My lounge, full of Lindsey Gibson's beautiful felt wall pieces. It's that time of year - we are all belting around - getting ready for Christmas.  Here in Brighton we have the Christmas Open Houses, we are about to have our second weekend.  This will be my last Open House in Brighton as I will be moving to Redditch in the Spring. The house is full of stunning work, It is worth all the clearing out to show off all this beauty. The website is - www.one2six.me.uk , how to find us is on there too. More of Lindsey's work . . .  and some of Annie's stars and angels . . . We have quite a variety of work . . .  Watercolours by Emily Jolley . . . Jewellery by Fenn and Co. . . . Stunning glass by Annie McMullan . . . .   Textiles for the wall by Sylvia Lynton . . . .   My friend John Culligan from France has sent over some gorgeous turned wood bowls . . . . This is one of John's yarn bowls - you put your ball of wool i...

  A cake and flowers for my birthday.   . . . and then another cake . . . !!! We are now over halfway through Experimental Textiles, this session was the sixth of nine. I have only ever taught one group at a time before, this year we are running two groups - a Thursday/Friday and a Saturday/Sunday. We will be doing the same next year. It is very interesting teaching the two groups side by side - they are both strong and are producing some excellent work. One thing that I hadn't considered was the air of competition creeping in between the groups. It is light hearted - but very definitely there!!! One of the benefits of having two groups - when the tutor has a birthday - you get two cakes!!!  When we are all settled with coffee (and cake) first thing on day one of the session - we look at what has been done for home work produced to reinforce what did on the session before. On the previous session we had looked at constructed textiles - felt, knit and weave...

   Tucked away in one of Mary's work book was this beautiful sampler of textures. The Experimental Textiles End of Year Show went down very well. It was good to see so many visitors asking the girls questions. It makes a massive difference when you are making a piece of work to know that it is going to be seen by thousands of people - it can be very scary.  Especially when it is the first time you have ever shown your work!  The day always started quietly as the visitors made their way through the show to our back corner. It gave the girls a chance to 'warm up'.  This is Kat and Rachel explaining about the course.  Rachel's paper collage is a the top and 2 of Val's samples are below. The students have to help hang the show and then steward it between themselves. I am there to keep an eye on things  . . . .  We had a lot of interest in the course - I am hoping to run 2 courses side by side from June - one on a Thursday a...