A section taken across 3 Journeys. I have reached a rather exciting and rewarding time in my own personal journey. My teaching journey. Whilst I am known for my development of surfaces to stitch onto, the course I am most pleased with is the course I wrote and developed - Experimental Textiles. It started off as a 1 year course - but my students wouldn't go away - so I wrote another year . . then another year. In the end it became a 4 year course up to diploma level. At one stage I was teaching it across 2 colleges and managing 3 first year groups, 3 second year groups . . and so on. The waiting lists were so long we had to put on extra nights and in the case of the 4th year - Saturdays.  This of course was in the days when Adult Education was properly funded. When you could write and develop your own courses. I taught the 4 year version of Experimental Textiles for 12 years. I had to stop in the end as I no longer had a life!! I thought I would never want to teach a

Guinea fowl by Krystyna Pomeroy The Kilbaha Summer School I now have all my teaching here in Ireland organised for 2018.  I will still be doing Festival of Quilts and the Knitting and Stitching Shows at Ally Pally and in Dublin and Harrogate. I will also be doing the Fashion and Embroidery show in March at the NEC Birmigham. So I will be about in the UK.    My house viewed from my field. Look. Draw. Stitch. I will be offering 9 weekends of Look. Draw. Stitch. There is a page on my website if you would like all the dates and details - /kimthittichai.com/html/land-_sea_and_sky  The idea of these weekends is to get back to basics. To look at what I consider to be the basic skills you need to create original work. It is all very simple, but not something we tend to do unless we are pushed - ever so gently!!!!  The view from my house. It isn't always sunny . . . !   Some of the lichen on the local dry stones walls is so long - it waves at you as you

The beginning of my collection of limpet shells, with holes in. I have had a few days off to explore County Clare a bit more. My friend Jill has been staying for a week and between answering emails and bookings and all my usual admin I have got out and about. Although we are now in October and the light is generally low - we didn't have too much rain and actually had a few days when the sun shone. We, and several other friends, all adore the lichen on the walls over here. Some if it grows so long it waves at you as you go by! It makes for a beautifully subtle colour palette.    One place that I have been to visit that is quite local to me, 40 minutes drive, is Vandeleur Walled Gardens.  It has always been highly recommended, and now I have visited this fabulous place, I can understand why. What a treasure to have so close by.   The walled garden would be a joy at any time of the year with all the quirky colours and structures. The gardeners ar

 A fabulous double print on the page of an old book.  The third one day workshop at The Harbour Gallery on Jersey was a fast paced version of The Journey. The group worked really hard and produced some fabulous designs. The Journey is a design exercise I developed when I wrote, developed and taught the 4 year version of Experimental Textiles in what seems another lifetime ago. I have taught this exercise as far afield as Australia and New Zealand. It always gets great results. It is also in my book Experimental Textiles, named after my course.      The 7 Journeys all lined up together.    2 sections taken from the 7 Journeys hanging on the wall.   We also played with the 'expanded' exercise that I love. Great for getting students to look at 'the spaces in between'. Taking sections from The Journeys with 'L' shapes and tracing paper. Creating original designs. Starting to cut the printing blocks from the designs. I