A selection of beautiful beaded bowls by Sue Redhead, Jane Wolfe & Gina Dean I find it amusing that a workshop I created based on bowls and bangles I have been making all my life - has become very popular in the The Experimental Textiles Video Library & Membership. I have never taught this workshop as it is something I have always just - done. Making strange and unusual pieces with random beads has always given me great pleasure - I hadn't realised that it might intrigue others too.  I decided to film the workshop and see if any of the membership wanted to play with the techniques. My goodness they have been having fun. It just goes to show - you never know!   One of Gina's larger vessels Students on the video library go through waves of working, there will be a flurry of work and samples on one workshop, then others will start on another. As the member is for 12 months, you can create your work when it suits you. What I love is how they all chat to each other, showing

  My first 4 books . .    Welcome to my new blog subscribers.  I have 2 mailing lists one for this blog, and one for my newsletter. This blog tends to be a long read, it can contain all kinds of things, my life here in Ireland, my dogs, my travel, whatever takes my fancy, I can ramble, I like to talk to you all. There is a search engine in the top right hand corner, I have been writing this blog for 10 years or so, so if you want to find out what I have written about Lutradur or Tyvek or New Zealand, anything really . . just pop it into the search engine My newsletter is more of a short read, what is happening with my teaching, news of shows and new travel tours. That kind of thing.         I don't know if you can hear it from where you are, but my brain is whirring with new ideas and techniques. While I am filming and updating my 12 most popular workshops, I am developing new ideas to share with you. My 'what happens if . . ' head is definitely on. More of that in a mi

An amazing sunrise yesterday   Some days just start really well.  We have been enjoying torrential rain, hail and strong winds over the past day or so here on the west coast of Ireland. It was so good to wake up to the most magnificent sunrise. Because the land is reasonably flat on three sides of my house, the colourful light wraps around us. It's like light bathing. It was wonderful to see the colour reflected in the bay. The really deep light only lasted for about three minutes, you have to be quick, then it starts to fade. As we move into the shorter days, it is a great chance to enjoy the sunsets at a more 'civilised' time!   The wonderful light surrounds the house and reflects in the windows.     Time for my bus pass . . I am coming up to a biggish birthday - I am going to become a pensioner next month! I have started to think about just how much teaching I would like to do going forward. It would be good to slow down a bit and concentrate on my own work. There are m

A section across 3 'Journeys' one of the design exercises on Experimental Textiles.   I have finally finished wrestling with the NEW online 10 month Experimental Textiles course which will start on September 21st 2022. It was very helpful to have all the replies from the surveys that I sent out to my mailing list. The replies guided me as I worked through all my ideas to create something that would fit both my ideas and what appears to be needed. The NEW 10 month online course    A history of Experimental Textiles . . I have taught my course Experimental Textiles since 1999!! It was originally written as a one year course and eventually ended up as a 4 year course . .  because my students wouldn't leave!! I taught the 4 year course across 2 colleges for 12 years. As you can imagine, it was pretty full on. But also amazing, and I learned so much and made some great friends a long the way.  After the 12 years I swore I wouldn't teach the course again, I was worn out - so

   A section across 3 Journey exercises. It's been a while . . Life can sometimes come along and swoop you away! The studio at home in Ireland is almost finished and will be ready to teach in when my courses start.   The back wall of the studio Left hand side . .  View from the door - as you can see, plenty of room for  tables and chairs for teaching my workshops. There has been a slight delay in opening the studio as we had a big storm here last night and I now have a hole in the roof!! That should be sorted this week. I am very excited to have somewhere to create larger work. I have 2 local exhibitions coming up and would like to make something new and exciting. *** A new online workshop.  My design exercise The Journey has been the most popular workshop I have taught and it is now available online. I have been asked so often to offer it online for those of you who cant get to a workshop with me. It was part of a longer course that I a