Me with the girls in Nicola's front garden   Do you enjoy gardening? Discovering new plants? I have just returned from a few days with my great friend Nicola Brown who lives in Carlow, on the other side of Ireland to me. It's bit of a car journey, but always worth it. Nicola grows the plants for her natural eco print and dye practice. Nicola doesn't use any chemicals when she dyes, so the process is totally natural. The dye border was planted 3 years ago - and it is HUGE!!! I can't help feeling jealous of plants that are 8ft tall. There is no way I could grow such tall plants in the windy area that I live on the coast. Nicola's garden is quite sheltered, so in the warm weather, with a just a slight breeze, You can watch and listen to all the insects buzzing amongst the flowers. It is quite wonderful.   The very long eco print and natural dye border     A lot of the plants in the border are really tall - quite architectural. This Ligularia must be at least 8ft tall.

A section across 3 'Journeys' one of the design exercises on Experimental Textiles.   I have finally finished wrestling with the NEW online 10 month Experimental Textiles course which will start on September 21st 2022. It was very helpful to have all the replies from the surveys that I sent out to my mailing list. The replies guided me as I worked through all my ideas to create something that would fit both my ideas and what appears to be needed. The NEW 10 month online course    A history of Experimental Textiles . . I have taught my course Experimental Textiles since 1999!! It was originally written as a one year course and eventually ended up as a 4 year course . .  because my students wouldn't leave!! I taught the 4 year course across 2 colleges for 12 years. As you can imagine, it was pretty full on. But also amazing, and I learned so much and made some great friends a long the way.  After the 12 years I swore I wouldn't teach the course again, I was worn out - so