Work in progress from Kate. Well - that's the third year of Experimental Textiles (the 9 month version) finished. The next round runs from June 2015 - March 2016. I love teaching the course in the IDC studios at The Old Needleworks in Redditch. It is a great venue, in the centre of the country and just off several major routes. There are several hotels close by for those of you that need to stay over.  The one thing I don't enjoy at the end of the course - is the students leaving. However - there will now be a way of progressing on from Experimental Textiles, a student can be invited to join ExTeXtra. This will be run as an exhibiting group with me as a mentor. It will be run as a 5 weekend course running from July 2015 - March 2016. It is my hope it will continue after March next year - but we will have to see what happens, this is all very new.    I am showing you details of the work in progress, I don't want to show the work or there will be no surprises w

A detail of 'Off the Floor' by Gael O'Donnell. So - here I am in Palmerston North teaching at the Quilt Sympossium. It is easily the largest event I have ever been involved in and it is running like clockwork. The organisation required in an event such as this is mind boggling. There are 32 tutors and around 1200 students - amazing. Yesterday we were setting up our classrooms and also had a chance to get a good look at the fabulous exhibition - Growing the Passion. As most of you will know I am not passionately interested in quilting, I admire the craft but  . . .  However, the quilts on show were just fantastic. A fabulous array of different styles and such skill - it was very interesting to see the variety. Here are my favourites . . .   'Off the Floor' by Gael O'Donnell. 'Is it Art?' by Melanie Martin - my favourite. 'Nightwatch' by Anna Prussing. 'My Kind of Garden' by Sheryl Anicich. You are g

Katie painting her Journey. So - Here I am back at Ballarat with Fibre Arts Australia run by Glenys Mann. www.fibrearts.jigsy.com I love teaching here and most especially catching up with great friends that I have taught with here two and four years ago - Mary Hettmanspurger and Kerr Grabowski from the USA and Marlene Kranz from Australia.  My design workshops have been asked for most particularly in Australia and as they are a great favourite of mine, this is no hardship.  You will have seen that I taught something similar in Canberra. As this is a five day workshop we will be developing the use of the print blocks and creating layered newspaper surfaces to print and stitch onto. The Journeys were painted . . . .  . . . and hung . . . We also played with 'flipping out' . . . .    . . .  and expanding . . .     The group then took two sections from each design exercise using 'L' shapes to isolate their designs. Th