I have a couple of workshops coming up in the next few weeks. The first, a 3 day Luscious Layers workshop at Little Heath Barn is full. However one space has become available on my 5 day Breakdown your Palette workshop at InStitches near Wokingham. The dates are Monday 27th to Friday 31st October and you can find details here.

Breakdown is my favourite workshop and the InStitches studio is a fabulous space to work in. The course fee includes lunch, biscuits and cakes all made by Hazel. Her cakes are amazing!

I’m going to be teaching at both Little Heath Barn and InStitches again next spring and there are places available on both -

• 3 day Luscious Layers at Little Heath Barn 15th to 17th April 2026, find details here.

• 5 day Breakdown Your Palette at InStitches 1st to 5th June 2026, find details here.

In other studio news I decided to start work on my next book as a way to get past the disappointment of not being able to teach in Telluride. And a way of coping with the stress of the house move. I take a lot of comfort in making my art but writing requires periods of complete focus and that is what I need right now. The book is a complete rewrite, update and expansion of my first book ‘Breakdown Your Palette’. I’m not at all sure when it will be published as the house move, when it eventually happens, will probably interrupt photography but, for now, it gives me somewhere to hide from reality.

And on the house move front … we’ve dropped the price and secured a buyer, a builder, rather than do the remedial work ourselves. Fingers crossed that third time gets us over the line ….

You may have wondered why I haven’t been talking about my upcoming trip to the States to teach two workshops at the wonderful AhHaa School for the Arts in Telluride, Colorado. Well I’m very sad and very disappointed to say that we have had to cancel them.

While we started the multi-step visa process over six months ago, wait times have drastically increased under the current administration (find an article here with a company that the School have consulted with in the past few weeks). The School applied for premium processing in mid-August to get an answer by the end of the month, but were met with roadblocks and requests for more evidence of cultural uniqueness despite myself and Ah Haa submitting over 20 pages of supporting documentation including testimonials, articles, my CV and copies of my Bachelors and PhD certificates. (This is particularly galling as the first step in the visa process is to get a recommendation from an independent organisation that the workshops and myself as a teacher and artist meet the criteria for being culturally unique.) I don’t have any further evidence to give and, even if we got past this hurdle, the processing time for the final part of the process would take longer than the time we have left before the first class was due to start on the 25th September.

My heart goes out to the the team at the School who have invested so much time (and money) on what should have been a very straightforward process. And to the students we have let down. My art will continue to be exhibited at the School until the end of October but I’m sad that I won’t be able to see it in person. It sucks.

And in other news, because bad news always arrives with a friend, we lost our buyer (again) this week. They were put off by a request from their initial survey to get more specialist surveys. Ho hum. So we have decided to get the surveys done ourself and to get any recommended remedial work done before we put the house back on the market. We’re trying to stay positive …. those ice creams at Nardini’s will taste even sweeter when we do eventually get to Largs! And I’ll use the time to continue making art ……

A busy few days in the studio as I prepare for two upcoming events! Festival of Quilts and my upcoming workshops in Telluride, Colorado.

Yes it is Festival of Quilts time again. Where did the year go?? I’m not having a stand this year because of the house move but I will be demonstrating in The Creative Textile Studio on the mornings of Thursday 31st July and Friday 1st August and on the afternoon of Sunday 3rd August. This is the fourth year that myself and Hazel and Terry from InStitches have been organising the Studio and we are a well oiled machine! We each have our designated roles and a well tested packing list. I supply all the dyes, print paste, screens, squeegees and other stuff. So I’ve been busy mixing litres of print paste followed by thickened dyes. I’ve made six breakdown printing screens to use when demonstrating. I’ve also been getting some fabric packs ready to sell on the sales table. There won’t be many so if you fancy a Wonky Inspiration Print Pack you might want to visit the Studio early! We have a wonderful collection of artists demonstraing this year. You can find the timetable and more about each artist by clicking here.

