I still have more to share from my Australian adventure but my feet are now firmly back on the ground and I’m hoping that I can entice some of you onto the workshops I will be running in my studio in Manchester over the next couple of months.

You can find out more about these workshops on clicking on their names but briefly -

Simply Screen Printing 2-day workshop on 10th and 11th June - this workshop is a basic introduction to screen printing using Procion dyes and is suitable for absolute beginners. You’ll learn how to use a screen on it’s own and with things like paper, string and masking tape to print 5 to 8 pieces of fabric. You’ll also get a brief introduction to breakdown printing. The cost is £180.

Breakdown Your Palette 5-day workshop 12th to 16th June 2023 - my favourite workshop, five whole days breakdown printing. Again this workshop is suitable for beginners and those with screen printing experience. We start by looking at colour when using Prion dyes before working our way through lots and lots of different ways to make and print breakdown screens. Along the way we also look at combining breakdown printing with discharge and you have the option to dye some fabrics to go with your printed fabrics. You can expect to print 8 - 15 pieces of fabric depending on how quickly you work. The cost is £450.

Simply Screen Printing (The Full Monty) 5-day workshop on 19th to 23rd June - we start with the basics as covered in the 2-day version of this workshop before moving on to a greater range of screen printing techniques. This workshop essential includes everything in my Simply Screen Printing book. We will use paper, string, thin plastic, masking tape, freezer paper, washable PVA, flour paste and sticky back plastic to add resists to our screen and fabric. We will mostly use Procion dyes but will also look at how to use a screen with discharge media and with textile inks. You have the option to dye some fabrics to go with your printed fabrics. You can expect to print 8 - 15 pieces of fabric depending on how quickly you work. The cost is £450.

It was an honour to be invited to teach at the Fibre Art event in Ballarat last month and just a little intimidating. One of the other tutors was the brilliant Ester Bornemisza who’s work I have admired for over 20 years so I knew I needed to do a good job! Thankfully my students made that that job so easy. All 12 had previous experience with Procion dyes and 10 out the 12 had experience screen printing and they absolutely flew! Being honest I think I learnt just as much from them as they learnt from me.

We started by looking at colour and specifically colour when using Procion dyes before moving onto different screen printing techniques. Inevitably the group did a lot of breakdown printing but I was also delighted to see great results from loose paper resists. Along the way the whole group helped print a long strip of fabric that was raffled at the end of the event … it raised $70 for the India Project that the Fibre Arts team run.

On the final evening each of the tutors set up a display of their students work. I asked each of my students to pick their favourite two pieces and I think our ‘exhibition’ looked amazing.

Maybe because it was a residential workshop the students really ‘gelled’. So much so that we set up a public Facebook group called Breakdown Printing Australia so that we could keep in touch and, hopefully, grow the love of breakdown printing (which IMHO is pretty blinking amazing) in the region.

So much fabric was printed …… below is some yummy eye candy! I had a wonderful time.

I am very, very delighted to announce that my new book Simply Screen Printing is available to pre-order from today with shipping expected to begin on 1st March.

Simply Screen Printing is a detailed, step-by-step, instructional guide to screen printing textiles at home, or in a studio, using Procion MX dyes and other media in a way that suits your budget and the space you have available to work in. It covers working with an open screen, with loose resists (paper, thread and plastic), with temporary resists (thickened dyes, masking tape and freezer paper) and with semi-permanent resists (flour paste, washable PVA glue and sticky back plastic). I show you how to pull traditional ‘perfect’ prints before exploring the wonderful effects we get when we embrace ‘imperfect’ printing. Yes, we break some rules!

With over 500 images spread over 236 colour pages, it is suitable for absolute beginners and, hopefully, useful to those of you who are already working with screens and dyes. Along the way I talk about colour (obviously!) and share lots of tips to help you achieve the printed fabrics you want to achieve.

The cost is £35 plus postage. You can find out more, see the contents pages, see images from the book and some sample pages by clicking here.

(Unfortunately the book is more expensive than I would like but printing costs have increased by 50% since I published Colour Your Palette in November 2021 and this is a slightly bigger book. If you are going to the Scottish Quilting Show in Glasgow or the Sewing for Pleasure show in Birmingham, both in March, you can save on the postage by buying from me at the shows).

As I did when I launched Colour Your Palette in 2021 I will donate £1 to the The Trussell Trust for every book sold before the end of March.

