Not that I’m panicking but there are only 25 days until Festival of Quilts opens at the NEC, Birmingham on Thursday 3rd August. You can find me on stand B50 near the theatre. Given that we set up on the Tuesday that means that I have 23 days to finish my preparations. OK so I am now panicking!

Being me, I have lists that ensure I pack everything needed to ‘build’ the stand and the display on the walls (note to self: must design and order leaflets!!!). I have lists that tell me how many pots of dye, bags of Urea etc that I need to prepare and how many screens and squeegees to order (more than slightly anxious that the screens might not arrive in time!). I have a checklist from the organisers for all the things that they require. I have arranged my workshops for next year (four great guest tutors that I’ll tell you about soon) but need to get the webpages set up. And I have a provisional target for the number of Wonky Print Inspiration Packs and Absolutely Darling Hand Dyed Packs I will need (a target is great but the reality is that it will be as many as I can get made between now and then).

And then there is The Creative Textile Studio which is to the left of the theatre at this years show. As part of the collective that organises and runs this wonderful space I have a long list of things to prepare and bring. Including dyeing 6 large pieces of fabric to wrap around the fronts of the demonstrator benches. Aiming for six different colours (including turquoise, officially the best colour in the world ever!).

Who needs sleep!

I hope to see lots of you during the show, if you haven’t already bought your ticket you can use the code LEAHHIGGINS23 to get £2 discount of the price of standard and concessionary tickets.

And on to my next ‘big project’. I’ve started filming an online workshop based on my latest book Simply Screen Printing. It’s been over 2 years since I filmed my Breakdown Your Palette online workshop and so a steep learning curve figuring out camera positions and video editing. Challenging but fun! I have to fit filming around teaching so I’m not expecting to launch the online workshop until September.

So in the meantime how about some wonderful breakdown printed fabrics. I had the great pleasure of being joined in the studio by a group of six lovely women from Scotland this week. A big thank you to Heather, Helen, Irene C, Irene M, Mags and Kelly for filling my days with beautiful fabric and laughter! I love my job!

The Museum of Old and New Art just outside Hobart in Tasmania was amazing, crazily bonkers and stupidly overwhelming. A fitting way to end my trip to Australia.

Mona run catamarans from the harbour in Hobart to the museum and that short trip alone was full of wonder … we sailed past a zinc works, a massive sprawl of rusty buildings, gangways, conveyor belts and chimneys that I could have spent all day looking at! But that’s just me!

The museum is built into a hill. Yes into. There are 99 steps from the dock up to the grounds and the entrance. I’m a bit of a building geek and I spent more time looking at the structures and the art in the grounds than I did in the galleries.

On entering the museum itself the guide suggests going down to the third level then working your way upwards. The first 10 rooms featured an exhibition Oceans of Air by Tomas Saraceno, each room having a different level of darkness. Some rooms were so dark his artworks seemed to provide the only source of light. It was really disconcerting at times and the lack of sense of direction was weird. His artworks were very varied, utilising a wide range of materials, some were fragile, some were in your face. An amazing experience but one that induced sensory overload.

I wondered through tunnels and vast spaces, looking at, but not taking in more and more, pieces of art. Too much for one visit. Which means that I’m just going to have to go back one day!

Thank you again Glenys, Chris and Roz for inviting me to teach, I would have never got to visit Australia otherwise, to meet so many lovely people and to experience so many new things. I owe you big time!!

And off we went again, this time with 12 new students for a three day workshop in the lovely Moonah Art Centre in Hobart. Temporary print surfaces fastened to our tables, we started with a little colour work - what else! - before moving on to a range of simple screen printing techniques. You will not be surprised to hear that there was plenty of breakdown printing along with some open screen work, some printing with loose paper resists and some masking tape resist screens. Most of the students in the group were new to screen printing but they all ‘got it’ really quickly and produced an amazing amount of work in just three days.

We had a lovely enclosed courtyard where we were able to eat lunch, dry fabric and dry breakdown screens. And they were very patient when I lost my voice (too much talking) and could only croak out instructions. As with every workshop I was tired at the end of each day but the happy, satisfied type of tired that comes from working in a group of creative, enthusiastic artists playing with colour, mark and shape. Yet again I find that I love my job!

And then there is the eye candy! In no particular order ……

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 really enjoyed my short stay in Melbourne. I took a ride around the city on the old city circle tram, wondered around the Docklands area loving the architecture (and the fish and chips and beer), and stopped by Federation Square where I enjoyed the new Goddess exhibition at ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) and had a wonder around the Ian Potter Centre (part of the National Gallery of Victoria). And had a lovely meal with my brother-in-law Damian and wife Sandra in the lanes.

The city was busy and bustling with so much more to see and do but what impressed me most was the architecture. Lots of quite unique buildings and skyscrapers packed into a relatively small space …. total eye candy, massive source of inspiration …. oh how I wish there were more hours in each day!

