It all started in about 1990 when I was living in Zimbabwe. My introduction to embroidery came from humble beginnings..... I did not learn at my grandmother's knee, I did not learn from my Mother (she is here today and will confirm), I did not do domestic science at school; in fact, everything I learnt was from a book - however, I did enjoy art, so perhaps the creative leanings were there. It was not until I got married that I tried my hand at various crafts including sewing - this began a series of home industries where I sold my wares at craft fairs hoping to get rich quick from the proceeds. Then I learnt to do cross stitch and was hooked.

In 1993, an opportunity arose to take on the DMC agency in Zimbabwe which would prove to change the course of my life. This little agency was a great success and eventually we were providing every needlework shop in Zimbabwe plus some of the neighboring countries.

We imported the threads direct from France and then distributed them to the shops. There was a chronic shortage of foreign currency in Zimbabwe so I had to borrow from my Dad's currency allocation for the farm. If I remember correctly, we had to put the threads down as tractor spares or tobacco twines or something like that!

At this time, I became interested in thread painting and spent many hours pondering the techniques in books and trying them out on little pieces of scrap fabric. I would copy little pictures from cards, books, or wrapping paper in an effort to reproduce the original as closely as possible. I was not aware of any embroidery guild in Zimbabwe and certainly did not know of anyone who did this type of embroidery who could help me, so I just developed my own style of thread painting.

In 1999, we went on a trip to the DMC factory in France. They saw some of my work and asked me if I would like to publish a book for them, but when the contract came through, I noticed it was to be published in French.

So I sent the synopsis out to some English speaking publishers and in 2000 I was offered a contract by Sally Milner Publishing in Australia. Their contract stated that I had to give them first offer of any new book titles and so I have continued to publish with them to this day.

Since then, I have published four books, approximately one every two years - three on thread painting and one on cross stitch. The cross stitch book was compiled from a number of kits I had done previously and was published in 2003.

The first [thread painting] book was Redoute's Finest Flowers in Embroidery, published in 2001 - I had bought a book in the London art gallery on Redoute's flower paintings and felt compelled to stitch them. I thought it was my job to send them a complete layout of the book, page for page. Computers didn't do what you wanted them to do in those days and I spent many frustrated hours trying to get pictures in the right place on the page, only to be told that was the designer's job!

I found out I was pregnant at the age of 43 (I have two grown up daughters) and... moved out of our house into a small cottage while they were doing major alterations to our house - didn't think I would finish the book. My family pushed me to get it finished and about four months before Katie was born, the book went off to Australia.

I remember well the arrival of this first book. Katie was about 2 months old and I had tears in my eyes. When I saw the book in print, it was an amazing feeling.

This little book exceeded all my expectations, going into a reprint within the first three months - I didn't even know what a reprint was... since then, it's been reprinted four times. The whole thing was a bit overwhelming: not only was I trying to get to grips with motherhood in my latter years, but the publishers were already asking for a second title.