Simply Screen Printing is also available as a kit - Simply Screen Printing Kit in a Bag contains the book, a screen, a squeegee, soda, urea, Manutex RS and 4 Procion MX dyes in a heavy weight cotton tote bag. The kit costs £100 which is a £19 saving compared with buying the contents separately. Again I will donate £1 from the sale of each kit to The Trussell Trust.

I really hope you like the book, it has been a labour of love but now I’m going for a little lie down xx

Beautiful piece by Elspeth. One piece of breakdown printed fabric brought alive by the insertion of thin strips of hand dyed fabric.

One thing that I hear over and over again is that some fabrics are just too nice to be cut into. It is perfectly OK to stroke fabrics lovingly for a while but screen printed and hand dyed fabrics look even better when they are used. Which is why I developed my 5 day Print, Stitch, Go! workshop. Two days printing and dyeing fabric then three days being brave and cutting into the fabrics. The five students in last weeks workshop did just that. You can see some of their work above and below. Well done ladies!

A simple but effective way of combining printed and dyed fabric by Sue.

Nearly there - Ruth auditioning woven stripes on her quilt.

Sylvia worked small, mirroring the lines in her screen printed fabric by inserting hand dyed strips of fabric.

Gerry’s cut strips ready to start piecing.

I am getting close to the end of my 2022 teaching season. I will be teaching my five day Print Your Palette workshop on 10th to 14th October before switching the studio into writing, photographing and videoing mode for the winter. I still have places on the workshop at the discounted cost of £320 if you want to join me!

The whirlwind that is Festival of Quilts is over for another year and I am already looking forward to next year! Thank you to everybody who stopped by and made it such a successful show and welcome to all you new subscribers. My biggest thanks though goes to Ruth Brown, friend, book binder, textile artist and all-round superstar. I quite literally could not have done the show without her.

I’m not sure we could have fitted more stuff in my van - lets just say that it is a good thing that both Ruth and me have short legs! Set up went pretty smoothly and I was really pleased with my stand. Lots of fabrics, lots of books, lots of dyes and lots of breakdown screens ready for me to print. The show opened at 9.30am on Thursday and we never stopped! My notes for next years show consist of one word ‘more’. More fabrics, more books, more screens ….. not quite sure how we’ll fit everything into my van but what a wonderful problem to have.

As well as the stand this year I was part of the studio collective running the Creative Textile Studio. This is a live space where a fantastic group of artists and demonstrators share their techniques and their work. Myself, Christine, Hazel and Terry are so grateful for the volunteers who helped set up the studio, who manned the sales table and generally pitched in when needed. If you visited the studio we would love to get some feedback from you.

Myself and Ruth also demonstrated in the studio and I thought I’d share a photo that one of the other demonstrators, Amanda Duke, sent me …. this was taken at about 4pm on the final day and boy do I look tired. Tired but happy! Thank you all again x

Terry drawing with needle nosed bottles and thickened dyes

The Creative Textile Studio (previously known as the Virtual Studio) has been an integral part of each summers Festival of Quilts from the very first show. It is a space where visitors can watch and interact with a bunch of talented people demonstrating a wide range of textile techniques. Up until now it has been organised by Leslie Morgan and the students of her Committed to Cloth studio. Leslie has now decided that it is time to retire and focus on making her own art.

And I am very proud to tell you that I am part of a new studio collective taking over the reins. The collective is Christine Chester (Studio Eleven), Hazel Ryder and Terry Donaldson (InStitches) and myself here at Urban Studio North. This is a new venture for us and we have big plans! We want to stretch the boundaries of textile art and share with you the widest range of textile and mixed media based techniques. We want to inspire you!

We will all be demonstrating at various times in studio and will be joined by some wonderful artists and textile tutors including Clare Bullock, Elisabeth Viguie Culshaw, Jennifer Collier, Kate Findlay, Ruth Brown and more. As we get closer to the show I will share the studio rota so you can plan a visit. And our logo. Yes we are going to have a logo! But for now you might want to look at our Instagram page foqcreativetextiles

And maybe start following us? Or spreading the word to your friends? Any support is very much appreciated. We’re barely an acorn right now but we want to grow to be a great big creative, colourful, inclusive and inspiring tree!

Well that’s my opinion. If you’ve been reading these posts for a while - thank you! - then you will know that I love breakdown printing. With experience you have a level of control over the results but it is that element of serendipity that makes breakdown printing so special. And versatile. There are so many ways of adding colour and mark to a screen and they all give lots of very different looking prints. Breakdown printing forms the basis for my art and is the most popular workshop that I teach.

