Rose Merton

 

Rose was born in Hilversum in the Netherlands as the eldest of 4 children. She started sewing at an early age as her mother used to be a tailor and there were always bits of fabric and thread in the house.

She sewed on her mum’s sewing machine making doll’s clothes when very young and upcycled garments in her teenage years.

She trained and worked as a pharmacist’s assistant studying chemistry, physics and Latin.

In 1971 she came to England for a few months to improve her English with the intention to then also live and work in Germany and France for a few months to improve her knowledge of those languages. However, she met her husband when working in London and the rest is history. While living in London she worked for a South African bank in the city as a money dealer as she speaks several languages.

After getting married she moved to Felixstowe in 1976 and carried on stitching mainly making clothes for herself and her 2 children and other domestic sewing.

In the 1990’s she was one of the founder members of a small patchwork group in Felixstowe called The Seaside Stitchers and they organised their first and only exhibition in 1993. In 2000 she started her City & Guilds part 1 at Otley College with tutors Annette Morgan, Bridget Heriz-Smith and Christine Davies. The main aim was to learn to design and not follow patterns. She did this course while also working full time as PA at a container shipping line.

After completing this course life carried on. She still worked in shipping but also worked for her husband’s company doing his administration for several years and took on a full-time caring role when he developed Parkinson’s. After his death in 2017 she was quite lost but found out about Creative Stitch and after getting in touch with them enrolled in their advanced Creative Stitch course starting in 2018 and completed during lockdown in 2020. She very much enjoyed the 2 year course and is now a member of Spotlight Textiles.

Rose loves travelling making many trips in Europe as well as several to Australia and India.

Below are a few photographs of her exhibition upon completion of her Advanced Creative Stitch certificate.

 Rose Merton grew up in the Netherlands in a creative family and have been stitching in all shapes and forms from a very young age including embroidery, knitting, crochet as well as dressmaking.

Rose completed her C&G Patchwork and Quilting with Annette Morgan in 2003 and completed Advanced Creative Stitch with Mary McIntosh in 2020.