I am so very excited that my second book, called ‘Colour Your Palette’ is close to completion. It has been a bit of a slog but I’m just a few more hours work away from sending it to the printers for a ‘proof’ copy so that I can check the colours of the images (all 340 of them!).

It is a book about colour. In it I translate colour theory, which is nearly all written about paints, into colour practice for people, like me, who use dyes to add colour to fabric, thread, yarn etc. Dyes do not behave like paints. They come with some limitations but those limitations are far outweighed by the potential dyes give us to build up layers of colour, mark and shape on our cloth. And they are wash fast!

I take the reader through the creation of a series of colour references that teach us how a huge number of colours can be mixed from a starting set of eight base colours, how the order in which we layer our colours matters, how different fabrics take colour differently and how you can accurately match or reproduce colour irrespective of whether you are using thickened dyes to screen print or powdered dyes to dye fabric in a bucket.

I look at different colour schemes and guide the reader through a series of colour studies which look at different ways collections, or palettes, of colours can be derived from different types of colour inspiration. Although this isn’t a book that focusses on lots of different techniques for adding colour to cloth I do include a section on the tried and tested methods I use in my art and that I teach in my studio. This has turned out to be a big book, over 200 pages! ! I’ll tease you with more details over the coming weeks.

Colour Your Palette will cost £25 + shipping. After a lot of thought I have decided to make it available for pre-order from the 1st November with the first books expected to ship on 10th November (or earlier!). Sometimes pre-order means a discount but I’ve decided (on your behalf!) to donate £1 for each book ordered between the 1st and 10th November to The Trussell Trust, a UK charity that runs food banks and campaigns against food poverty. Since the beginning of the pandemic you guys have helped raise over £400 by buying my charity bookmarks. It would be nice to increase that in the run up to Christmas.

I’m so excited! And just a little bit tired ……

Leah x