The lovely Laura Strutt polishing off 2 puddings - no not really - we shared.  I have found a fellow dessert lover!!! Whoopppee! The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace was amazing, very busy indeed. I have a new job - promoting Vilene products at various shows around the country. As you can imagine, it is a great hardship - not!!! I have been working with these fabulous products for many years as many of you will know. Laura Strutt and I will be doing all the Twisted Thread shows for the next few years and one or two others .Laura is a very clever girl and is into all manner of crafts as well as working on magazines and is the author of the Haynes Sewing Manual. We get on SOOOOO well together. Whilst the shows are hard work - great fun can also be had.  Laura showing how to use the Quickscreen Triangle by Vilene. The whole point of us having a stand at the shows is to help you all identify which Vilene products you may need for your area of...

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...

Sally's random print. We had the second weekend of Experimental Textiles at The Old Needle Works this weekend. We had a FABULOUS time and the group produced some beautiful work. The homework from the first week-end was to take one of their designs and interpret it in any material as long as it was black and white. Liz's homework - to develop one of their designs.   The design Liz worked from.   Emma's homework.  Part of Sally's home work.   Part of Shaun's home work.   Part of Tracey's homework. Part of Clare's homework   Heidie's homework.   Part of Jo's homework This week-end the students made printing blocks from their designs and experimented using them on different types of paper and fabric. Some of the group working hard. more of the group . . .  Clare applying paint to her block -  Clare printing onto paper with her block and using a 'dr...

  The Divine Ruth Issett and the very wonderful Susan Chapman larking about on the Art Van Go stand. Ruth was demonstrating on the Art Van Go stand on Saturday and Susan's stand was opposite.  The lovely Mr Mead from Art Van Go  www.artvango.co.uk - we all ate so much ice cream during the show - it was clotted cream ice cream with real fruit and candy floss . . and honeycomb . . and raspberry pavlova . . . . and chocolate . . . and lemon crunch . . .  and toffee fudge and so many more. Over the four days we did our best to get through the flavours by having two scoop cones. The vote down our end of the show was that the lemon crunch and honeycomb were the best. I will be teaching a 3 day workshop - The Journey, inspiration for art and design May 24th - 26th and another 3 day workshop  - A new starting point August 29th - 31st in their lovely studio. I will also be holding a mentoring day on the 1st September for any ex students who wis...