The Christmas tree is up, the presents wrapped and the cards written! And, judging by the lengthy food shopping lists, it must be that time of year again!

It will be a somewhat emotional one for us as it is the last Christmas that we’ll spend in the home we’ve lived in for over 26 years. But also one in which we look forward to a new life in Scotland.

This post is my last ‘work’ thing before I take a break from work and house clearing. But not a break from the studio as I’ll be finding time to make art … some ‘me’ time.

Thank you all for your support this year, my life is better for being part of this wonderful textile community. May I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a Creative New Year,

Leah x

It had to be done. Making a decision about what art to keep and what art will be sold, gifted or recycled before we move house (and studio) next year. And that is what I have spent the last few days doing.

The sad reality is that the older the piece gets the less likely it is ever going to be exhibited again so some decisions were easy. Others, not so easy especially as I needed to think in terms of what would I show in a retrospective exhibition which sounds uncomfortably pompous but a girl can dream. And then of course are the pieces I love most and can’t quite bear to get rid of.

You can see the pieces that I have decided to sell in my online shop or by clicking here. They range from small panels to medium sized quilts. There are pieces from my older series that I know I won’t be going back to - Hidden Messages, Print, Structures and Dunure (Still / Storm) along with some pieces from series that are still ‘active’ - Cadences and Traces (the coal mining series). And there are a few old ball pieces. I have reduced the cost of the pieces by 60 - 75% so the prices range from £40 to £495.

(And yes, I am keenly aware that selling art cheap can undermine the value of newer works but I would rather these pieces find a new home than end up being recycled …. something we could have a long debate about)

Let me know if you have any questions and please, please, spread the word! Thank you.

We’ve just got back from an important trip. Twelve days on the west coast of Scotland deciding where we will move to next year. I had already made my mind up (Largs) but wanted to take a deeper look at an alternative (Troon) just in case. Hubby was undecided and still anxious about leaving a big city for small town life so we planed on visiting different towns and having a trip into Glasgow.

Que lots of driving up and down residential streets, lots of coffee and cake and beer and food as we sampled what different towns had to offer and lots of promenade and beach walking in the mornings (for me, hubby rarely does mornings). We started by visiting ‘book town’ Wigtown in Dumfries and Galloway as a treat for hubby although I bought more books than he did and a rather splendid jigsaw. Not a house move target, more a carrot to dangle in front of hubby as we ‘enjoy’ the high and lows of the move.

We then drove to Stranraer and up along the Ayrshire coast to Troon. A beautiful drive. Troon was our base for a week whilst we visited other towns nearby. We both decided that Troon was a good option albeit that there are a couple of areas where the seaside / harbour smell was a bit too strong so we’d need to deploy our noses when house hunting! We discounted most of the other places we looked at (won’t name them!) either because the town centers were depressing or there was no suitable housing that was both close to the sea and to the shops. Prestwick which has lots of independent shops and a lovely sandy beach could be a back up but doesn’t have many properties of the right size in the right place.

We then moved further up the coast to Largs via a trip to Glasgow where we visited The Burrell Collection (my favourite museum ever). The road from Glasgow to Largs is a bit wiggly but it was a proper road with white lines down the middle … I turn into a nervous wreck when driving on narrow, narrow roads!

We spent five days in a flat close to the town center with views across the water to the island of Cumbrae. Heaven. Wonderful walks along the coast with stunning views, small town center but with everything we would need, good transport links, bungalows of the right size within spitting distance of the sea and the shops, a decent collection of restaurants and pubs, a second hand book shop (top of hubby’s list) and Nardinis (ice cream heaven and they serve a damn fine cup of coffee!). SOLD.

Now the reality is that we will be renting before we buy and there aren’t many rental properties in Largs so we may end up in Troon or Prestwick or even Ayr at a push while we buy a place in Largs. And that process might take a while as we want to find the right place. I’m anxious about being without a studio but we are both agreed that it will be worth the wait!

My online Breakdown Printing workshop will soon be 4 years old and I’ve loved meeting students from all over the world. But the number of new sign ups has reduced significantly over the last year so I’ve decided to change how it is offered moving forward.

Originally offered with 12 months access and support via monthly Zoom meetings it is now going to be offered with lifetime access but without support via Zoom. I will continue to support students via email.

And the great news is that I’ve reduced the cost from £240 to £120!

You can find out more details here.

(I will be running Zoom meetings for existing students until the end of August 2025 and will continue to add the recordings to the workshop so they will be there for new students to watch).

Now that my studio isn’t a teaching space I’ve been busy sorting ‘stuff’ and have started going through all of the fabrics that I printed when writing my books and filming my online workshops. I’ve kept a good selection as I’ll need them when I’m teaching in other studios next year and beyond but there are so many more!

And so I have added 49 ‘one of a kind’ fabrics to my webshop. Each piece is completely unique with lots of different colours and printed using lots of different screen printing techniques . The pieces are approximately 75cm x 75cm each and have been printed on a lovely Cotton Poplin using Procion MX dyes (which means that they are washfast to 60C). Each piece costs £10 and you can find them here.

At long last I have also added the range of greeting cards that I had printed for my exhibition in Salford at the start of the year. There are 10 different designs with images from my Ruins, Traces and Artefact series. Priced at £2.75, each card is supplied with a plain white envelope. (They were printed by The Dandy Arthouse who I can really recommend if you need cards printing). You can find my greeting cards here.

I’ve been selling cards that feature pieces of breakdown printed fabrics at shows over the last few years but have decided to discontinue this range. Originally £3.95 each I’m now selling these in sets of 4 cards for £8 to clear them. The cards are A5 sized and actually look really good when mounted in a frame … think little piece of affordable art. You can them here.

