CarolineHomfray

Designer Maker/Art

2011 Worked on the royal wedding dress designed by Sarah Burton.

As part of the RSN team, I worked on creating the carrickmacross-style lace which formed the sleeves and applied decoration on the skirt of Kate Middleton's wedding dress. The design was finally revealed on the royal wedding day, 29th April 2011.
2011 Synagogue Hanging, New North London Synagogue

August. Working with Sarah Homfray, I advised on the construction and hanging of this community project. Made of 77 canvas work squares carried out by members of the congregation, I stitched them together and devised and stitched the backing and fixings. The tapestry was hung with velcro, a method used in hanning antique textiles.
2010 Private Commission, Freesia Jewellery

A set of jewellery based on freesias, a rather difficult flower to produce in my technique where the embroidery is 'free-standing'!
2006 Fair: Craft in Focus, Canterbury, Kent.
2006 Private Commission: Hydrangea Jewellery

Necklace and Earrings, commissioned as a wedding gift. This version is my experiment with a different colourway to satisfy my own taste.
2006 Exhibiting: Leeds City Craft Gallery, the Headrow, Leeds.
2005 Exhibition: Contemporary Textiles Fair, Teddington.
2005 Magazine Coverage: Making Out feature, Embroidery magazine
2004 Exhibition: By Hand 4, The County Gallery, Maidstone, Kent.
2003 Commission: V&A Enterprises

For jewellery to be sold in the Gothic: Art for England Exhibition shop.
2001 Crafted Bodies Exhibition, Maidstone Musem and Art Gallery. Kent.
2000 Solo exhibition of Drawings, Chromos Gallery, Canterbury, Kent.
1999 First Prize for Textiles, Chatham Dockyard Art Competition

I won it with a piece entitled 'the King's Shilling', a panel with layered drawings of parts of the old yard, transparent machine-stitched drawings on net of ships, and a layer of modern street layouts, representing the new housing developments being constructed on part of the site.
1993 BTEC Foundation in Art

Mid-Warwickshire College of Further Education. I produced a colourful and busy display of textiles and drawing for the final exhibition.

Personal

2008 RHS General Certificate of Horticulture

I completed this at Merrist Wood College in Surrey, having developed an interesting in gardening whilst living in Kent. Flowers and plants have always been a large inspiration to me, and someday I look forward to developing my own garden. In the meantime, I've gardened as a volunteer at both Polesden Lacey and Nymans National Trust gardens, and currently I help my partner cultivate an allotment.
1997 Degree: BA Hons English Literature and History of Art

I gained a 2:1 honours degree from University College London, and a love of London which has stayed with me, living in Camden, St John's Wood and Gray's Inn Road. Everyone makes their own London, and mine is the London of art and music: Medieval kings, C18th philanthropists and painters, C19th writers. Some of my favourite places: South Place Ethical Society in Red Lion Square, the roriginal remains of Thomas Coram's foundling hostpital at Coram's Fields near Russell Square, Gower Street, the network of building speculators' early C19th streets round Islington and Camden.