Close up of Jackie's monoprint. It has been a while between posts, the closure of the mail order business generated a huge amount of interest and I was inundated with orders.  The website is now closed and I hope to be able to get all the outstanding orders posted by Thursday 3rd September at the latest. I had several offers to buy the business - but I wanted to keep the mailing list - for my newsletter and my online teaching when it eventually happens. As I am no longer tied down by the mail order business, I can travel for longer periods of time - watch this space. There will soon be news about me teaching more workshops in NZ 2017 and a new teaching tour of the United States 2017/18. It's all very exciting. *** Now back to the UK . . .  It was the 3rd weekend of ExTex 4 on the weekend of 22/23 August. The 3rd weekend means colour theory and mono printing. I know we rarely use colour theory, but is important to know how it works if there is something

One of the fab samples from one of my workshops at Excel. The Stitching, Sewing and Hobbycrafts Show at Excel was splendid. It was very busy. I haven't seen a show that consistently busy every day for a long time. It was interesting to see and meet so many new visitors. Roughly half of the visitors were aware of the more experimental side of textiles and the other half were well informed. It was a fascinating mix - I have never known this before and I have done a lot of shows.  Apart from having my own stand, I also ran The Vilene Workshop as I did the previous weekend at the NEC. At this show the tutors were, myself, Fran Holmes, Tina Francis, Jayne Routley and Wendy Dolan.  I was given extra space for a small part of the end of the year show of Experimental Textiles that was at the NEC the previous weekend. It was very well received and I had several enquiries about enrolments. Some of my students work on my stand. Getting my stand ready, this is Jayne

  A girl needs a certain kind of sustenance when doing the shows . . . . . Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch was brilliant - busy - but brilliant. I didn't get a lot of chance to see all of the show but what I did see was fantastic.  The exhibit I liked the best was Barkcloth to Artcloth - it was remarkable. A collaboration between Textile artist Bobby Britnell and Shoe designer Janet Middleton using traditional Barkcloth material from Uganda and re-inventing this wonderful fabric and creating little shoes. The idea was for textile artists to decorate a piece of barkcloth in their own style and Janet was to make a small pair of shoes from it. This exhibition has been created to raise awareness and funds for Hands up for Uganda. www.handsupforuganda.org A project that was started by Bobby ad her family that has just grown and grown, what everyone had achieved is quite fantastic.   The shoes will also be exhibited at the Excel show 3rd - 5th April - Creative