For the first time since my very first show in 2018 I am actually ready for The Scottish Quilting Show with a few days to spare! Normally I’m busy folding fabric late into the evening before we head off. I could take a few days off. Hmm … that doesn’t sound much like me so instead I’ll be busy sorting more stuff out in the house and doing a bit of printing. I’m loving the better balance I have in my life without the constant string of deadlines associated with running a teaching studio. There is a lot of work still to do before we can put the house (and studio) on the market but there is also plenty of time to work in the studio, to meet up with friends, to roll over in bed for an extra 30 minutes, to settle down with a good book. I’m blessed!

And I am looking forward to seeing some of you at the show. It takes place at the SECC in Glasgow from Thursday 6th to Saturday 8th March. I’m on Stand M19 and will have lots of fabric to sell as well as some quilts that I’d love to find new homes for. I’ll also have my books, dyes, screens etc. I’ll be joined by best friend Ruth Brown who some of you also know.

Even if you can’t make the show you can still take advantage of this years show special - 50% off the cost of my Simply Screen Printing online workshop reducing it from £300 to £150. Please use the code SSP50. The code is valid for the whole month of March!

And I hope you will join me! This is the only show that I’ll be doing this year and it is my favourite. It takes place in Hall 4 of the SECC in Glasgow between Thursday 6th and Saturday 8th March. Opening hours are 10am to 4.30pm. The discount code above will get you (and your friends) cheaper tickets. You can find me on stand M19 which is on the far left hand wall as you enter the show. I’m between the lovely Jo Avery and Uist Strands. And you can find out more about the show here.

I’ve been exhibiting at this show since 2018 and the Scottish Quilting part of it has grown and grown attracting quilting tutors and artists from across the UK. It shares the hall with the Creative Craft Show but what started as a little bit at one end now covers over half the hall. It isn’t on the scale of Festival of Quilts but lots of textile groups have small exhibition spaces and the quality and quantity of competition quilts has improved year on year. I’ve even entered a piece into the new Professional Makers category!

I will be demonstrating screen printing on my stand and will be selling my books, dyes, screens etc and my Wonky Print Inspiration Packs as per normal. But this year I will also have lots of ‘sale’ fabrics. As part of clearing the studio for the big move to Scotland later this year I’ve created 45 Hand Dyed Scrap Bags from the fabric pile below. All hand dyed by me the cotton with pieces range from a few inches square to 10 - 12 inch pieces. At £10 for approx. 200g (1.25 square metre) of hand dyed fabric I think they are a bargain! I’ll also have a box of Randoms - pieces of printed, stamped, resist dyed, discharged (and more) fabrics that I’ve made over the years demonstrating different ways of adding colour to fabric. Most are fat quarter size and I’m selling them for £2 a piece so come and have a rummage!

I’ll be putting any packs / pieces that don’t sell on my online shop after the show for those who can’t make it. But for those of you that can visit the show please stop by and have a natter!

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!

Until Festival of Quilts opens! Preparations are going pretty well although I do have a small mountain of fabric to rinse, wash, iron, cut and fold into Wonky Print Inspiration packs and Absolutely Darling Hand Dyed packs before we travel to Birmingham on Wednesday. I’m on stand E26 and you can find me in Hall 8 close to the Christine Chester gallery and the Quilt in Action area. I’m also close to The Creative Textile Studio.

To celebrate the event I am offering a 20% discount on my online workshops throughout the month of August. Use the code BYP20 to reduce the price of my Breakdown Your Palette workshop from £240 to £192 and the code SSP20 to reduce the cost of my Simply Screen Printing workshop from £300 to £240. Both workshops are ‘on demand’ so that you can work at your own pace. They each feature of 24 hours of videos, detailed notes and support from me via Zoom and email. (Codes are valid from 1st to 31st August.)

I’ll be screen printing and breakdown printing on my stand and I love to see you there!

It’s only 11 more sleeps before son Joe and I load up my van and his car and head off to this years Festival of Quilts. Held at the NEC, Birmingham, it is the biggest quilt show in Europe with galleries, workshops, competition quilts, The Creative Textile Studio and hundreds of traders. I’ll be on stand E26 in Hall 8 and am looking forward to a hectic, sometimes chaotic, hopefully profitable few days. I’m also looking forward to meeting up with many old friends, please do stop by and say hello!

This year I will have new greeting cards on the stand. I had them made for my solo exhibition earlier this year and had a great response from visitors to the gallery. There are 10 designs and I’m really happy with the quality. (I used a company called The Dandy Arthouse, great service). I will be adding them to my webshop after the show.

