Student, Sue Kim originally from Seoul, South Korea, is currently in her second year on the Future Tutor Programme and shares her journey from being an RSN Certificate Student to learning to become an RSN Tutor.

“After graduating with my BA in metal craft and textile in Seoul, South Korea, I moved to London in 2001 to further study footwear design at the London College of Fashion (LCF). After my LCF studies, I set up a handmade jewellery brand, but paused it for maternity leave. I started sewing as a hobby during my maternity leave, and ended up falling in love with stitching.

After running an embroidery class for many years, I realised that I needed to improve the depth of my embroidery knowledge. I then found the Royal School of Needlework and took the Certificate course first, before joining the Future Tutors Programme. I have been living in Surrey since 2009 and luckily, it takes only 30 minutes to drive from my home to RSN.

I am over halfway through the three year course, and so far it has been an amazing experience. I have learnt so many new techniques under the talented RSN Tutors, and have enjoyed learning with my lovely classmates.

What’s extra special about the FTP course for me is not only learning new techniques, but also gaining hands-on teaching experience. Recently, I ran ? was this really one three-day class or three one day classes? a 3 day long class at the Knitting and Stitching show on behalf of RSN, and felt much more confident in teaching by interacting with real people from outside the classroom.

Among the many techniques I have learnt so far, I particularly love Whitework and Coronation Gold techniques because I can create my own design instead of simply reproducing an existing one. My future goal is to combine traditional embroidery techniques with my own contemporary design.

I hope my contemporary embroidery design will appeal to more people in this lovely craft and broaden stitching audiences. I believe that stitching makes our life richer and brings people together under this amazing craft, especially in today’s busy modern lifestyle. My future goal is to be a Tutor at the RSN and teach embroidery classes. That would be my dream come true.”

Follow Sue’s journey to becoming an RSN Tutor on her Instagram