…. after my 18 day adventure in Australia! I arrived home last Wednesday evening after a 38 hour door to door journey. Needless to say I was very tired and the jet lag has been ghastly but I also felt overwhelmed. Overwhelmed that I had been invited to teach a couple of workshops on the other side of the world and overwhelmed by the visual overload from all the places I visited. It’s going to take me a while to come back down to earth!

I shared lots of photos via Instagram and Facebook whilst I was travelling and will write a series of posts over the next couple of weeks sharing lots of them with you. But this first post is a thank you post.

Thank you to the receptionist at my hotel in Melbourne who took one look at me when I arrived late in the evening, gave me my room card and let me check in properly the next day - small kindnesses mean a lot when you can barely stand up straight let alone fill in a form!

Thank you to Glenys Mann and her team for inviting me to teach a five day workshop in the Fibre Arts event in Ballarat. Thank you to my amazingly talented Ballarat students; Julia, Fiona, Gina, Myra, Ange, Leslie, Lisa, Rae, Mardi, Lynne, Lyn and Jeanette. The gin was fabulous darlings! An especially big thank you to Fiona who supplied all the equipment I needed to teach the class, helped me set up before the workshop and helped me clear up afterwards - couldn’t have done it without her!

Thank you to the other tutors and students in Ballarat - I meet so many lovely people from Australia, New Zealand and beyond. Our textile community is a special one.

Thank you to Roz for meeting me at Hobart airport and to Ann and Michael for letting me use their beautiful apartment. It was a great base for my stay in Tasmania although the hill it was on was a killer!

Thank you to Chris and Roz of Stitching and Beyond for inviting me to teach a three day workshop in Hobart and for doing such a good job supplying everything we needed for the workshop. All those sauce bottles! Thank you to another set of talented, enthusiastic students; Chris, Leanne, Karen, Lesley, Margaret, Sue, Robyn, Roz, Jen, Lisa and Sally. You all did an amazing amount of work for a three day class. An especially big thank you to Robyn and Sally for buying the colour references and my printed fabrics and for Jen for passing the money onto local charity Loaves & Fishes.

Thank you to Stephanie at Can Do Books for agreeing to stock my Simply Screen Printing book in Australia which will save buyers lots of money on shipping. You can email her via the website if you want to be put on the waiting list.

And finally, thank you to my family for ‘coping’ while I was away …… it was very nice to come home to clean house.

Leah x

It is only a few days now until I head to Australia to teach a couple of workshops. I’m excited but the control freak in me is vaguely terrified because I can’t pack up my studio and take it with me. Nor did it make any sense to ship dyes over from the UK when the availability of different dye colours varies regionally.

Although there are lots of different Procion dye colours available I teach colour theory and colour mixing using two yellows, two reds, two blues, a black and a dark brown. So one of the lists I had to send the organizer was a list of the dye colours they should buy from a supplier in Australia. Selecting colours online is not ideal - I’ve lost count of the number of different coloured ‘turquoise’ threads I brought during lockdown in search of the ‘perfect’ turquoise for my Cadence quilts. But I did my best - I picked a lemony yellow, an orangy yellow, a blue-biased red (magenta), a yellow-biased red (scarlet), a turquoise, a blue with a slight red bias, a neutral black and a dark looking brown. And, being the control freak I am, I also ordered some of each dye to be shipped to the UK so that I could recreate my colour references for an Australian audience.

Oh boy. The first colour reference I made was a colour exchange between lemon yellow and magenta (above left). The lemon yellow was a perfect match for the acid lemon I use in my studio. So far so good! The magenta wasn’t, it had a much stronger blue bias than I’m used to……. and the colours I mixed using the Australian lemon yellow and magenta looked distinctly brown compared with my ‘UK’ colour exchange (above, right). Some bad language was used. I persevered, making more colour exchanges with the two Australian blues. Some more bad language was used and I had to deploy the gin.

The next day, after a somewhat slow and fuzzy start, I realised that I would need to find a solution. Keeping my fingers crossed that none of my Australian students would want to use a strong red wasn’t a great solution. I needed to find a strong red that would give me orangey reds when mixed with yellows and lovely violets and fuchsias when mixed with blues. So I made a colour exchange between the two Australian reds hoping that the ‘blueness’ of the magenta would balance out the yellow bias of the scarlet without creating a muted reddish brown. And it worked! The gin bottle could go back in the cupboard!

And I was able to mix some really lovely orangey reds by combing it with the orangey yellow. Phew!!

I’ll be posting lots of images on Instagram as I travel and during the workshops - if there are any more surprises I’m hoping that they are of the good variety and, if not, that I can figure out a solution whilst looking calm, collected and totally professional. And without resorting to the gin!

You can find me on instagram here - https://www.instagram.com/leahhigginsartist/