The view from the workshop door - one of my favourite views. West Dean College has got be one of the best places to teach in the U.K. The grounds are beautiful, the gardens are varied and colourful, the teaching areas are excellent and the food is - just fabulous!  East Sussex Embroiderers Guild hold their Summer School there every year. I was lucky to be asked to teach this year. Sophie Long was the other tutor. Her goldwork is very modern while still being traditional. We had great fun - we were a small group of six - I think I have taught all the other member of the Guild in this area of the country over the past ten years. I had been asked for a three dimensional slant on my newspaper based workshop - A New Starting Point. So I took my die cutting machine along to cut the boxes and brooch blanks. Some of the group painting up their papers and old books. The group brought in a great selection of foreign language newspapers, old atlases, technical and child...

  The two Valeries getting stuck in to their 'Journeys'. The life of a freelance tutor can be fun, exciting, tiring and a bit of worry as far as earning a living is concerned - but sometimes a course and a teaching venue come together to create such an amazing energy that all worries are forgotten.  The venue was Art Van Go - I love teaching there, it is always good to see Viv and Kevin and their team are always helpful - nothing is too much trouble.  The course was Creating Original Designs. We had seven in the class, enough to have fun as a group but small enough for me to be able to work with each student individually. Creating Original Designs is a course I have developed over the last twenty years while I was teaching my four year version of Experimental Textiles.  Lynda painting her Journey . . . I use three design exercises, The Journey which is my own, and an expanding and and a flipping out exercise that come from a book my tutor gave me w...

 A New Starting Point - July 5th and 6th (Saturday and Sunday)  This is a catch up - kind of housekeeping notes. I have added two workshops in Brighton to my diary. I have found somewhere new to teach locally with plenty of parking and not too far from Falmer station. The first workshop is a weekend one - July 5th and 6th  A New Starting Point. £95.00 Discovering and developing the redemptive qualities of old newspapers. Create fascinating surfaces on which to print and stitch. Using painted Bondaweb and gilding flake we will explore the possibilities of layering textures to end up with firm pieces of work that can be used to make boxes and vessels and demonstrate the striking contrasts of the media. Rich/poor and matt/shiny. ***  Layers of heavy Tyvek layered with polyester organza, stitched and then zapped with a heat gun. I have also booked a four day Summer School August 12th - 15th. Tuesday - Friday Experimental Tex...