Anna & Piotr Angiel

Available at the Alberta Craft Gallery Edmonton & Calgary

Anna and Piotr Angiel are Calgary-based embroidery artists. Anna's background is in interior design and linguistics, and Piotr is a geologist who loves nature photography and watercolour painting. They collaborate to create sophisticated embroidered landscapes that combine satin stitch and watercolours.

The couple immigrated to Canada from Poland 15 years ago, settling in Calgary, where they found their greatest artistic inspiration - the Canadian Rockies.

Anna learned to stitch as a child and embroidery has been present intermittently in her life ever since. During the lockdowns of 2020 Piotr’s sketches of rugged limestone ranges from his hikes in the Rockies gave her inspiration, and the two of them began turning landscapes into needlework patterns.

“We are motivated by a philosophy that aims to bring nature home. All our embroidery pieces are born in nature. They are inspired by mountain valleys, glacial lakes, wildflowers, sunsets at the ocean shoreline, and other natural landmarks we have visited together, or by the true wilderness where Piotr goes for his backcountry hikes. Our embroidery art features the Canadian Rockies, the Cascade and West Coast mountains of Canada and the USA, and the dry highlands of Utah and Arizona. Each piece has its own story and a reason for our connection to that place.”

The artistic hobby soon turned into a full-time business. Anna and Piotr truly enjoy sharing their embroidery art with the community of fibre artists and inspiring others to start their own embroidery journey. Their mission is to popularize embroidery as an enjoyable and modern hobby, and that is why they release some of our designs as DIY kits and downloadable patterns.