Did you know that Wood, my last name, is Scottish? When my aunt visited Scotland, she was surprised by how many Scottish people shared our last name. In fact, the Wood clan has its own registered plaid! (It’s a little different from the plaid I designed, which you’ll see later in this blog post.)
Like many people, I’ve done my DNA analysis, and my ancestors hail from all over the British Isles, including Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales. (I have a little bit of French and German ancestry too.) What do these people have in common? If you go back far enough into the history of the British Isles, there were Celtic people living all over these regions.
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The design I painted with the seahorses is my own interpretation of a famous Celtic shield called the Witham Shield, which is housed in the British Museum. The folks from the British Museum have interpreted the animals on the Witham Shield to be swans, but I wondered if maybe the designer of this shield was trying to create seahorses.
So I made my own version of the Witham Shield, painting detailed seahorses swirling around in the shield’s circular area. Watch the video below and you’ll where the museum experts have decided there are swans engraved on this shield. Let me know what you think. Could they be seahorses?
Celtic artwork has always fascinated me. In fact, I first picked up embroidery in college because I wanted to learn how to do Celtic knotwork with embroidery.
At that time, I purchased a book of iron-on transfers of fantastic Celtic knots and Celtic animals, called Celtic Iron-on Transfer Patterns by Courtney Davis, and if I recall correctly, the first few pages of the book showed me how to do basic embroidery.
I had a grand plan to embroider a massive royal blue blanket with beautiful Celtic knots encompassing the perimeter of it. (Isn’t it funny how, when we first start a project, we have all those grand plans?) But I never finished the blanket, and when my kids were born, I cleared out my craft room to make way for a nursery, donating the unfinished blanket to a local charity shop.
However, from those humble beginnings, I began exploring the idea of adding embroidery to my handmade doll clothes, which did turn out to be a wonderful idea! The small scale of doll clothes canvases made it easy to create embroidered borders, flowers, and leaves.
My interest in Celtic art and Celtic knotwork has never left me, but my embroidery branched out, inspiring a whole series of basic embroidery tutorial videos, which you can find right here on ChellyWood.com.
And as it says in today’s video, I’ve begun expressing my fascination with Celtic art through watercolor painting, which I plan to eventually turn into various fabrics.
I’m not sure how much Celtic art I’ll paint before I move on to florals and maybe fashion designs. I’m still very much at a learning stage with watercolors (and gouache), so I don’t feel confident about creating tutorials for other people to follow.
I have a lot of learning to do before I get to that point! But today I just wanted to share my creative process with you to see what you think…
Feel free to leave your ideas in the comments area.
And please head over to my Spoonflower store to see what my fabrics look like. With my focus on creating mostly small-print fabrics, I’m planning to use these fabrics to make doll clothes, but what doll clothes should I make? Do you have any ideas? Should I create a kilt for Barbie? A dress for American Girl dolls? A Wellie Wisher cape?
After you’ve visited my Spoonflower store, come back and give me ideas about what I should design next, both in terms of doll clothes that might suit my fabrics and artistic projects for future fabric designs, and don’t be afraid to give me constructive criticism. I’m ready and willing to learn!
REFERENCES:
- Artist unknown. “The Witham Shield.” [Medium: copper alloy]. 400 BC to 300 BC. The British Museum, London, Accessed 6 August 2025. © The Trustees of the British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1872-1213-1?selectedImageId=33879001
- The British Museum. “Hidden Animals in Celtic Art: Ep 1 The Witham Shield.” YouTube. 30 March 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzEX6A1cXwA
- Wikipedia contributors. “Scottish people.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 30 Jul. 2025. Web. 6 Aug. 2025.
“I had a grand plan to embroider a massive royal blue blanket with beautiful Celtic knots encompassing the perimeter of it. (Isn’t it funny how, when we first start a project, we have all those grand plans?)” Yes, Chelly, I know what you mean. And I am loving my new attempt to learn to sew, because, for the first time in my life, my beginners’ projects are barbie-sized little felt shirts. Baby steps, Deb. Baby steps.
My Celtic art inspired project suggestion for you does not involve doll clothes. What do you think of resuming the plan to embroider a royal blue blanket with Celtic knots all over its perimeter, but in Barbie-scale blanket? Doesn’t it seem doable in a 12×9 inches piece of lightweight flannel, maybe using a crochet or fingering weight yarn instead of embroidery floss for that wintry “wool” look and feel? I hope you like the idea.
“What do you think of resuming the plan to embroider a royal blue blanket with Celtic knots all over its perimeter, but in Barbie-scale blanket?”
Wow Débora! What a genius idea! I’m going to add this to my book of doll clothes requests — when people request a pattern, I record it in a spiral notebook — and that way I won’t forget about it. Thank you for this idea! Why didn’t I think of that myself?