these 3D forms using leather cords.
- How do you express tradition and innovation in your work?
- As a young designer, I would have felt challenged by working with embroidery because of the negative associations and how this medium is perceived in the contemporary design world. I now feel more confident in applying embroidery concepts to objects.
Aimee Betts is a master artisan: she began her career in 2008 and she started teaching in 2012
Where
Aimee Betts
