If you read my posts regularly you will already know that I will be teaching in Ballarart, Australia in April 2023. That workshop is already full and I can’t wait! I’m also hoping to teach in Tasmania the following week …. it is a long way to go so I want to make the most of my trip.

I’ve been working with a wonderful group called Stitching and Beyond. They are a group of over 100 textile artists from Tasmania and beyond. They meet regularly, run a biennial exhibition for members and organise a busy program of workshops with national and international teachers. If you haven’t heard of the group before have a look at their website here.

They haven’t been able to host any international teachers for a couple of years due to the pandemic so I’m doubly delighted to be giving a workshop. It will be a three day workshop from 21st to 23rd April and will be held in the Markers Workshop, Moonah Arts Centre in Moonah. You can find all the details here.

The workshop is called Colour Play. In it we will explore colour and controlling colour when using Procion MX dyes as well as using some simple screen printing techniques to create a collection of beautifully colour co-ordinated cloth. There are places left so please have a look if you live in the region.

Fingers crossed that the workshop gets enough students to go ahead!

I had a wonderful time last Sunday at the Great Northern Textile Show. The organiser, Tracy Fox, did an outstanding job and is probably still laid down in a dark room recovering! I put my exhibition up on the Saturday afternoon so saw the transformation from empty sports hall to a buzzing textile show. It was wonderful to see so many old friends and to meet new textile artists and traders. And the cup cakes were gorgeous! Well done Tracy!

I had printed and dyed quite a lot of fabric for the show and sold lots but I have some left over. So I have added them to my online shop. They include a selection of Wonky Print Inspiration Packs and some Absolutely Darling Hand Dyed Packs. You can see them all here.

I’m now in book writing mode so don’t expect to be printing or dyeing more fabric until into the New Year so if you’re looking for Christmas presents or just fancy treating yourself now is the time!

Leah x

Last week I taught my last workshop for 2022 and it was a good one. Three great students, beautiful work, lots of laughter …. even when the handle fell off the studio door and we were locked in! (Big thanks to son Joe for letting us out and to my lovely father-in-law Bernard for fixing the problem - don’t know what I would do without them).

I have a five month gap until I start teaching again. Last year I spent my ‘off’ season making art. This year I will be spending it writing my next book and developing my next online workshop.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be working my way through a series of tasks that help me re-focus away from teaching mode. I have already moved the benches around a bit and taken down the big plastic screens that separate some of the benches. I’ve cleaned the six student trolleys and re-stocked them ready for next spring. I’ve started the process of inspecting, scouring and, if needed, repairing all my screens. I will be bleaching all my drop clothes to strip out some of the colour that has built up on them during the year. Those that remain very coloured will go through a ‘redemption’ bucket of thiox which is a powerful but very smelly discharge agent. Those that are still too coloured will be re-purposed as quilt bags. I will be organising all my teaching samples, giving some of them a wash before packing them away. I have diligently worked my way through the left over studio chocolate bars and will not restock until spring (who am I kidding!). And I have written a big list of the other stuff that needs doing before next spring.

Yes, some of these things could have waited but they really do help me ‘transition’.

This week I will also be getting ready for the Great Northern Textile Show on Sunday 23rd October. I will be exhibiting and will have a stand and hope to see some of you there. Lots of things to do to get ready, including preparing some more Wonky Print Inspiration Packs!

So, realistically I won’t be working on the book for another week or so but I’m itchin’ to get going!

Cadence 8: Flamin’ Nora

In our heads we know that, as artists, we shouldn’t take rejections to heart. It doesn’t mean our art isn’t good, it might just mean that it doesn’t work alongside the selected pieces. And I’ve had a good success rate so far this year so shouldn’t mind a rejection. Or two. But my heart rules my head when it comes to my heart so poo to being pragmatic!

My latest piece, Cadence 8: Flamin’ Nora has just been rejected by Quilt National.

Which is kind of appropriate as the quilt is a celebration of creativity in the face of life and other annoying stuff. I started work on it over a year ago and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and everything that could interrupt production has. So it is dedicated to those days when blobs of dye drip onto your printed masterpiece. Those days when you forgot to add a colour catcher to you wash load. When you measure once and cut wrong. When your bobbin thread runs out 2 inches before the end of the last seam. When you spill coffee. When your beloved decides it’s a beautiful day and you should spend it together. When the phone rings and apparently there is a fault on your broadband. When the phone rings and it’s your mother espousing the benefits of cauliflower cheese. Again. When the parcel arrives and you’ve ordered the wrong colour thread. When your machine breaks down one week before an important deadline and it’s a two week repair. When that deadline is Quilt National and you end up buying a new machine ‘cos you just have to finish the flipping quilt. For the days when you get rejected. Flamin’ Nora!

Despite all this I really love this quilt, it makes me smile and I am so glad that I did get it finished.

I also love Artefact 5, another recent piece, which has just been rejected by Australias’ International Art Textile Biennial. Poo and double poo!

And because bad things come in threes I can also report that my thermal imaging machine has finally died so I’ve withdrawn thermofaxes from my website. Poo, poo and triple poo!

Thankfully I am one of life’s optimists and, with the help of chocolate and gin, I am completely over the bad news! Onwards and upwards!

Artefact 5

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!

It has been a strange couple of weeks here in the UK with so many things paused and general life feeling somewhat subdued. But now things are getting back to normal and I am delighted to let you know that I will be at this wonderful new event, the Great Northern Textile Show and Sunday 23rd October.