I had another wonderful group of students last week and you can see a small selection of their work below. Mid-week eye candy!

If you are interested in breakdown printing you could come and see me demonstrating at this summers Festival of Quilts, both on my stand (K47) and in The Creative Textile Studio. Or you could buy my book (details here). Or sign up for my online Breakdown Your Palette workshop. Or join me in the studio. I still have places available for the last five day workshop in 2022, 12th to 16th September. Priced £400, you can find out more details, and book, here.

And I’m very happy to announce dates for my Breakdown Your Palette workshops in 2023. The dates are 15th to 19th May, 12th to 16th June and 10th to 14th July. Unfortunately though I am having to put my prices up having held them for three years. The new cost will be £450 with £150 deposit and the balance payment of £300 due six weeks before each workshop. You can find more details here.

(Or yes and I also offer the 5 day Breakdown Your Palette workshop to private groups of six, giving a 10% discount on the price. Please contact me here if you want to know more.)

Plug over … now time for that eye candy courtesy of Alwyn, Clare, Enid, Jane, Janet and Kerry!

Twin needle Coptic stitch, Origata and a Stub binding

Some of you will know that I’m pretty focussed when it comes to how I use my time. If I’m not teaching or doing (the absolute bare minimum) ‘family / house’ stuff then I am in my studio making art. I read, do jigsaws, watch zombies on prime / netflix to wind down before bed but nearly all of my ‘free’ time is spent in the studio making art. I call this being focussed. Husband uses the word driven. I do get knackered sometimes and hubby will suggest I take a day off. Day off clearly means something different to him. To me it means wake up, skip having a shower, put on yesterdays t-shirt, kick aside the pile of laundry as I leave the bedroom, ignore the dirty dishes, grab a big packet of chocolate biscuits and head straight out to the studio. Remembering to lock the studio door so that I can’t be interrupted by my well meaning husband.

I do however make time for making books. I guess you could call it my ‘hobby’ now that textile art is my career / vocation.

And this last week I’ve been delighted to have friend, textile artist and book binder Ruth Brown teaching in the studio. I couldn’t sit in every day but I did make three of the five books that she taught during the week. My first ever twin needle Coptic stitch bound book which I love! Much firmer than the single needle version books I’ve made in the past and so many design possibilities. An Origata bound book which features a folded paper wrapper that holds the front and back covers. And a little stub bound book. The students also got to make a hard backed notebook and a travel journal.

Ruth is an excellent teacher and has a brand new studio in Otringham, nr Hull. Do have a look at her website here for details of her workshops. She will be demonstrating in The Creative Textile Studio at this summers Festival of Quilts as well as helping me on my stand. Do stop by and have a chat with her if you’re interested in book binding. (And don’t tell anyone but she is currently writing a book on hand bound books with stitched spines and will be teaching here at Urban Studio North in 2023 …. details to follow!).

Detail of Artefact 4,

Making art comes with lots of highs and lots of lows. Those magical days when everything you’ve been working on comes together and you know you’re making good art. The whoop whoop moments when a piece of work is accepted in a juried exhibition. The rarer, whoop whoop whoop moments when a piece wins a prize or sells. In contrast - those weeks when you just can’t get ideas out of your head onto fabric, when everything you print or stitch is somehow wrong. And those, all to common, moments when a piece is rejected. You know you shouldn’t take it personally but you do.

Most of the time though the process of making art brings with it a quiet joy and a deep sense of contentment and well being. There are somethings that are not so much ‘fun’ but that’s OK because they are just one step in an overall process that you love. I print my fabrics with dyes and the rinsing and washing stage is the step I like least. But I end up with a pile of beautiful fabrics ready to use in the next stage of my process which makes it OK.

There is one thing though that I find just boring. And that is stitching sleeves to my quilts. Stitching the facings is OK as this finishes the piece and makes it ready to photograph and to share. But sleeves ….. nobody sees them, they add nothing to the visual impact of my finished art. It is very tempting to not add them until a piece has been accepted into an exhibition ….but then you find yourself working late into the night on a piece that has to be delivered / shipped the next day. Yes, been there, done that!

But this week I have been a good girl and have completely finished the piece that I’ve entered into Festival of Quilts (detail above). As per usual it is a big quilt. And as per usual I’ve added sleeves to both the top and the bottom of the quilt. Thank goodness for good coffee and a good supply of chocolate!