This is my ‘printing pinny’ with one of my landscapes sewn on the front. I came up with the idea because I’m often at shows and fairs and I want something that says who I am without slapping a big badge on my front. I’m going to be demonstrating at Art in Action this year; it’s a big festival and the print marquee (as I recall) is hot, crowded and confusing. It’s hard to see the artists from the audience sometimes; one year I asked a charming man all about woodcut tools and, after answering me at length, it turned out he was a fellow visitor (albeit a printmaker). So apron plus landscape hopefully equals working artist plus identity…

There is a bit more to it than that. I grew up with a mum who was a professional dressmaker for a while and a brilliantly good seamstress. She didn’t cut my sister or I any slack and we both learned to sew early. This developed into quilt and collage making while I was running a business and, if you look at my prints, actually forms the basis for how I see landscape: the sky is often a backing cloth for the land. So the apron is just a dip back into the past for me and was such fun to make.

I do still make the odd quilt by hand. I made this one for my new great niece Millie in Australia – something traditional from the old world for a new world baby…