This week I heard that Ruins 9 Cottonopolis Revisited will be going to a new home after my solo exhibition at Salford Museum and Art Gallery ends on 5th May. Which is wonderful news although I will miss it. I make art for a couple of reasons; to get ideas and feelings out of my head and into a physical form and for the results to be seen, and hopefully appreciated, by others. Selling my art is a lovely bonus. An affirmation. That I am an Artist with a capital A. It banishes the doubts, the imposter syndrome moments. And makes me more determined than ever to reorganise my life so that I can make more art!

So, despite having a very long list of stuff that needs doing before my teaching season begins next weekend, I decided to treat myself. Initially I treated myself to a rather delicious custard slice. And then I gave myself the precious gift of time. Three days focused on making. Which doesn’t sound a lot but I hadn’t scheduled any ‘art time’ until mid-October. Too early to share images but I had a deeply satisfying time printing fabric and thinking about new constructions.

And now it is back to that schedule …. screens to varnish, fabric to soda soak, notes to be checked and distributed, requirements lists to be written, studio to be cleaned. This will be the last year that I will teach here in my studio in Manchester before we relocate and downsize (thus enabling me to spend more time making art!). Its shaping up to be a wonderfully busy one with the majority of classes either full or close to full.

The next four workshops each have one place left on them. I’m teaching my two-day Simply Screen Printing workshop (6th and 7th April) next weekend immediately followed by my, more comprehensive five-day Simply Screen Printing (8th to 12th April). There is then a break due to an extended holiday in Ireland before my five day Breakdown Your Palette workshop (13th to 17th May). And finally there is one place left on Clare Bullock’s Versatility of Felt workshop (20th to 24th May).

The year is going to fly by!

When I started work on my upcoming exhibition 11 days ago, it had been 347 days since I last did any physical work on my ‘art’. 347 days. Even though I knew about the exhibition at the end of last year. Even though my head has been full of ideas and plans. 347 days.

A solo exhibition in a venue like Salford Art Museum and Gallery is a dream and I know in my heart that I’m not going to be producing my best work because I haven’t been able to start work earlier.

The reason …..well the same reason many working artists don’t get any time to actually create art ….. money. We are blessed to live in a big house with a big studio in the garden. But we still have a mortgage and the energy bills / running costs are frightening meaning I have to earn a certain amount to balance the books. Not a problem when workshop take up is good and 80% of my ‘profit’ comes from teaching. But take up hasn’t been good since last summer and so I have had to run some workshops with just two students, to write another book, to sell more stuff through my online shop and to print and dye lots and lots of fabric to sell at shows etc. Long, long hours without the same level of ‘profit’. Don’t get me wrong, I love every part of my studio life but 347 days? And the prospect that, realistically, there will be no time for art once this exhibition is hung?

Something has to change. After a lot of discussion me and hubby have decided to pull forward our plans to downsize and move to Scotland. Small house + no mortgage = lower income needed = Leah can make some art + spend more time with hubby. We were always going to move in 3 - 4 years, we just can’t see any ‘benefit’ from waiting until then.

So 2024 will be the last year I teach in my studio in Manchester. We will start the move in January 2025 and expect it to take a year (mostly because we need a small house with a suitable studio attached). Not sure exactly what I’ll be able to offer in 2025 but I do intend teaching 4 times a year from 2026 onwards. This maybe in my own studio or in a space that I rent or I may teach in other peoples studios. Time will tell. And I will still be writing books - the next one will be a new edition of my breakdown printing book - and offering online workshops. And I’ll still be doing the Glasgow show in March and Festival of Quilts in August. I’m not retiring but I am taking the pressure off and actively shifting the focus of my life back onto making art.

However that’s for 2025, there’s a lot to keep me busy before then!

…. 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

Some weeks are just good. Mine got off to a cracking start with an email from textileartist.org to let me know that their article ‘Discover: The power of print’ had just been published online. I feel honoured (and rather chuffed) to be included in this article on five textile artists who use print in their work. I’m in great company as the article also highlights the work of Amerjeet Nandhra, Sue Hotchkis, Bobbi Baugh and Ross Belton. We all use print in very different ways to create very different styles of art but we all exploit the serendipity of the hand printing process. If you haven’t heard of textileartist.org I really recommend that you take a look at their website and sign up to their newsletter. The breadth and quality of work they feature is amazing and they are a great resource for all textile fans.

On Monday evening I gave a talk ‘Understanding Colour’ to Seaside Stitchers in Blackpool. As always it is an honour to be invited to talk to a group although I could have waffled on about colour for far longer than my allotted hour! They are a lovely group of embroiderers, quilters and textile lovers and I really enjoyed chatting with them after the talk. You can follow the link above to their Facebook page.

