MOOR PLEASE

achel Stirr is passionate about photography, graphic design and the wild, windswept moors of North Yorkshire. And this year the enterprising 24-year-old launched a business that cleverly brings together all these enthusiasms.

Trading as Bernie & Blue – named after her two beloved horses – Rachel makes gorgeous silk scrunchies, ties and scarves whose vibrant colours and bold designs celebrate the animals, birds and plants that inhabit the landscape close to her Swaledale home.

Born and raised near Richmond, Rachel took an unusually wide-ranging combination of A-levels – photography, textiles and geology – before going on to study agriculture at Askham Bryan College near York. Looking for a way to use her photographic skills she hit on the idea of using her images to create her own unique textile designs. Rachel seeks her inspiration in wild places and describes her photographic philosophy as ‘capture to conserve’. She hopes that the images she records will help a wider audience to value a fragile and threatened landscape.

“I would like to help the gamekeepers and hill farmers who are conserving our moorlands and the wild birds, animals, insects and plant communities that live there,” she says. “In fact, I’m in the process of linking up with charities that educate the public about moorlands, and I plan to give a percentage of my profits to help with conservation projects. ‘Wear it for wildlife’ is how I would sum up my textiles project!”

INSPIRING IMAGES

Bernie & Blue’s current range includes hand-made scrunchies, stylish ties and colourful scarves, all in 100% pure silk. The majority of the designs originate in Rachel’s photos, carefully colour-manipulated and multiplied using image-processing software. They celebrate the natural beauty of our wild uplands, using the bold forms and rich colours of creatures like black grouse, pheasants and curlews, and plants such as cotton grass, to create patterns that strike a fine balance between naturalistic and abstract.

Rachel has no shortage of new ideas in the pipeline, including designs featuring threatened upland birds such as the grey ptarmigan, the lapwing, the winged plover and the skylark. She’s also considering creating a ‘pollinators’ collection and extending her range of textiles to include silk pyjamas. In parallel with running Bernie & Blue, Rachel also provides photographic services under the name of RTS Photography. She undertakes individual commissions, and her love of animals makes her a natural for informal pet portraits. She also sells a variety of beautiful greetings cards that can be bought directly from her via a link on the RTS Photography website.

Her favourite part of the job? “Obviously I really enjoy going out and taking the photographs, but I also love the whole process of digital manipulation – playing around with different images and different colour combinations. It’s also a great thrill when a design arrives, newly printed up on silk – the colours are always so much more vibrant than the colours on a computer screen!”

You can find Bernie & Blue online at bernieandblue.co.uk Rachel will be at the Country Living Christmas Fair in Harrogate from 25 to 28 November. RTS Photography is online at rts-photography.co.uk Images by Suzanne Craigie.