This is going to be a mammoth blog so do keep checking back - I will be posting more over the next few days. one of the beautiful trees in the garden I may have mentioned once or twice . . . how much I was looking forward to teaching in Spain last week - well it was even better than I could have hoped. We had fabulous weather, great students who all got on very well with each other and the food - Oh!! I have put on 1.5 kilos!!!!!!! Oh! and the students produced some fabulous work as well . . . but more of that tomorrow. The villa and two studios are set in luscious gardens in the village of Venta De Los Pinos, Canadas de San Pedro, just 18 kilometres from the ancient city Murcia There were 2 courses running, 'Beads Amore' with Jane Sadgrove and 'Extreme Surfaces to stitch - or not' with myself. Jane Sadgove has a beautiful shop in Sevenoaks called Beads Amore and runs workshops from there 4 times a week, www.beadsamore.co.uk Jane Bolsover and one of her wonderful lu...

  book cover created by melting plastic shopping bags together between baking parchment   Wow!!! What wonderful weather! I hope most of you in the U.K have managed to get out in the sun - if only for a few minutes. It is not until it gets quite warm that you realise just how dark and cold it has been. From my window I can see the early sun on the white blossom of the Hawthorn tree at the bottom of the garden against the bright pale blue sky - beautiful. One of my jobs to catch up with this week is to write a few workshops for the VERY patient Kathy Troup of Stitch magazine, Kathy has only been waiting for 2 years. While going through my images to decide which ones to use I came across some I had put somewhere very safe - and then couldn't find them!!!!!  Early this year Laura Manning sent me these fabulous images of book covers and small bags created using melted plastic bags. I met Laura at the Design and Technology show last November and she told me that she had bee...

 part of the courtyard garden at La Verderie I have this week to catch up with myself and write a few new workshops ready for next year. I know many of you out there in blog land are interested in many crafts and skills, not just my kind of madness. I was chatting with my good friend Sue Culligan who lives in France yesterday. Sue is the owner of the knitwear mail order company Kangaroo . I am nipping over to see her and her husband John for a few days in May to work out some dates for me to teach over there - but more of that later. While we were chatting it struck me that some of you may interested in the workshops Sue runs in France. Sue has been running workshops at the local Chateau for the last few years with great success and has now decided to open up her home in France for more intimate creative retreats for up to five students at a time.    free form crochet  learn to work with different colours The new residential  'Back to Basics' workshop (date...

One full body massage and a long sleep later . . . Oh I am getting too old to do these shows for much longer! One of the wonderful things about Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch is that further education and higher education colleges are invited to have stands to show off the students fascinating work across the field of textiles. In these days of swingeing cuts and uncertainty in education it was good to see such positive energy, technical skill and fantastic ideas. The colleges also have the opportunity to show work in the amazing fashion shows put on by the indefatigable Brenda Killigrew of Inkberrow Design Centre. www.inkberrowdesigncentre.co.uk There were so many remarkable outfits to show this year that Brenda had to put on 2 different fashion shows which were rotated throughout the day. This was an amazing feat as Brenda and all the models and helpers had only hours to prepare.   the garments from Longslade on the cat walk As some of you may know I occasionally work wit...

Well I am home now and exhausted but boy was it worth it. What an amazing show - Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch was even bigger and better than last year with some beautiful exhibitions, great textiles artists and tutors and some amazing work by college students . This will be a 2 part blog. I will cover the college work and fashion show tomorrow - this post is about friends . . .There will be plenty of other blogs giving you a detailed description of the show. Wendy Dolan Wendy's current work involves working with old maps, beautiful, subtle and simple stunning.  Wendy has 2 pieces of her work in my next book.   Wendy Dolan had stand a the show and when she wasn't teaching a workshop in the Bernina Workshop she could be seen working hard on her stand demonstrating her 'architecture' and 'landscape' packs. It is great to be seeing more of Wendy, we were at the Glasgow show together and will be at the Liverpool show in May. I can't wait to show her and he...