Heart and Home Handmade

Helen Francis makes hand-embroidered Needlepoint Cushions and Wedding Ring cushions. She also makes cushions to commission and has featured a wide variety of subjects including peoples’ houses, boats, pets and hobbies. At the moment Helen is working on a Family Tree cushion to be given as a Golden Wedding present.
Helen embroiders onto canvas using wool and other yarn and backs the cushions with felt which makes them very hard-wearing, so they do last for generations.
Helen also restores and makes-up vintage pieces of needlepoint into cushions, sometimes adding a quirky twist, such as buttons or badges. She’s working on two themes at the moment, National Flags and Board Games. Having originally trained as a designer, |Helen loves the colourful, graphic images of the flags and also the childhood memories associated with board games. She has completed Scrabble, Backgammon, Chess and Dominoes cushions to date but is finding designing and creating a Snakes and Ladders cushion a bit of a challenge!
Helen has been boating and embroidering for over 40 years but decided to do more of both after retirement brought about by a brain tumour six years ago.
2015 will be her first proper year of trading from her narrowboat Betty so she is a real newbie!
Helen is looking forward to her first full year of trading and is planning to travel from her home mooring on the Shroppie to Bath, as the Kennet & Avon will be new territory for her.
For more information visit http://www.heartandhomehandmade.com/