Helen Chatterton
Helen Chatterton was born in Bury, Lancashire in 1961. The seeds of a lifetime's obsession were sown when her Scottish mother taught her to knit and sew at the age of seven, and growing up in a textile-based town and household fostered a passion for all aspects of fabrics and yarns. She studied Classics at Liverpool University, and on graduating took a secretarial course, then moved to London where she married in 1982. In 1986 Helen returned to Liverpool, and after having two children she completed her City and Guild Part II Creative Studies in Knitwear at Huddersfield Technical College. Whilst at Huddersfield, one of her tutors, the Bradford-based textile and costume artist, Christine Hughes, encouraged her to experiment with many textile media such as batik, felting, silk painting, hand and machine embroidery. Helen started experimenting with velvet, and as part of a project for her City and Guild started to make a range of samples for cushions, throws and wall-hangings. This developed further after friends and family started to commission cushions and throws from her. A shop in Liverpool, The Little Room, started to sell some of her work and she started to turn it into a business, and formed the company "Perfection of Production."
