Seasons for the Soul: The Embroidered Art of Julia Van Den Bosch

The beauty and magic of nature seen through the eye of a needle.

Colours of flowers and shapes of plants; bleached grass and golden cornfields at harvest time; spiders webs on the structures of decayed seedheads; a metallic green chafer beetle landing on a deep crimson rose; a shooting star. Beguiling discoveries that are part of the world full of secrets, minute details and the sumptuous colours and textures of nature lend themselves to their translation into rich embroidery.

This embroidered path of the seasons uses hand embroidery in its traditional role of storytelling to share nature’s gifts. Each stitch holds the emotion of the moment and keeps a record.

The book tells the story of the companionship and healing offered by the seasons during the enforced isolation of the pandemic, and how it enabled the artist to find beauty in solitude

A childhood spent in the Kent countryside meant that nature became a major part of Julia’s life. She later spent time flying on Concorde, chasing moon shadows and seeing nature’s wonders from the edge of space, but decided to rediscover the gift of the smaller, yet still miraculous, marvels that lay within her own garden instead. She found hand embroidery was the perfect way for her to share the beauty and magical life of nature, in all its sumptuous colour, texture and detail. It became her great passion to broider her findings.

She lives happily with her family of animals in an old cottage in Surrey.