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Susan Holton MSDC

Stitched & Constructed Textiles

About Susan
Susan Holton is a designer-knitter who loves to create beautiful, unique, contemporary knitwear for women of all ages. She explores stitch, yarn and fibre combinations in experimental knitted and dyed sample swatches to achieve the colour, texture, drape and finish she’s looking for in her finely crafted, timeless, wearable knitwear and accessories.
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Susan Holton creates finely crafted elegant contemporary knitwear for women who love to wear something beautiful and unique. She combines creative yarn blends and subtle textures with distinctive colour combinations and hand finishes to create timeless knitwear which is thoughtfully designed and meticulously finished.

Sue is self-taught both as a knitter and dyer. She began knitting some 40 years ago, originally as a hand knitter, but when she discovered the incredible creative potential in knitting machines she was hooked. Her degree and her ‘day job’ at that time was as a corporate graphic designer; however, knitting and knitwear has now been her full-time business since 2000.

To create a piece, Sue works with a domestic knitting machine – perhaps comparable to a weaver’s loom – and with silk, linen, viscose and cotton yarns in various combinations. Her distinctive and unusual knitted fabrics and textures are developed after much time spent exploring stitch, yarn and fibre combinations in experimental knitted and dyed samples. When the knitting is finished, she piece-dyes or garment-dyes many items to achieve the colour, texture and finish she is looking for. She mixes different fibres, yarns and colours together to achieve the fabric, colour, texture and drape she’s looking for, so garments fit and fabrics drape beautifully. She knits and hand finishes everything individually (nothing is mass produced) – with great care – in her studio in Surrey.

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Recent exhibitions and curated events have included:

  • Living Crafts, Hatfield House, 2022, 2021
  • Surrey Artists Open Studios, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018
  • Sparkle Festive Fair, Landmark Arts Centre, 2022
  • Surrey Hills Christmas Fair, West Horsley Place, 2022, 2021
  • The Craft Festival, Cheltenham, 2021
  • Three pieces selected for 'Elements Redefined', Surrey Guild of Craftsmen travelling exhibition, 2020, 2021, 2022

Earlier exhibitions and curated events have included:

  • The Craft Festival, Bovey Tracey, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017
  • The Craft Festival, Cardiff, 2016
  • Art in Action, Oxford, 2014, 2015, 2016
  • British Crafts, Chiswick Town Hall, 2004 - 2010
  • ‘Make’ Devon Guild of Craftsmen, December 2011 & 2013
  • Contemporary Textiles Fair, Landmark Arts Centre, 2004 – 2015 incl.
  • Festival of Crafts, Farnham Maltings, 2004 – 2015 incl.
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