16th April 2026

Hayley Mills- Styles presentation 'My Life in Stitch' was  interesting and supported by her colourful and varied range of work.

Hayley has been embroidering for 42 years , she took a BA in textile crafts which covered crafts like machine knitting, embroidery, silk screen printing etc,. She followed this with an MA in textiles featuring digital embroidery involving scanning pictures and then converting into embroidery. Hayley then became a freelance artist creating her own pieces eg the pink cone, working on a variety of commissions as well as teaching workshops for example 'drawing with thread' in Leeds Central Library.

Community work like 'The unravelling Fantasia of Miss H' - Mary (Miss H) was incarcerated in the workhousewhere she stitched. Hayley was approached by 'Stitched up Theatre' to run workshops, she asked the women to stitch something to depict what being a woman meant to them. The pieces produced by the women were then made into 3 banners by being patchworked together by Hayley. 

 A lot of work that she does makes use of vintage fabrics and found items. Hayley also creates work for exhibitions eg Prism, for the on in 2022 the theme was 'Untold' for this her piece was 'where is my mind' featuring old tins with strands of text of intrusive thoughts spilling from them. The words were machine embroidered onto soluble fabric in order to form the strands.

The 2023 exhibition theme was 'Warped' research led Hayley to warped pertaining to ships being pulled ashore by ropes so 'flotsom and jetsom' uses found ropes, rust dying, machine wrapped cords, bringing found pieces from various places together.

 The 2024 exhibition theme was 'Edgelands'for this Hayley embroidered pieces of graffitti taken from images in Leeds.

Threads of freedom  - was the 80 year commeration of VE Day 'Our freedom then and now' workshops.

Hayley's current theme is 'Fancy Goods' ie those seen in the  tourist based seafront stalls/shops in Scarborough her buried treasure features beaded plastic buckets and spades (she sews the beads on), 'Pennyfalls game' Unicorn, bear etc and the 'dropped ice cream ' plates created with paint, beads etc.