And there will be more to follow over the coming weeks / months as I work my way through the studio but for now I need to turn my attention to the house …. I have set a target of clearing the cellar before Christmas (two rooms plus two wide corridors with 26 years worth of ‘stuff’ in). Wish me luck!

Not exactly the end of an era but I have taught my last class in my studio in Manchester and it was a good one to end on - my 5 day Colour Your Palette - sharing my space with three wonderful colour enthusiasts!

I taught my first class on the 2nd September 2018 so just over six years ago. Despite two heavily disrupted Covid years, 348 students have attended my workshops and the workshops given by 12 incredible guest tutors. Not 348 separate individuals as a lot of students have attended more than one workshop. I have welcomed 221 different people into the studio with one individual attending 9 different workshops, one attending 8 workshops, one attending 6 workshops and a good handful attending 5! My lovely, lovely, ‘repeat offenders’ know who they are and I am grateful for all the friendships I have formed over the last six years. I am particularly grateful to those early students who took a risk on me and went on to spread the word - I couldn’t have done it without them!

Special thanks to my bestie Ruth Brown who twisted my arm and got me started on this path, to Tracy F for beating the drum early doors, to Hilary K and Julie B for the editing / proof reading skills and keeping me sane during lockdown, to my favourite builders (father-in-law Bernard and son Joe) for the Bog Shed, the Bus Shelter and the somewhat more substantial than we initially thought Porch and to Ruth and Joe for being the best show buddies a girl could have xxx

It has been quite the journey ….. along the way I have written three books and developed two extensive online workshops. I’ve lost count of the numbers of talks I’ve given and the number of workshops I’ve taught away from my studio. Surprisingly I have managed to make the odd bit of art but not nearly enough to still the ideas buzzing in my head.

And so I move on to a new phase in my life. One in which the move to Scotland happens quickly and without stress (who am I kidding?). One which I continue to teach but less often, in other studios and community centers here and, occasionally, abroad. One in which I still do one or two shows a year. One in which I still run my online shop. And one in which my focus can be on making art.

Although I might take a few hours off and sip the odd glass of gin before getting started ……..

Last week I had the wonderful Amanda J Clayton teaching her four day Quietly Composed workshop in the studio so I was able to spend some time figuring out what my online shop will look like as I move forward. My core offering will remain my books, my workshops, dyes + auxiliary chemicals, screens and squeegees but other items will be dropped.

So I’m having my first clearance sale with more to follow as I work through the studio. I have reduced the cost of textile inks from £6 to £4 and the transparent extender used with the inks from £7 to £4.50. I have also reduced the price of acrylic shapes and thermofax squeegees by 50% or more. You can find the details by clicking here.

Now back to Amanda …. she arrived with the most amazing collection of finished pieces, samples, fabrics, threads, papers and ephemera. The six students were absolutely delighted … even when the drawing exercises took some of them outside their comfort zone! Amanda comes very highly recommended! Enjoy the eye candy below …..

With the big move to Scotland planned for next spring I’ve started my last ‘run’ of teaching in my studio. Which is kind of sad as I love teaching but also a good thing as I’m impatient to start the next phase of my life.

Last week I taught Breakdown Your Palette for the last time. This remains my favourite 5 day workshop and I’ve taught it 20+ times in my studio in the last 6 years. I will be teaching this workshop next year at InStitches from 16th to 20th June. The workshop is already sold out but if you’d like to learn more and be put on the waiting list click here. If you’d still love to learn how to breakdown print but can’t get to study with me in person you might want to have a look at my online Breakdown Your Palette workshop. This is an on demand workshop so that you can work at your own pace with support from me via monthly Zoom meetings and email. The discount code BYP20 gives a 20% discount up to end of August.

This coming week I will be teaching Luscious Layers. It is a full class but I still have places on the final Luscious Layers workshop on 23rd to 27th September. You can find out more here.

September will see me teaching my final Simply Screen Printing workshops. I still have 2 places left on the 5 day workshop that runs from 2nd to 6th September. You can find out more here. Alternatively I also offer an online version of this, you can find out details here. Again it is an on demand program with support from me via Zoom and email. Using the code SSP20 before the end of August will get you a 20% discount on the cost.

And I will finishing teaching in my studio with Colour Your Palette on the 7th to 11th October. This is my somewhat niche workshop that is a deep dive into colour theory and colour use when working with Procion dyes. This is probably the last time I will run this workshop and I have places left. If you’d like to find out more please click here.

In amongst all this I’m giving a couple of talks and taking workshops to a couple of groups, including a trip to Kilkenny in Ireland to teach screen printing for three days. It is all going to whizz by .

And then the packing begins!

Festival of Quilts is over for another year and I’ve almost recovered! It was it’s usual busy, sometimes chaotic self. Lots of people to chat to, lots of things to see. Thank you to everyone who visited my stand. Thank you to those who signed up to read my posts. Thank you to those who bought fabric, dyes and screens etc. And a big thank you to those who brought a small piece of art from me (more about that in the next post!).

Thank you to the wonderful artists who demonstrated in The Creative Textile Studio and to all of you who watched a demo and chatted with the artists. Thank you to Hazel and Terry for being great colleagues and to Sharon for giving so much of her time (and for the jigsaw!). We’ll be pushing for a bigger space next year so please mention the Studio if you send feedback to the show organisers.

Thank you to the quilt judges for awarding Cadence 8: Flamin’ Nora (above) second place in the Art category of the open quilt competition. And to everyone who stopped by the stand to tell me how much they enjoyed the piece. She does make my heart sing!

Thank you to son Joe for all his hard work, I quite literally could not do it without him. And they know who they are ….. thank you for the sweaty hugs, the tearful moments, the catch up chats and the gossip. There really is nothing quite like Festival of Quilts.!