The talented Ruth Brown has been teaching her Books for Textile Artists workshop in my studio this week and I loved participating. In the space of 4 days we completed six books - three folded books, a drum leaf bound book, a long stitch leather bound journal and, my favourite, a secret Belgium bound book using book cloth made from hand dyed fabric. And I got to ‘test drive’ using a webcam and projector so that students could see Ruth’s demonstrations in a social distanced and safe way. My thanks to the other students - Alison, Jan, Mandy, Phil, Tracy and Tracey - for their good company!

Ruth will be teaching again in my studio next year. Dates to be confirmed …. so watch this space!

In the meantime I have now loaded all the workshops that I will be teaching in 2022 onto my website. As well as the workshops I’ve announced over the last couple of weeks I have added new dates for:

Simply Screen Printing 2 day workshop

Print, Stitch, Go! 5 day workshop

Print Your Palette 5 day workshop

Colour Your Palette 5 day workshop

And, of course, Breakdown Your Palette 5 day workshop

Click on the links above to find more details. Pricing is the same as this year - £160 for the 2 day workshops and £400 for the 5 day workshops. If you can’t wait until 2022 there is still availability of some 2021 workshops. Have a look at my workshop page here.

And now I need to crack on with my preparations for Festival of Quilts …. opens on Thursday, very excited!!

Grey by Leah Higgins (2021)

I have been teaching my Creative Surface Design workshop for a couple of years now where the workshop is spread across 5 weekends over an 8 month period. It has been working well however this has been one of my workshops that has been most disrupted by the pandemic with often very big gaps between sessions. And I’ve seen how those big gaps can interrupt the students progress - it can take half a day in the studio to get back into the swing of things!

So next year I’m going to deliver my Creative Surface Design workshop as two 5 days classes approximately three months apart. I have seen the progress students make in my 5 day breakdown, print and colour workshops and think five days immersed in the studio will help Creative Surface Design students get more out of the workshop. The gap in between sessions will allow students to reflect on what they have achieved and to think about how they want to progress. You can find out more here.

I have also decided to offer my first mentoring based workshop. Called Focussed Creative Development it will run with just two students so that they have 50% of the studio and 50% of ‘me’ at their disposal. I’m only going to accept students who have either completed my Creative Surface Design workshop or one of my five day workshops as I believe that building on an existing relationship will enrich the process for both the students and for me. The workshop is for students who are comfortable with the techniques they use, can work from a source of inspiration or to a theme but who are still striving to create a cohesive body of work that truly represents their personal artistic vision. It is for those who are ready to invest in their art and take it to the next level – whether that be an exhibition or just having the confidence to call themselves an Artist with a capital A! You can find out more here. And please get in touch to discuss further if you’re a bit uncertain if this is the right path forward for you.

I’ll tell you about my other 2022 workshops next time so bye for now!

I am delighted to announce that Louise Baldwin will be giving a four day workshop in my studio in July next year. Louise is a member of the highly influential 62 Group of Textile Artists and a member of Art Textiles: Made In Britain, a group that regularly exhibits at Festival of Quilts. Aspects of her work combine mundane domestic packaging with layers of stitched imagery. She works directly with her materials, intuitively responding to them as she builds layers of imagery.

In this four day workshop you will explore ways of constructing, breaking down and reconstructing a series of stitched mixed media works using a range of materials based around found packaging, fabric and ephemera, alongside any imagery that you might find particularly evocative. As you join, cut up, wash away, paint, sand down and reconnect your materials you will be encouraged to investigate the qualities and abstract narrative that various approaches with both hand and machine stitch can create. 

You can find out more about Louise and the workshop here.

I still have some places left on workshops run by other guest tutors. Have a look at Poetry of Stitch with Christine Chester 20th to 24th September this year and Christine’s much delayed Poetry of Decay on 22nd to 26th November this year. I also have one place left on the delayed Rust Marks workshop with Alice Fox, now running on 22nd to 24th April next year.

‘Two layer’ breakdown printed fabric by Julia Green

Breakdown printing is more than just an obsession, it is the process I get the most pleasure from teaching. Those of you who follow me on Instagram and Facebook may have spotted that I’ve just had another fabulous five days teaching my Breakdown you Palette workshop. It is just magic seeing the breadth of work my four students achieved - from tentative beginnings to confident use of colour and adding second layers of print. I really do love my job!