(The Studio is a free feature within the show so the ‘book tickets’ button on the page is for buying tickets for the whole show).

Although it isn’t until the end of September I have been making colour blankets to take with me. I bought small quantities of each of the eight US sourced dyes we will be using during the two five day workshops to make them. I selected the colours online, trying to match as closely as possible to the eight colours (6 co-primaries + black + dark brown) that I use in my studio. Hmmm … so the colours on a screen don’t always match the exact colours that you get. I know this. I even have this disclaimer in my online shop. But it is always a pleasant / not so pleasant surprise …..I haven’t rinsed and washed the blankets yet but Houdini Blue is looking distinctly purple. I’m hoping that the colour shifts towards blue after washing in which case I can see why the colour is called Houdini! If not, well it has made some really lovely muted colours……

And finally, on the house move - we lost our buyer this week so it is back to square one. Knowing that this happens all the time and that it is just a delay doesn’t make it any easier. Thankfully we haven’t committed to anything in Scotland yet so we just need to take a deep breathe and get on with life. Which means that, when I get back from Festival, I’ll have time to get back to making art instead of packing. Which is a good thing.

I’m delighted to let you know that I have worked with TextileArtist.org to create a workshop for their Stitch Club members that goes live on Monday 30th June.

For those of you who don’t already know TextileArtist.org is a fabulous online resource for all things textile. Their Stitch Club delivers a wide variety of short mostly stitch based workshops with the occasional workshop on adding colour, mark and shape to cloth.

I loved the challenge of creating a short workshop based on breakdown printing (my favourite technique) that included worked samples of how the printed fabrics could be used to create hand stitched and machine stitched outcomes. I tried to keep it simple and, frankly affordable, so it is ideal for those want to try out a little bit of screen printing on their kitchen table without spending a fortune on stuff they might not use again. That said, breakdown printing is addictive!

The workshop is video based, supported by a detailed workbook. There will be an ebook of what I hope are inspirational images of my work. Importantly I will be providing online support for Stitch Club members for the first two weeks after the workshop goes live.

To get the ball rolling TextileArtist.org have posted an interview with me that you can find here.

Exciting times!

I may have already mentioned that September is going to be an exciting month for me. I have a solo exhibition at the AhHaa School for the Arts in Telluride and will be teaching two five day workshops there.

Telluride is a beautiful town located in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado at 8,750' elevation. It was formed during the Colorado gold rush in the 1870s. Notoriously difficult to access one local legend says the the town was named after the phrase ‘To Hell You Ride’. More likely it was named after the telluride minerals found there. Silver, gold, copper and mercury were mined in the mountains and there were some amazing feats of engineering over the years to aid processing and transport. All the kind of stuff that gets me excited!

Today Telluride is renowned for its skiing in the winter and arts and music festivals in the summer. Ah Haa was founded in 1991, and the state of the art facility was completed in 2021. The School has amazing teaching spaces as well as a gallery. You can find out more here.

My exhibition will be there for the month of September. It is called Beneath Our Feet and will feature some of my coal mining and cotton mill pieces including the 4 metre long Ruins 12: Beneath Our Feet that I made for my exhibition at Salford Museum and Gallery in late 2023. It’s great that this one will get another outing! I’m also creating new pieces for the exhibition including four abstract pieces inspired by Tellurides mining past.

I will be teaching two workshops. The first, Simply Screen Printing, runs from 25th to 29th September and is suitable for beginners. There are still places available and you can find more details here. The second, Luscious Layers, runs from 2nd to 6th October and is aimed at students with prior knowledge of using dyes to add colour to cloth. You can find out more here.

It is very exciting and a little scary. And it will almost certainly coincide with the sale of the house and our move to Scotland but who wants a quiet life!

Unfortunately the number of sign ups has been low since I launched the workshop just over a year ago. Even when offered at a reduced price. So I’ve decided to change how it is offered moving forward.

