The art of flowers-on-tulle embroidery

I see my artistic work as both homage and inquiry, honouring the beauty and strength of the natural world while reflecting on our relationship with it. Each piece is a meditation on growth, fragility and transformation, and the creative human capacity to shape meaning with the simplest of materials.

Technically my focus is material investigation and innovation in the context of embroidery and textiles, exploring the boundaries of what can be achieved using real organic material as my metaphorical thread. I combine plants – primarily dried and preserved flowers, foliage, twigs, grasses, seed heads and berries – with tulle fabric to create floral patterns and bio tapestries. I’ve worked with over 50 different plant species, testing with how their shapes and textures can be re-imagined in a different medium.

I use a variety of methods to attach my botanical material, including stitching and weaving the stems. Sometimes these stems are as fine as a third of a millimetre wide. It’s an intricate process that demands a high level of dedication and focus, and an intimate feel for the breaking point of the fragile raw materials in my fingertips. I often enter a state of flow where time seems to dissolve, I have a sense of being led by the plants themselves, and the rhythm of the work becomes its own reward. It’s a slow, attentive craft, and each piece bears the imprint of the time, care and creative energy invested in it.

In the finished works, the tulle fabric becomes an invisible canvas for organic patterns that seem to float in their frame, creating potential for a play of light and shadows that adds another visual dimension. As all natural materials change with time, each piece will develop a new aesthetic and character as it matures – a quiet reminder of nature’s cycles, impermanence, and resilience.

Bio

I’m Olga Prinku – artist, maker and originator of the craft of flowers-on-tulle embroidery, also known as dried flower embroidery and botanical embroidery. In 2016, when I picked a flower from my lawn and experimented with poking its stem through net fabric, I could hardly have imagined the journey it would take me on. I’ve exhibited internationally, collaborated on designs with fashion and homeware brands, and published a book – Dried Flower Embroidery: An introduction to the art of flowers on tulle.

Before I began this journey, I was a graphic designer by profession. I’ve always been a keen crafter – stitching with nature grew out of my love of knitting and wreath-making. What excites me most is the scope to be inventive. I love to discover new possibilities in familiar materials, drawing inspiration from both nature and traditional embroidery to develop my practice in new directions.

I grew up in the Republic of Moldova and now live in North Yorkshire with my husband and son, where I love to grow and forage responsibly for materials for my work and take inspiration from nature on long walks in the beautiful countryside.

Awards and media features

I was honoured to be a finalist in the QEST Sanderson Rising Star Awards in 2024 and the SCAF Emerging Artist Awards 2023. My work has been part of the Michelangelo Foundation’s Homo Faber Guide since 2022 and a range of online and print media and TV around the world, including (links where available online):

UK: Country Homes & Interiors (2025), Love Embroidery (2025), Embroidery (July/August 2024), Material Source (2024), Colour Hive Magazine (2023), School of Stitched Textiles (2023), Country Living (2023), BBC Countryfile Magazine (2022), TextileArtist.org (2022), LandScape (2022), Flora (2022), Kirstie’s Handmade Christmas (Channel 4 TV, 2021), Health & Wellbeing (2021), Gardens Illustrated (2021), Embroidery (2021), Love Embroidery (2021), Embroidery (2020), Living Etc (2020), Mollie Makes (2019), Country Living (2019), Sew (2019), Simply Sewing (2018), Town & Country (2017), 91 Magazine (2017), Kirstie's Handmade Christmas (Channel 4 TV, 2017)
USA: Hypebeast (2025), Colossal (2023), My Modern Met (2021), Colossal (2021), Hypebeast (2021) Architectural Digest (2019), Our Maker Life – Make Volume 2 (2019), What Women Create (2019), American Craft Council (2018), Colossal (2018), Sarah K Benning (2018), My Modern Met (2018), Martha Stewart (2017), Design Sponge (2017), Ballpit Mag (2017), brwnpaperbag (2017).
France: J'ose la gouache: 41 défis pour se lancer (Eyrolles, 2020), Maison Creative (2020), Detente Jardin (2019), Silence, Ca Pousse! Creer Sa Deco Nature (Hachette Livre, 2018), Silence, Ca Pousse! (France 5 TV, 2017). 
Germany:  Let it Bloom(2021), Flow (2019), Das Kaufland Magazine (2019), Flower Ladies (Random House, 2018), Couch (2018), Trend Welten (2018), Ich Selbstaendig (2017)
Italy: Donna Moderna (2021), The Fashion Atlas (2019), Casa Facile (2018), The Italian Reve (2018)
Australia: IntoCraft (2019), Homespun (2017).
China: Art of Stitches (Sandu Publishing, 2021), European Commercial News “Floral Life” (2019), Aesthetica Botanica (Sandu Publishing 2018).