A very happy OAP!!    Well how did that happen? I am now a pensioner . . .  Getting older doesn't worry me in general, but I am more aware of the groaning joints and I am thinking about what time is left to get SO much done. I have more ideas than ever now. Textures to create, designs to develop and so much more stitch to play with.  When you get to landmark birthdays, I think it is normal to take stock, to see where you are and how you would like to spend your time. After the Experimental Textiles course finishes in June/July next year I will be having a break from regular teaching. I have booked a stand The Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham, UK. www.thefestivalofquilts.co.uk/ in August next year. It will be so very good to catch up friends and ex students at the show. It will be a change for me to have my own stand rather than working on a Vlieseline stand. I will be there to promote the new Experimental Textiles Video Library which should launch in January 2023 I

  A different view! Nicola Brown walking around her property. Happy New Year!!  Wherever you are in the world, I hope 2022 is looking good for you. Well here we are! Are you ready? I have lots of plans for my field/garden and the making of new videos for a subscription opportunity on my website in a few months time.   I have a few events in the diary already. 10 live Zoom workshops the last Friday in every month starting this month. I have been asked to do 4 more live streams on the Vlieseline Facebook page in January, February April and May and I am giving a live Zoom lecture to a textile group in Portland, Oregon, USA in February. That is enough to be thinking about for a while, along with running the website, social media and working in the studio.     Beautiful book covers by Sharon on a recent workshop I so enjoyed teaching the live Zoom workshops last year. They were such fun, it was wonderful to be able to work alongside the students in real time. So I am doing it all over again

 A detail of one of my vessels Earth Jewels, featuring Lutradur and painted Bondaweb. This is covered in Workshop 6. Well, who knew that a catch up and show and tell 2 weeks after a live Zoom workshop would work so well? Whenever I taught workshops in the olden days before Covid, I would rock up to a workshop with a car load of supplies and samples and teach, have a great time with the students and then leave . . Occasionally students would send me images of work they had developed from my workshops, which was very satisfying.  Technology had a lot to do with it of course. In the real olden days we didn't have the amazing possibilities of digital photography and all the apps we can now use. It is incredible how we can now communicate in seconds, anywhere in the world via the internet. In my lifetime as a traveling tutor I have seen so many changes. It is quite remarkable. So - back to the present . .  My live Zoom workshops are going well, which is great. But what is going even bet

Printed and painted Bondaweb, ironed onto black cotton and decorated with torn skeleton leaves, gilding flake and herringbone stitch. It always helps to read the small print in a contract!!! I have been continuing to pay the monthly subscription to Ruzuku so that students who are currently on workshops can get their work finished before I stop teaching online on May 27th. Since inquiring about deleting my subscription to Ruzuku, I have discovered that the students currently on workshops, and any that enrol before midnight on Tuesday 26th May , can view the workshops and videos INDEFINITELY. So if you were put off enrolling on a workshop because you thought the workshops wouldn't be available after the end of May, we were both wrong. So - here are the links again - 30% off as there are no more inspiration books to send out. Only use these links to enrol. The links on the website are full price. To find out more about the workshops have a look here - http://kimthitticha