Originally offered with 12 months access and support via monthly Zoom meetings it is now going to be offered with lifetime access but without support via Zoom. I will continue to support students via email.

And the great news is that I’ve reduced the cost from £300 to £120! You can find out more details here.

(I will be running Zoom meetings for existing students until the end of April 2026 and will continue to add the recordings to the workshop so they will be there for new students to watch).

In other news ….. the house will go on the market in the next few days, I’ll post again when it is available to view online.

Happy New Year, I hope you had a good Christmas and are looking forward to a creative New Year. I certainly am!

Because of the move to Scotland this year I have changed my teaching practice. I’m no longer teaching in my own studio but will be teaching in other studios through the year as well as taking my studio stuff out to visit groups. I’ve listed my teaching schedule below. Some of the courses are already full but have waiting lists. (I also have a couple of online workshops that you can sign up for at any time - you can find details here.)

16th to 20th June - Breakdown Your Palette at InStitches in Wokingham. The workshop is currently full but you can find details here and ask to be put on the waiting list.

25th to 29th September - Simply Screen Printing at the Ah Haa School for the Arts in Telluride, Colorado, US. You can find full details and book here.

2nd to 6th October - Luscious Layers at the Ah Haa School for the Arts in Telluride, Colorado, US. The workshop is already full but you can join the waiting list here.

27th to 31st October - Breakdown Your Palette at InStitches in Wokingham. Booking is not open yet but you can sign up to receive an email when it opens here.

22nd to 24th October - 3 day Luscious Layers at Littlheath Barn Studio in Bromsgrove. The workshop is alreadu full but you can join the waiting list here. I’ll also be returning to Littleheath Barn Studios in April 2026 details to be confirmed.

Yes, I’m going to be teaching in the US this year. I’m very excited because I have so many friends and online students there and can’t wait to spend time with them. I will also have an exhibition at the School in September. Telluride has a fascinating history. Today it is an artsy tourist destination in the summer and a ski resort in the winter but it used to be a silver mining town. So I will be exhibiting some of my coal mining and cotton mills pieces alongside new works created for the exhibition.

On top of all this I will have my usual stand at The Scottish Quilting Show in Glasgow from 6th to 8th March. And will demonstrating in (and helping to organise) The Creative Textile Studio at Festival of Quilts in August.

Looks like I’m going to be very busy but not as busy as I would be running a teaching studio etc so I will have plenty of time to make art (and move house). At least that’s the plan!

My online Breakdown Printing workshop will soon be 4 years old and I’ve loved meeting students from all over the world. But the number of new sign ups has reduced significantly over the last year so I’ve decided to change how it is offered moving forward.

Originally offered with 12 months access and support via monthly Zoom meetings it is now going to be offered with lifetime access but without support via Zoom. I will continue to support students via email.

And the great news is that I’ve reduced the cost from £240 to £120!

You can find out more details here.

(I will be running Zoom meetings for existing students until the end of August 2025 and will continue to add the recordings to the workshop so they will be there for new students to watch).

Last week I had the wonderful Amanda J Clayton teaching her four day Quietly Composed workshop in the studio so I was able to spend some time figuring out what my online shop will look like as I move forward. My core offering will remain my books, my workshops, dyes + auxiliary chemicals, screens and squeegees but other items will be dropped.

So I’m having my first clearance sale with more to follow as I work through the studio. I have reduced the cost of textile inks from £6 to £4 and the transparent extender used with the inks from £7 to £4.50. I have also reduced the price of acrylic shapes and thermofax squeegees by 50% or more. You can find the details by clicking here.

Now back to Amanda …. she arrived with the most amazing collection of finished pieces, samples, fabrics, threads, papers and ephemera. The six students were absolutely delighted … even when the drawing exercises took some of them outside their comfort zone! Amanda comes very highly recommended! Enjoy the eye candy below …..