One of my small hand stitched samples - viscose satin, silk and scrim. OOhhh!!! What a week we had - pure colour and enjoyment. 'The puzzle of colour' was the one week workshop delivered by Ruth Issett. The other workshops were 'Tales of the unexpected' with Kay Greenlees and 'Magic in the making' with Mary Sleigh. The TSG  textilestudygroup.co.uk summer school is a 5 day residential at Harper Adams University in Newport, Shropshire. One of the joys of these summer schools is that there is no washing up, cooking or phone calls. Just the opportunity to work uninterrupted - FANTASTIC.  Ruth in action doing 'one to ones' with each member of the group. Any one who has read any of my books or who knows me professionally will know that Ruth is one of the guiding lights in my 'career' and that I think she is a Superstar! So I jump at any chance to work with her. You can never learn or know enough about colour. Our week was base

  One of Heidi's overprints. The workshops are supposed to start at 10 am but every one was in and working before 9.30 am. The group were well into their printing blocks and were raring to go. Some of the group had taken extra materials home to make more printing blocks overnight. Mirror images of their original blocks was a popular choice. Shaun about to print onto one of her beautiful repeat prints with Emma in the background applying paint to her block. Liz, Jo, Tracey and Heidi all working hard - totally oblivious to my taking a photo. I love this block of Tracey's, the top print is on tissue paper, the bottom one is on tin foil.  The top print is the positive block, the bottom print shows the positive and negative blocks.   2 of Liz's prints, the top two are on newspaper (gorgeous) and the bottom one is on pages torn from a sketch book. Heidi was better pleased with her block when she cut it into two . . .

 A section across ' The Journeys' hanging on the wall Sunday saw the second day of my new course Experimental Textiles  www.experimentaltextiles.com and the group of eight intrepid students were getting used to each other. I say intrepid because these students don't really know what the end of the course will bring - neither do I!  The whole point of the course is to work through various basic exercises that any one can do but never have/take the time to do, along with good support, some exciting and original work will be created for the end of year show. It takes quite a leap of faith for students to sign up for this kind of course. I am only taking eight students each year. Eight is enough for a group to 'bond' and small enough for me to have time to work with each student individually. This will be a great treat for me - I'm not sure about the students!!! I have chosen IDC at The Old Needle Works  IDC/The Old Needle Works as the place to run the c

The beautiful courtyard at La Verderie 2 workshops in France September/October Hot Textiles - Creative Bondaweb  September 26 th – October 1 st Luscious Layers October 3 rd – 8 th I am very blinkered in the way I think and sometimes need a nudge to make me realise what is staring me in the face!  Gorgeous old buildings with loads of inspirational textures can be found around and about La Verderie Because the workshops in France are going to be for 4 - 5 students I immediately thought they would be good for beginners and marketed it accordingly. It has been pointed out to me several times that working in a small group would also be a great opportunity for more advanced students to have their own 'masterclass' with me. There will be plenty of time for one to one tuition for any level of experience so Sue and I have now changed the skill levels on all the advertising. I am giving you all the 'heads up' as I start my show season this week and wi

Following swiftly on from Shropshire the day before - I delivered a 2 day workshop - Extreme Surfaces for Stitch at InkBerrow Design Centre  We had great fun layering Vilene Spunbond backed with Bondaweb and stitched onto craft Vilene . I love teaching at this venue - the workshops are perfect for my classes. Layers of dyed Vilene Spunbond machine stitched onto dyed craft Vilene and then zapped back with a heat gun.   These beautiful samples were created by my youngest student ever - pre dyed Vilene Spunbond CS500 (yellow) had Bondaweb ironed onto the back and shapes were cut out with a soldering iron. The backing paper was then removed and the negative spaces (yellow) were then ironed onto the the black and blue backgrounds, more pre dyed CS500. Simple and exquisite! Pre dyed CS500 decorated with painted Bondaweb, sequins and glitter. This was then 'cut' into wavy strips and layered up to create a 'frothy' effect. T