Life is challenging for everybody right now and I am grateful to the 172 people who brought my new book Simply Screen Printing in February and March. As a result I have just donated £172 on your behalf to The Trussell Trust. Making a living as an artist is tough and I only get to pay my bills because of your continued support - thank you!

The frustrating bit …. the cost of posting books internationally. Unfortunately, when I started shipping the new book, I discovered that there are no longer any ‘cheap’ options for posting parcels weighing over 2kg outside of the UK. I kept my postage rates the same until the end of March but have now had to increase them. There is still a significant difference between International Economy and International Standard for parcels weighing up to 2kg but once you get above 2kg the difference is much smaller and pricing can vary from day to day. I shop around every time I’m sending out a parcel that weighs over 2kg and, typically, the standard rate will get you delivery via courier within a few days and the economy rate will get you delivery via a courier in 2 - 3 weeks. If I happen to get a rate that is cheaper than you have paid I will refund the difference.

What also made this week a good one was a few days away from home with hubby staying in Morecambe. I’m going to be on a plane to Melbourne on our 40th wedding anniversary so this was an early anniversary present to ourselves. The weather was a bit rubbish but the AirBnB was amazing and had great views across the estuary (when the rain stopped). I took some ‘moody’ grey photos of the horizon line, sand and rocks - inspiration for a project?? Maybe when I get a free moment!

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!

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

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?

Detail of Artefact 4,

Making art comes with lots of highs and lots of lows. Those magical days when everything you’ve been working on comes together and you know you’re making good art. The whoop whoop moments when a piece of work is accepted in a juried exhibition. The rarer, whoop whoop whoop moments when a piece wins a prize or sells. In contrast - those weeks when you just can’t get ideas out of your head onto fabric, when everything you print or stitch is somehow wrong. And those, all to common, moments when a piece is rejected. You know you shouldn’t take it personally but you do.

Most of the time though the process of making art brings with it a quiet joy and a deep sense of contentment and well being. There are somethings that are not so much ‘fun’ but that’s OK because they are just one step in an overall process that you love. I print my fabrics with dyes and the rinsing and washing stage is the step I like least. But I end up with a pile of beautiful fabrics ready to use in the next stage of my process which makes it OK.

There is one thing though that I find just boring. And that is stitching sleeves to my quilts. Stitching the facings is OK as this finishes the piece and makes it ready to photograph and to share. But sleeves ….. nobody sees them, they add nothing to the visual impact of my finished art. It is very tempting to not add them until a piece has been accepted into an exhibition ….but then you find yourself working late into the night on a piece that has to be delivered / shipped the next day. Yes, been there, done that!

But this week I have been a good girl and have completely finished the piece that I’ve entered into Festival of Quilts (detail above). As per usual it is a big quilt. And as per usual I’ve added sleeves to both the top and the bottom of the quilt. Thank goodness for good coffee and a good supply of chocolate!

Sample made for my new Artefact series

My art goals for 2022 are simple. Make more. Submit more. The need to earn a living and to care for my family are what they are and mean that making art has to fit around them. One of the reasons I left industry and started teaching in my studio was to get a much better balance between these three parts of my life and it was, despite the disruption caused by the pandemic, the best decision I’ve ever made. I now have periods of time, mostly in the winter, when I can work on my art full time and without interruption. This is great for developing new ideas and starting on new series. But if I am going to make more art this year I need to figure out how to always have a piece or pieces part made that I can work on when I only have a few hours or a few days free.

I love making big art but the composition / construction stage really needs space (my big print bench and my design wall as a minimum, yes I’m spoilt) and time because I really don’t want to be unpinning hundreds of bits of fabric from my design wall each time I need it for a workshop. Whereas the quilting stage just needs room to get my sewing machine out. And a bit of clean space to fold / roll the quilt so that I can get it through the tiny throat on my machine. So, before my teaching schedule really kicks in in March I need to prepare several ‘backgrounds’ to use in Artefact and Cadence pieces. I can then spend the spring and summer quilting these backgrounds and adding the foreground details. Unfortunately I don’t completely ‘design’ my pieces early on in the process. My ideas evolve as I stitch. I don’t 100% decide on foreground details until I have finished the construction, and sometimes the quilting of the background. Inevitably some of the backgrounds that I prepare over the coming weeks will need to be cropped as I add those foreground details. Which feels wasteful but I’m hoping allows me to make more art this year.

My other goal is to submit more. I used to be good at keeping a list of upcoming calls for entry to curated shows and submitting proposals for gallery space but got out of the habit in 2020 when I lost touch with my art practise. I started submitting pieces again last year and have had some success with Cadence pieces but I need to build on this. I need a steady flow of new work to make this possible. And I need to become OK with rejection again. Because rejection is part of making art and cannot be a reason to hit the gin bottle and avoid the studio!

So my art goals are simple. Make more. Submit more.