I’m honoured to be the featured gallery artist and will be showing a mixture of old and new quilts under the title ‘Beyond Ruins’. You can find out more about the gallery here.

I will also have a stand at the show and will be in very good company. The organiser, Tracy Fox, has done a really good job of gathering a diverse range of traders and you can find out more here. There will be fabric, kits, yarn, spinning equipment, sewing & embroidery machines, dye, fibre & fleece and much more.

You can follow the show on social media using the links below:

https://www.instagram.com/greatnortherntextileshow/

https://www.facebook.com/greatnortherntextileshow

https://twitter.com/GNTextileShow

If you live in the North West I’d love to see you there! This first event is a little acorn but with your support it will grow and grow!

After the euphoria of Festival of Quilts and the fabulous news that my workshop in Australia next April has sold out I am back down to earth with a bump.

It may not surprise you to know that I love a spreadsheet. I keep a tight rein on the studio accounts, analyzing patterns of spend so that I can look forward to see what my potential earnings might be. Whilst Festival of Quilts will pay my bills for the next few months the outlook for next year is not great. And I’m not surprised. The news that fuel bills in the UK will go up by 80% from the beginning of October and are expected to go up another 50% in January is frankly terrifying. Sorry to get political here but without significant intervention many families, including those who have always felt reasonably well off, will suffer and worse.

I make my living from my customers and students discretionary spend and I would be very naive not to acknowledge that the cost of a workshop even without travel and accommodation, is going to be more than many people can afford. Or want to commit too when there is so much uncertainty.

So time to focus on more affordable ‘stuff’. I’ve started work on my next book and have set myself a goal of getting it finished in time for Christmas. I will be making an online workshop to go with the book although I don’t think it will be ready for Christmas unless I give up on sleeping. I also have ideas for some shorter online workshops to be available from next spring. And I will be printing and dyeing fabric off and on over the coming months so that I can offer fabric packs on my website.

I have a couple of five day workshops this autumn which are definitely going ahead but still have spaces available. I’ve decided to offer them at a 20% discount bringing the cost down from £400 to £320. The students already signed up will also get the discount as I’m not comfortable with students paying different amounts on the same workshop. The workshops are Print, Stitch, Go! (26 to 30 Sept) and Print Your Palette (10 to 14 October). Short notice but would love to have more ‘bums on seats’ as the saying goes.

It is four years, and one pandemic, since I made the decision to leave industry in order to start teaching. As a family we always knew that it might be ‘challenging’ financially but it is still the best decision I ever made and I’m grateful for all your support. Leah x

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

You’ll know already that I have a stand at Festival of Quilts (K47) and am involved in running The Creative Textile Studio at the show. This is the biggest quilt / textile event in Europe and the biggest event in my dairy. And getting ready for it is involves lots of lists …. the full packing list for the car along with lots of sub-lists. Lists of the equipment needed to ‘build’ the stand - table tops, table legs, shelf uprights, shelves, cross braces, table cloths, display cases, drill, hammer, screw drivers, screws (and gaffer tape and cable ties just in case, well there isn’t much that can’t be held together with gaffer tape and cable ties). Lists of stuff to go on the walls - which quilts to take (with velcro strips sewn on top and bottom), signage, velcro dots and tapes for sticking stuff up, double sided tape as the emergency back up option. Lists of paperwork. Lists of stuff needed to breakdown print on the stand (must, must, must not forget to make the screens next weekend!).

And that’s before I figure out the stuff that I’ll take to sell. Although it is wonderful to take bookings for workshops whilst I’m at the show the reality is that most people want to check their diaries and think about spending what is quite a lot of money before they book. So the cost of the show really needs to be covered by the sale of fabrics, books, dyes, screens etc. Books, dyes, screens etc are straightforward and don’t take too much time to organise. But my printed and hand dyed fabrics do. Whilst I print and dye quite a lot of fabrics during my workshops there is not enough to cover a show like Festival. So these last few weeks I have been topping up my supplies. And I love it! Printing and dyeing fabric to sell isn’t the same as printing and dyeing fabric for use in my art. There is no deep meaning, no controlled development of a colour palette, no sampling of printed fabrics. Instead I can just go for it! And loose myself in colour and in printing. Hard work but deeply satisfying. And the results - well I hope to have about 60 Wonky Print Inspiration Packs and 40 Absolutely Hand Dyed Fabric Packs ready for the show. That’s a bit more than I’ve taken to previous shows so I’m expecting to put the ones that don’t sell onto my website after the show. Maybe not immediately after …. I’m going to need a bit of a snooze after all the excitement of the show!

I’ve also developed something new for the show. Greeting cards that feature my breakdown printed fabrics. I’ve sold postcards before that were printed from photos of my art but have never felt that they really did justice to the intricate marks you get with breakdown printing. My new greetings cards are A5 and each one is completely unique. Some use fabrics which are very easy on the eye and some use fabrics that are a bit more urban and ‘gritty’. Any one piece of my printed fabrics might be used to make multiple cards but each will be unique as breakdown printing doesn’t give you repeated, uniform patterns. Which is why I love breakdown printing. Although they are greetings cards they could also be framed. Little pieces of affordable art. But I’m not sure what to charge. £2.95 would fit in with what a lot of artists charge for their printed greeting cards but there is a lot more work involved in making these fabric cards. There are a couple of examples below … would love to hear what you think?