Bronnie and Larissa, what a team!   This is the last of 5 daily blog posts about The Geelong Fibre Forum 2023. It was important to me to record as much as I could about my students, their work and all the fun . . . and my dear friends. To see the first post and then the others - go to - Geelong Fibre Forum 2023 The organisation of an event the size of the Geelong Fibre Forum is mind blowing. It is all run by volunteers!! The main 2 being Bronnie and Larissa. How they manage to run The Geelong Fibre Forum every year, whilst working full time and running homes and families - I really don't know. Thank you so much lovely girls, this was a fantastic forum. This year was particularly special for several reasons. One being that Bronnie and Larissa had an exhibition of their own work. It was a real treat to see what they love creating. The opening party was fabulous, very much enjoyed by everyone. Bronnie & Larissa opening the exhibition Lots of happy talk and discussion about the wor...

Nicola Brown and me in the sunshine in Geelong         The Geelong Fibre Forum 2023 was fabulous. Yes, Australia was a long way to go, but it was worth it. There are few opportunities to teach a live 5 day workshop. They can be a challenge, but so rewarding when everything you have planned works out. It is a good test to check you are still capable of developing and delivering quality teaching. Whilst I am a very experienced tutor, you can never take anything for granted. You are only as good as your previous workshop or course. It was also a great opportunity to catch up with my good friend Nicola Brown (who also lives in Ireland and was also teaching) and tutors Mary Hettmansperger (America) and Pam De Groot (Australia) who I hadn't seen for several years. It was so very, very good to see them again. Plus I finally got to actually meet Dawn Edwards, who I have been friends with on FB for several years. There will be at least 3 blog posts about the work my group cr...

Katie painting her Journey. So - Here I am back at Ballarat with Fibre Arts Australia run by Glenys Mann. www.fibrearts.jigsy.com I love teaching here and most especially catching up with great friends that I have taught with here two and four years ago - Mary Hettmanspurger and Kerr Grabowski from the USA and Marlene Kranz from Australia.  My design workshops have been asked for most particularly in Australia and as they are a great favourite of mine, this is no hardship.  You will have seen that I taught something similar in Canberra. As this is a five day workshop we will be developing the use of the print blocks and creating layered newspaper surfaces to print and stitch onto. The Journeys were painted . . . .  . . . and hung . . . We also played with 'flipping out' . . . .    . . .  and expanding . . .     The group then took two sections from each design exercise using 'L' shapes to isolate...