I’m teaching more ‘Breakdown' workshops this year than I would normally do as I try to catch up on all the delayed workshops from last year. If you would like to join me I have a few places left. It is very short notice but I have one place left on the workshop that starts on Monday 28th June. I have two places on the 12th to 16th July workshop and two places on the 23rd to 27th August workshop. The workshops cost £400 and you can find more information here.

I know that many people are still nervous about mixing and especially about travelling and staying in hotels. I work hard to make sure that my studio is a safe space and encourage students to use lateral flow tests before they arrive and part way through the week. I’ve also had some very good feedback on my local Premier Inn (Trafford Centre North) from students who’ve stayed there over the last few weeks.

But if this year is too soon I am very pleased to announce that I am now taking bookings on my Breakdown Your Palette workshops next year. I’m only planning on teaching the workshop three times in 2022. The dates are 16th to 20th May 2022, 6th to 10th June 2022 and 27th June to 1st July 2022. You can find more information here.

Can’t make it to my studio? I also offer this workshop as an ‘on demand’ online workshop. You can join at anytime and work at your own pace. There are over 24 hours of videos, detailed notes and support from me via month Zoom meetings, a private Facebook group and by email. The online workshop costs £240 and you have access to the content (and me!) for twelve months. Click here for more details and to sign up.

And, of course, there is still my Breakdown Your Palette book …. really detailed instructions for those of you who want to have a play at home … be warned it is totally addictive!

Below - students gallery - fabulous work by Julia R, Julia G, Gerry and Janet!

After a couple of weeks break due to teaching I have spent the last few days finishing my latest art quilt. It is called Cadence 7 and I’m sharing a detail from the piece. Yes it is made from breakdown printed fabrics. Yes turquoise features heavily. And yes there is lots and lots of straight line quilting. But it needed something more.

The addition of a thin strip of complementary colour and some curved lines have helped to bring the piece alive. I absolutely love it and hope that some of you will get to see it in the Art Quilt section at Festival of Quilts at the end of July. Because the quilt is big (297cm wide and 101cm high) it should get displayed on a white wall …. I design my pieces to be exhibited on white walls and don’t enter them into shows where they would be displayed against black cloth. My art, my choice!

The next couple of months are super busy. As well as teaching my own workshops I’m delighted that Christine Chester and Ruth Brown will also be teaching in my studio. There are a few places left if you fancy a fun packed staycation in (hopefully sunny) Manchester. Details on my workshops page. And then there is Festival of Quilts where I will be demonstrating breakdown printing on my stand in the Quilt in Action area. I have everything crossed that it goes ahead - it will be such a boost in so many ways!

And whilst I like to fool my husband that I can bend time to get a couple of extra hours out of every day the reality is that teaching is all absorbing (and knackering) so I’m unlikely to get much ‘art’ time. I certainly won’t have the time to start the next Cadence quilt but I might find time to do a little sampling of some new ideas ……..

Time has done that weird thing again. The four week gap I had between workshops looked so long and held so much potential for making art …. and it feels like it has gone by in a flash! Don’t you just hate it when that happens!

My studio is nearly ready for tomorrows and next weeks Breakdown Your Palette workshops. I just need to pack away my sewing machine which I can do in the morning. I am determined that before I go to bed tonight I will have finished the straight line quilting on my latest quilt. I had hoped to get this done and the two halves of the piece sewn together but that might be too much to ask. I have a gazillion ends to sew in which I can do in the evenings but I will have to wait two weeks before I can finish the quilt. It is exquisitely frustrating to be close; to know what you want to add to a piece to finish it and to know how you want to start the next piece in a series …… But such is life!

That said I will be spending the next two weeks breakdown printing with the added bonus of having students in my studio! I can live with that.

Leah x

A very big thank you to Judy, Lis, Mandy and Sharon for being the first students back in the studio after a 6 month plus gap and for being the first students on my Colour Your Palette workshop. We had a great five days. It was so good to share my studio with like minded company who’s surname isn’t Higgins! (Not that I don’t love my Higgins boys ….). There was lots of chat, lots of laughter and most importantly, lots and lots of colour!

