Teresa Searle
Teresa Searle grew up in Bristol. She taught Textile, Craft, Art and Design at Silai from 2002 to 2008. She also has her own successful textile art and design business.
"I learnt to knit when I was five, made my first dress when I was nine... so I had very strong background in fashion and textiles at home. Mainly through my mum who was a professional dress maker so she taught me to do things really from a very young age. I always had a strong interest in art and that was encouraged by my dad. So that all came together quite naturally really. I realised about the age of 19 after doing a lot of that kind of thing at home and at school that I wanted to become a textile designer, and that's why I went off to uni to do it.
One of the first things I remember making when my mum taught me to knit when I was five, and I started off with a very narrow piece of knitting and then decided that I was going to make my dad a hat and I just carried on knitting. When you learn to knit you accidentally cast on stitches and you end up with lots of holes, so I ended up with really wide piece of knitting and all sorts of bright stripy colours. Luckily for my dad I never did make it into a hat cause he would have had to wear it! And probably knowing my dad he would have worn it! And then years later when I became a textile designer. I did make my dad a couple of hats. There's one particular hat my dad wore almost every time he went out the house for years. And everybody knew who he was 'cause he was up and down on his bike, and all these old ladies would come up to him and ask him where he got his hat from. It was really lovely that he always wore that."
