Looking forward to another busy year!

Well maybe not quite as busy as 2019! A full teaching schedule, writing and publishing my first book, an absolutely amazing solo gallery at Festival of Quilts and unexpected drama on the home front meant 2019 was a bit of a roller-coaster ride. No wonder that I have spent a lot of the Christmas break sleeping!

However I did get into the studio most days even if only for an hour or two and spent my time working on the first two full pieces in my new series. I have given the series a working title of ‘Democracy’. I could have called the series Brexit but I want to make pieces that express my broader concerns about politics, the proliferation of lies and fake news and the way our political leadership is changing. And although the individual quilts may reference events in the UK I hope they will resonated with people in other countries. Despite the rather gloomy subject matter I am thoroughly enjoying working on a series. And, as per usual, I am spending lots of time machine stitching straight lines!

But the holidays are over and it is back to work for me. 2020 got off to a flying start - yesterday I gave a talk to the Manchester Branch of the Embroiderer’s Guild. This was the first of 8 talks I’ll be giving this year and the first of 4 that I’ll be giving to branches of the Embroiderer’s Guild. I arrived with a car boot full of quilts including some of the pieces I’ve exhibited in recent years. And, as you will already know, most of my pieces are big. Really big. Which means that some are quite heavy. So a big thank you to the ladies and gentleman who volunteered to hold them up! The difference in scale between my work and some of the pieces being worked on in the room could not be greater.

I also took along some older quilts and some sketchbooks from the City & Guild’s Diploma I did with the lovely and talented Linda Kemshall many years ago. Whilst doing my diploma I figured out that if you work onto separate sheets rather than directly into a sketchbook you can choose what you share. And you can back engineer a lovely looking sketchbook after you have finished making a quilt. OK, so I learnt that you could cheat. But much, much more importantly I learnt that I didn’t need to work into sketchbooks to produce art. It might not have been the intention of the course but this learning was an big step forward for me.

As well as talks I have a full teaching schedule this year. Most of my classes for the first half of the year are sold out but I still have odd places on my Simply Screen Printing workshop and my Print Your Palette workshop. I will also be welcoming my first three guest tutors into the studio. The workshops with Alice Fox and Christine Chester are sold out but there is still one place left on Ruth Browns Books for Textile Artists.

I will be demonstrating at The Creative Craft shows in Glasgow and Birmingham in March and will have a stand at this summers Festival of Quilts. And I am delighted to have a gallery at the West Country Quilt and Textile Show in August. Phew! There was me thinking it wouldn’t be as busy as 2019!