The workshop is a deep dive into understanding and using colour when working with dyes although large elements of it are equally applicable to other media. I’m a great believer that we learnt best by ‘doing’ and that’s what we did. We mixed and scrapped hundreds of swatches as we explored the impact of the hue bias in each of our co-primary colours and as we looked at the complex colours you get when you start mixing complimentary colours. We explored different colour schemes and considered how our colour choices are determined by our artist styles and our preferred techniques for applying colour to cloth. And we worked through colour studies based on different sources of colour inspiration. Lis and Sharon even found time to print some fabric as well. There are a couple of tweaks needed to my timings and demonstrations but I’m pretty happy with how the five days went and am looking forward to teaching Colour Your Palette again in July and October.

In fact I’m looking forward to all of my workshops scheduled for this spring and summer. My next workshop is Breakdown Your Palette on 17th to 21st May, assuming we ease restrictions on hotels and travel on the 17th as expected. I have one place left on this workshop and am going to start an hour later than normal at 10.30am so that students can travel to me in the morning. I also have a few places left on Breakdown workshops later in the summer. Breakdown is my favourite thing and my favourite workshop so if you fancy joining me please click here.

I also want to thank those of you who tuned into my first live workshop yesterday as part of The Creative Craft Shows Craftfulness Festival. I was a nervous wreck leading up to it - mostly worrying that the technology wouldn’t work but, in the end, everything went well. It did however take half a bottle of red wine and a tub of Ben and Jerries to peal me off the ceiling afterwards!!!

Needless to say that I’m planning a quiet few days ………

The design wall is a sea of colour, the 40 squeezy bottle of thickened dye are ready, the COVID safe screens are back in place and the ‘brew’ area is stocked with a variety of teas, coffees, individually wrapped choccy biscuits and mini-Haribou packs ……… Yes, after a gap of 6 months my studio will open tomorrow! And I am so relieved, happy, nervous and slightly tearful.

I can only teach students who live locally as restrictions will remain in place on travel and hotels until mid-May at the earliest but it is a step in the right direction. Tomorrow I will be teaching Colour Your Palette to four lovely ladies who have all been in the studio before. The workshop is based on my latest book and this will be the first time I have taught it …. and so I am very grateful to my four guinea-pigs. Hopefully the pleasure of learning in person will make up for any blunders on my part!

It feels like we are in a better place than we were when I opened last summer. Most of us ‘older’ people have had at least on jab, social distancing and hand hygiene have become normal behaviour and I can use lateral flow tests every few days to give that extra bit of reassurance. I know that some other studios are opening up from tomorrow and I wish them all well - it has been a long winter!

Bye for now, Leah x

I’m very pleased to announce that I will be giving my very first live workshop at 4pm on Saturday 17th April as part of The Creative Craft Shows ‘Craftfulness Festival’. Like many event organisers ICHF have moved their events online and had a great response. You can find out more about the event here. All the content (50 hours of workshops) is being recorded live on the 17th April but is available to watch until 29th May. Which means if I make a real hash of it I will know that it is ‘out there’ for 6 weeks …. no pressure then!

My workshop is called Printing and Stamping with Textile Inks. Over 90 minutes I will be showing everyone how to use a thermofax screen, simple acrylic shapes and textile inks to decorate both sides of a cotton tote bag. The inks and the techniques are easy and safe to use so are suitable for children / grandchildren. Tutors don’t get paid to give their workshops but most of us have kits available via the ICHF shop - you can find out more about my kits here here. And you can find a show guide here.

The last event I attended was the Scottish Quilt Show at the beginning of March last year. It was a wonderful event and an opportunity to spend time with my daughter who lives in Glasgow. I’ve missed my daughter and being out and about so much but things are looking more hopeful now. At the moment I am planning to be at Festival of Quilts in August and have my fingers and toes crossed that it will go ahead (and that we get to see Jess soon!).

And finally I want to say thank you to the students who signed up to my online Breakdown Your Palette workshop during March. With your help and a small donation I have been able to donate £275 to YoungMinds, a charity that works with children and young people with mental health issues. Thank you.

Leah x