Nicola and the girls  Happy New Year!! How are you all? Have you survived the Festive Season? I hope that you have great things to look forward to, something simple like starting to knit a new jumper or maybe a larger project? New Year saw me and the girls (my dogs) staying at Clasheen with my dear friend Nicola Brown for a few days. We go there every year. It's a great chance for us to catch up properly, talk about things that have gone well, and some things that have not gone so well. When you work for yourself you are always learning . .  It rained almost continuously, so we didn't get any long walks in, but it was very good to sit in Nicola's cosy lounge or kitchen and just chat about anything and everything. Plus my dogs generally get on well with Pip, Nicola's dog. A very different view from Nicola's house Those of you that have been following me for a while, will know my house has views along the west Clare coast. Pretty amazing. Nicola has a wonderful view

One of the smaller prettys using black colourwashed newspaper. This makes a great contrast for all the colours. This will be a two part post as this group produced some fabulous work right from the start. We ended up with seven students in the group which was great for me. Smaller groups means I can concentrate on each student - poor things!!! You will be getting used to seeing a lot of newspaper based work on this blog - and I'm afraid this will continue for a while as I have two more newspaper workshops coming up, one at Foredown Tower in Brighton which still has 2 places and the following week at Art Van Go which is full. If two of you wanted to join us on Monday at Foredown Tower - you can turn up on Monday and pay then - £120 for 3 days. Just email me so I know who is coming.     Three of the first samples before they were stitched.  Starting to print a larger sample be being stitched.         Starting to stitch  . . .   Out of seven student