I am very excited to announce that my new workshops are available to book on line.

The workshops will take place in my studio, which I am calling the Urban Studio North, in Eccles, Manchester. The studio is light, spacious and easily accessible. I'm limiting student numbers to 6 so that each student has plenty of space to work and I have plenty of time to give one-to-one support. My aim is to supply as much of the media and equipment needed for each class so that, in most cases, students only have to bring fabric. 

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I have developed an introduction to screen printing workshop that includes breakdown printing called Simply Screen Printing and an introduction to dyeing workshop called Dyeing to Begin. Both are two day courses, suitable for absolute beginners and are intended to be pretty fast paced with students printing / dyeing lots of beautiful cloth. I have also created a 1 day a month for 10 months programme called Introduction to Surface Design which covers dyeing, printing, breakdown printing, mark making, paper lamination, adding and removing colour and so much more! 

And I have my first guest tutor. Ruth Brown will be teaching a two day workshop on Hand Made Books tailored towards textile artists. This will be suitable for beginners and will cover a range of book types. 

I will be adding more workshops and more dates over the coming months but I am really interested in getting your feedback, good (hopefully) or bad. Do the workshops look interesting? Have I given enough information? What do you think about the pricing? Am I a mad fool?

Having spent lots of hours at my computer getting ready to teach (writing lesson plans etc) I have now moved onto the much more fun bit. I want to be as prepared as I absolutely can be which, for me,  means creating lots of samples and practising the demonstrations that I'll be giving. I know that I know my stuff and I know that I have enough knowledge to probably demonstrate 'off the cuff' but that is not who I am. I'm a control freak who writes lists, makes detailed plans and practices, practices, practices! So whilst I wait for some 'official' stuff to come through that I need before I can launch my workshops properly I am playing at the bench.

Whilst I'm not planning on giving a class on colour just yet, colour is fundamental to surface design, particularly when you are layering one colour on top of another using dyes rather than paints. Sometimes you want to achieve dull, sludgy brown but when you don't and that's what you get it can be demoralising. So I am spending some very happy hours in my studio making different types of colour blankets that, I hope, my students will find useful. Inspired by Claire Benns wonderful DVD (Exploring Fiber Reactive Dyes from Gali Publishing) I have created my own version of a colour 'tartan' on two types of cotton to see if they take colour differently (they didn't) and am now making colour wheels based on secondary colours (oranges, purples and greens). I am playing with intent and loving every minute of it! 

I love a good list and it turns out that there is a very long list of things that I need to do before I can start to teach in my studio. It is so tempting to start rearranging the studio, to start ordering 'stuff' and to spend hours at my bench preparing samples and practising demonstrations. But there is not much point in doing any of that unless I know I've actually got some students.

So first things first - writing lesson plans and getting everything loaded onto my website. Writing lesson plans is fun; figuring out what can be fitted in a two day workshop and what is a logical order for the demonstrations whilst remembering that the technique driven workshops will be aimed at beginners; making the workshops fun, intense, great value for money but not overwhelming. Getting things loaded onto my website has also been fun albeit in a slightly masochistic way. Lots of going round in circles figuring out what works and what doesn't work. Lots of cups of coffee. Lots of biscuits. Maybe the odd swear word. 

So far I have four workshops loaded but hidden from view. I am itching to share them with you but I am waiting for my local council to confirm that I can teach without needed to submit a formal 'change of use' application. Everything I have been able to read suggests not so fingers crossed!

And as a reward for all my hard work I 'allowed' myself to do a little rearranging. I started with the most important area. I have moved my coffee machine away from where we'll (hopefully) be mixing dyes. Health and safety in action. Still need to buy more cups, glasses, different teas, fruit bowl etc but I think this will work.

It has always been my long term plan to teach in my studio and right now feels like a good time to start. I have spent some very long days at my sewing machine this last year preparing work for my two exhibitions with Helen Conway but sewing time is serious thinking time. Time to think through all the pros and cons.

I have given a lot of thought to what, and how, I want to teach. I have taught informally before and found that I really enjoyed showing students how to use dyes, paints, screens, tools etc to create work that was uniquely theirs. So I will be teaching surface design but I will not be showing students how to 'make a Leah Higgins quilt'. I am currently putting together lesson plans for 2 day workshops and for 'a day a month' programme. It makes sense to start with technique driven classes for beginners then add more advanced classes. Any suggestions or requests will be gratefully received!

I have also given a lot of thought as to how it will affect my family as my studio sits behind our home. The good news is they all think it is a great idea and are helping me get the studio (and the garden which is a mess) ready. I will limit surface design classes to 6 students. I could have fitted in more but I want students to have lots of room. And I didn't want to lose my giant print bench! Which I love.

I hope to run my first workshops in July. Assuming that I can attract any students. It's all rather exciting and rather intimidating at the same time. I'll be adding details to my website, hopefully before the end of May. Better get back to it!