Profi le: Yasmin Russell

Yasmin Russell owns a quiet little shop in Orange, NSW, called Hidden Talent. She works with her “life partner and best friend”, Chris. He is a fully trained sewing-machine technician, and Yasmin is the creative. “The business originally belonged to my grandmother, who passed the business on to Chris and me when she retired almost three years ago,” explains Yasmin.

She has a strong background in creativity and gained a Bachelor of Arts at the National Art School in Sydney. “I am a quick learner when my heart is in it, and I love a challenge. This was the beginning of an epic challenge and an amazing opportunity,” says Yasmin. “The shop is full of sewing, embroidery and quilting treasures, with a range of classes running weekly. I teach embroidery, digitising and ScanNCut lessons. I love teaching.”

Yasmin’s early embroideries were basic — mostly digitising cartoon characters for family and friends — and Chris’ three children became sources for her endeavours. She would get the kids to draw pictures that she would digitise and stitch to make cushions. This led to converting other children’s drawings for stitching. After that she became “a bit more ambitious, fi nding images of old muscle cars and spending hours meticulously digitising every detail, capturing as much tonal and colour variation as possible”. After she had created the designs she would stitch them out on her Ricoma machine.

“I learnt a lot about push/pull compensation, the limitations of laying and the necessity of simplifying,” says Yasmin. “I stitched that car at least fi ve times, adjusting and tweaking along the way. The fi nished product was awesome — I still have it displayed today at my store, with over 100,000 stitches in more than 20 colours.”

The next signifi cant project she undertook was a photo stitch portrait of her late grandfather, My Pa. It is approximately A3 in size, with more than 400,000 stitches and 47 colours. “I am as proud of this piece today as I was the day I completed it,” she says fondly.

After some time, Yasmin’s skills were being recognised by sewing-machine dealers and she was asked to lecture and teach at the Blessington Academy. “I was over the moon! The class was based on the Ricoma (machine) and the lecture was to be about me and my embroidery experience,” she explains. For the following three to four months, preparation was her entire focus.

“I designed and created my very fi rst quilt entitled Embroidery Circus, a performance acted out predominantly by embroidery, appliqué combinations, with a side show of airbrushed fabric painting and hand-painted elements. Every embroidery/appliqué character is a circus performer themed with embroidery and sewing elements, like the majestic Bobbin Winding Ballerina.”

She also decided to create a free-standing embroidered bouquet of Australian fl owers. After much trial and error, the fl owers and leaves were completely made of thread and the

Designer Profi le

stems were constructed from fl orist tape and wire. When her mother visited a few days later, Yasmin showed them to her. “She couldn’t believe her eyes — she thought they were real fl owers!”

Everything Yasmin made for that event was digitised with Wilcom software. “I wouldn’t have been able to learn and create what I did in such a small space of time without the use of Wilcom,” she says. “This software is incredibly intuitive and versatile. It gave me huge control of my creations with an abundance of tools to help me achieve even the most bizarre ideas.”

Since then, Yasmin has been spending a lot of time designing and digitising her own embroidery and appliqué patterns for her Embroidery Circus website. Her favourite place is in front of her laptop, with Wilcom software running. “I love my embroidery machine and all my gizmos and gadgets. Recently I even bought myself a digital drawing tablet to teach myself digital painting and eventually add fabric prints to my website.”

For the most part Yasmin is self-taught, although she admits she still has much to learn. “There are so many techniques I want to try — I hope I never stop learning. I think of myself as ‘the poster child of anyone can do it’. If you have been thinking about diving into something completely new and out of your comfort zone, just dive. You will surprise yourself. I did.”