Eileen Smillie Individual designs by hand with passion

Welcome to my website, which I hope you will enjoy. I'm rather modest and when it was suggested to me that I create a website I was rather sceptical, I'm a textile artist not an IT whizz!

Everything I make is by hand, with love and passion, my designs are inspired by nature and I love to work with the very best materials. There really are no two identical. I may use the same design concept , but by using different colour combinations, beads and textures I can create a truly individual piece.

I live in the Scottish highlands where I indulge my passion for traditional hand skills, spinning, dying, crochet, bobbin lace making, felting and beading. As you can see, my passion at the moment is felting and beading where my colour and textural inspirations are drawn from my natural surroundings. I find that the combination of wool and glass beads compliment each other beautifully. I always use the finest merino wool and best quality glass and semi precious beads.

In Gallery 3 my hangings are made using both hand and machine needle felting. Again my inspiration is drawn from nature. Merino wool is always top of my starting list but I experiment with many fibres, silk is another favourite. I also combine them for my card making. Using objects from the natural world to enhance my hangings gives me great pleasure.