My field this July - with orchids, ragged robin and buttercups, later I have swathes of montbretia and purple loosestrife. It is time for me to be looking ahead, dot the i's and cross the t's on various bookings that will take me away from home. Yes - I am venturing out into the world again in 2019. It has been a wonderful year here in Ireland, a lot less traveling and a chance to settle. I had time to notice which flowers bloomed when, find more fascinating local places to visit . . and make plans . . . I moved here 2 years ago today - on my 60th birthday. What an amazing 2 years it has been, I have made friends and settled down. Ireland feels like home now, it has taken this long. There is so much more to learn to learn about this beautiful place, I will be learning about it for the rest of my life. The teaching here has gone well and bookings have started for next year. I love inviting students into my home for the Look, Draw, Print, Stitch weekend workshop

 Taking a section of the Journey with 'L' shapes.  I love teaching my course Experimental Textiles. But you can love something tooooo much. All the time I am teaching it, I am thinking about my students, and not me and my own work. So this is the last time I will be teaching it in this form. I hope to be able to sort out how to teach some of it online next year.      The calm before the storm. 30 minutes before the new students arrived, exciting.  The new group is great fun, some strong personalities and one or two who are rather backwards in coming forward - but everyone will settle down and work well together. They got off to a flying start, I am very excited about what they may be capable of . .  watch this space. So - the Journey. This is the exercise I am flown all over the place to teach. It is something I came up with 17 or so years ago to help students create original designs. It is covered in my book Experimental Textiles which is the book of the cour

A new style of graffiti - lots of sketchy black lines rather than one thick line. Laziza, David and I spent yesterday afternoon and evening mooching about Melbourne centre. They showed me this lane full of wonderful graffiti - one of many I was told. The work is pretty stunning and shows several different styles.  Even the refuse bins are covered.   This is the lovely Laziza who has been looking after me so well since I arrived in this fair country. There were some interesting black and white designs. Great to take sections from.  A very complicated doodle.     Some of the graffiti also used collage . . . I have loads more images from Federation Square but I will leave them for tomorrow - I think these are enough for today. Enjoy . .  x