De Borduurschool: Martine van ‘t Hul

In early 2023, Martine van ‘t Hul moved into her brand-new studio in Hasselt, Overijssel. The picturesque town is sometimes called ‘little Amsterdam’, but Martine came to Hasselt for its spaciousness, she says. Previously, she lived in ‘big’ Amsterdam, where she worked from a small room. Her current studio, a converted cowshed, is much larger. In the middle is a wide table that can accommodate several projects, plus the laptop with the software for her embroidery machine. The machine also sits in the studio. “I hardly dared to turn it on in Amsterdam,” says Martine. “It makes a huge noise. Here it’s no problem.”

Martine makes custom embroideries for well-known fashion designers, artists and theatres, among others, but also for individuals looking for a personal piece of art made of thread. She also creates autonomous work. What makes Martine’s work unique is that she has mastered both handwork and machine embroidery. The result: ‘Hand embroidery of machine precision and machine embroidery with a handwork feel’, as she writes on her website.

Martine, can you tell us more about the type of projects you do? 

“I regularly work with fashion designers, designing and creating embroideries for their garments. Sometimes people come to me asking for a special embroidery, for a wedding garments or a special tablecloth, for example. Recently, I made a very personal commemorative piece embroidered with horsehair. Sometimes I also do more commercial assignments, for example uniform logos or emblems. This makes the work very diverse, which is appealing to me.”

“In addition, I make free work. I don’t usually work with a traditional pattern where the shapes and colours are predetermined, I don’t find that very interesting. I usually do design a stencil, however, which I fill out with embroidery, but very freely. I once made a stencil based on a bunch of dried flowers I had. I flattened them on the table, took photos, and I traced those onto fabric using ink.”

“Once I have the stencil, I sit down in front of my embroidery frame. At the beginning, I usually have no idea what it’s going to be – just a vague sense of colours and materials. And then it just happens. The embroidery comes into existence very organically under my hands.”

How do you get inspired?

“Here in my studio I have a big cupboard, where I collect all kinds of things. Trays of small objects in materials and colours I find attractive. And look there, a sampler from my mother. I like a naive, slightly childlike imagery. Nostalgia, transience, the past: I find those kinds of feelings interesting to translate into my work. Nature, especially flowers, are a great source of inspiration. Those I can simply find in the garden.”

“I always want to make sure the work doesn’t become prissy, though. Sometimes I purposely make it look like it’s unfinished, I fill only half of it out, or leave loose threads hanging.”

“I also enjoy working on commission and creating something together with someone. Then I explore other people’s ideas and see how I can make them technically possible.”

Can you remember the moment you first embroidered?

“Yes, I remember it exactly. I was seven, and I was given an embroidery kit as a present, one of those pre-printed cats that you could cross-stitch over. It went everywhere I went for a while. I got it from my mother, I think. She was always embroidering. She also taught me.”

“I grew up on a farm, but I didn’t quite fit in there. Embroidery was an escape from reality for me. It was my own little world. I loved it. I also did other crafts, such as crocheting and knitting, but I abandoned those in the end. Why embroidery stayed, I find it hard to say. Maybe because I saw my mother doing it so much. And I like that in embroidery you can work freely. You can choose to follow a fixed pattern, like in knitting or sewing, but you don’t have to, you can also let yourself be guided by the thread.”

You now embroider at a high level and you do very different projects. How did that happen?

“I first did the MTS Fashion and Clothing in Amsterdam, and then I studied fashion design at the art academy in Arnhem. All those years, I kept incorporating embroidery into my designs. I graduated in Arnhem with a clothing collection that included a lot of embroidery.”

“During my education in Arnhem, I got to know a lot of people. This allowed me to build a large network. I worked or still work with many of them, or they put me in touch with other people in the field. But most clients find me through the internet these days, particularly through Instagram, which is where I get a lot of requests.”

A lot of your work is very detailed and refined. What do you like about working in this way?

“I love zooming in on my work like that. When I do, it becomes like a little landscape that completely absorbs me. It’s very meditative.”

You also work with an embroidery machine. That seems pretty opposite to handwork. How did you end up doing that?

“I wanted to be able to make a living from my embroidery, but I couldn’t do it with just hand embroidery. Hand embroidery is very time-consuming. Its value is often underestimated by buyers.”

“I was used to handwork, I always found machines so-so. My husband had a textile screen printing business, however, and he bought a very large embroidery machine at one point. I started fiddling with that in the evenings. It did make me a bit nervous, because the thing cost fifty thousand euros, of course it couldn’t break anything!”

“The tipping point came when a designer asked me to help him embroider some coats. He had made one by hand for his fashion show in Paris. A unique item, but then he suddenly received a large order, so there had to be more at short notice. He was at a loss. I said, ‘Wait a minute, I think I know a way.’”

“I now have my own embroidery machine. In the beginning, I found it monstrous, it took some time before I really got used to it. But now I am. In 2016, I founded Het Borduurburo. Under that name, I work with designers, especially high-end, on machine embroidery for their designs.”

What works differently on the machine compared to when you work by hand?

“When I embroider by hand, I usually don’t think out the design completely in advance. I work fairly intuitively. To embroider with the machine, you really need to have a complete plan. I make the design in the computer beforehand, and then I execute it on the machine.”

“Designing on the computer is a bit of a chore, but once the embroidery design is in my computer, I can easily run it multiple times. That’s useful if large quantities need to be made, or if I want to try it out in a different colour.”

“The use of materials is also different: unlike handwork, machine embroidery puts a lot of force on the thread. It has to be strong, or it will break. Consequently, many threads are made of polyester, while I like to work with natural materials. It is difficult to find natural materials that are suitable for the machine. I am currently researching that, though.”

Your website says: ‘Machine embroidery with a handwork feel’. What do you mean by that? 

“Machine embroidery often turns out quite tight and precise, really machine-like, so to speak. I often find it a bit flat and insensitive. I am constantly looking for ways to give machine embroidery a ‘handwork look’: a bit more personal, with more character. To do so, I often intervene during a machine embroidery process. For example, I make the machine not fill everything out so neatly. And I actually like it when the machine embroiders something unevenly, or when you see a little knot where the machine has tied off a thread. That makes it look human.”

As a professional embroiderer, what would you like to suggest to beginning embroiderers?

“Embroidery can seem very complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! The simplest stitch, the running stitch, is already so wonderful – you can vary endlessly and do really beautiful things with it.”