As with those brought up just after WW2 and shortages, when recycling and hand me downs were at their best, Janet was brought up to knit and sew, if you wanted something to wear that someone else hadn’t worn, you made it.  On leaving school she joined a management training scheme at Peter Jones, part of the John Lewis Partnership. After four years she went to train as a primary school teacher achieving a distinction in her main subject, Art Embroidery.  Janet spent thirty six years teaching in primary schools in London and Bromley.

In 1980 Janet was given a spinning wheel and attended evening classes to learn to spin, learning to weave instead and thus began a passion for creating textiles.  Janet has completed many courses, City and Guilds and others all aimed at developing her textile techniques and design skills.

She has dabbled in many textile techniques, spinning, dyeing and weaving, knitting and crochet.  Made felt and paper to use as a background for stitch, uses print, currently her emphasis is on machine embroidery.

After working on a group project based on the history of Knole National Trust House Janet was invited to hold her own exhibition in the Orangery at Knole.  The theme was based on research into the many woven tapestries hanging on the walls.  A series of six large hangings showing an interpretation of the life of a tapestry, from Creation, through Glorification, Deterioration, Restoration, Conservation to Disintegration, using a breadth of skills and techniques to encompass the gory into decay.

Janet has exhibited widely, tutored City and Guilds Machine Embroidery and Historical Heirloom courses at Urchfont Manor College, Wiltshire.  Tutored online through Distant Stitch, run workshops and summer schools, given lectures and demonstrations.

She is a member of many exhibiting textile group, such as MEG in Salisbury, the Textile Studio, Beckenham Quilters and CQKent. Membership of such as the John Allen Design Group Farnham, and self-directed groups such as Filaments add to her knowledge of the diversity of textile related skills.

Janet is a member of what was the Embroiderers Guild, The Knitting and Crochet Guild and is currently chair of the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers.

As a member of textile based organisations, such as the Textile Society, the Medieval Dress and Textile Society, the Art Fund, she gains inspiration and breadth of knowledge.