My path to establishing my studio wasn't a conventional one. Having left high school early to enter the workforce, I spent my twenties and early thirties building a career in office administration and operations. While I enjoyed the practical, structured nature of business admin, a quiet creative pull remained.

In 2014, I joined a local evening sewing class in my village to learn a new skill and meet people in the community. As I began making my own pieces, I kept running into a hurdle: I could never find the exact patterns I had in my mind's eye printed on the right quality of fabric. I wanted to understand why certain cottons behaved differently, how textiles were actually made, and how to put my own drawings onto raw cloth.

That curiosity led to an evening portfolio class at Edinburgh College to get drawing again—where I created my very first pattern (a honeycomb complete with bees and wildflowers). Driven to take it further, I took a leap of faith, left my full-time job, and enrolled in a formal Art & Design foundation course. From my first printmaking workshops to hand-stitching heavy wool lampshades until my fingers ached, I was hooked.

What started as a single evening class turned into a full second chapter. As someone who left school with no high-level qualifications, going to university felt like an impossible dream. Four years later, I graduated with First-Class Honours in Design for Textiles from Heriot-Watt University, specialising in printed textiles, and was awarded the Dr Oliver Medal for best overall final-year student.

The Story & Journey