I’m also going to be taking some older, small pieces of art from my Structures series. I’ll be selling them at a fraction of their original price as I really can’t take all of my back catalogue when we move next year. Each piece is 8 inches (20cm) square and stretched over canvas. I’ll be putting any that are left over on my webshop after the show.

Best get back to printing fabric, those Wonky Print Inspiration Packs don’t make themselves!

Festival of Quilts at Birmingham NEC is just over eight weeks away and I can’t believe that it has come round so quickly!

You’ll find me on stand E22 this year which is in the main hall. It is a corner stand facing the Quilt in Action area. I’ll be demonstrating lots of different screen printing techniques on my stand and have already started to print and dye fabric for my Wonky Print Inspiration Packs and Absolutely Hand Dyed Packs. Last year I managed to make 112 Wonky packs and 34 Absolutely packs. Not sure that I’ll manage to print and dye as many this year but who knows! My son Joe will be on the stand with me and will be doing his best to make sure I take breaks and don’t fall over from exhaustion …… (Good luck with that son!)

Along with Hazel and Terry from InStitches, I’m also oraganising The Creative Textiles Studio at the show. The Studio will be near the VIP area and workshop bookings desk in Hall 9. You can see the timetable and read a little about our wonderful artists here. I hope you get the chance to visit as there will be demonstrations on a wide range of textile and mixed media techniques as well as a few goodies for sale.

If you haven’t booked your tickets yet I have 3 tickets to giveaway to the first 3 people to email me at admin@leahhiggins.co.uk. (T&Cs: These are for Standard Single Day Adult tickets and are valid on any day. Not valid on VIP, Two-Day or group tickets. Codes expire 11:59pm 28th July 2024).

I also have a discount code LEAHHIGGINS that can be used to save £2 on adult and concession tickets. (T&Cs: Save £2.00 on adult and concession tickets. Not valid on Thursday 1st August, VIP, Two-Day or group tickets. To purchase tickets visit www.thefestivalofquilts.co.uk. £3.50 transaction fee applies per e-ticket order. T&Cs apply. Discount expires 11:59pm 28th July 2024). This discount code is unlimited so please feel free to share with your friends.

Do stop by the stand and say hello!

My new online workshop is now fully uploaded and includes 29 hours of videos along with detailed notes. I printed a lot of fabric whilst creating the workshop and have put most of them into a gallery which you can find here. Some pieces were printed multiple times to create layers of line, shape and colour. There are some rather lovely pieces but I might be a bit biased!

As well as videos and notes I run monthly Zoom meetings and provide further support via a private Facebook group and email. You can find out more about the workshop (and sign up anytime) here.

I started my 2024 ‘teaching season’ at the beginning of April by teaching my 2 day Simply Screen Printing workshop followed by my 5 day extended Simply Screen Printing workshop. It was really nice having students back in the studio and seeing how differently they all worked. Different inspirations, different colours, some seeking strong pattern and shape, others exploring techniques that create more texture and fine mark. And yes, we did some breakdown printing! I’m on an extended family holiday for the next few weeks then it is all steam ahead …. teaching, printing fabrics for Festival of Quilts, more teaching, admin, more teaching until the season ends in mid-October. And I have a little lie down!

In case you haven’t seen it yet my solo exhibition Beneath Our Feet runs until Sunday 5th May at Salford Museum and Art Gallery. I gave my final talk there last Saturday. It was a remembering session based on my coal mining panels and it was wonderful to hear from an ex-miner and mine engineer as well as from people who had personal links to mining. The response to the exhibition has been overwhelming, humbling and, at the same time, empowering. An honour.

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!

…… which is, obviously, my preferred pace of life! A big thank you to everyone that came to see me at The Scottish Quilt Show a couple of weeks ago. Especially all those ladies who have signed up for my Colour Play class at Region 13 (Quilters Guild) Summer School in June and just stopped by to say hello. I’m going to be teaching a class of 20 how to screen print with limited access to water, it’s going to be fun if a bit chaotic!

Thank you also to Bolton Textile and Stitch Group for inviting me to talk to them this week. It’s always nice to visit a large and thriving textile group and I enjoyed all the questions and chats after the presentation.

Looking ahead, I will be giving another talk at Salford Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday 13th April at 1pm. This one will focus on the coal mining pieces in my solo exhibition and I’ll be inviting people to share their memories of the mines in Salford and the surrounding area. You can find more details here. The event is free and no booking is required. The Museum is well worth a visit and you can usually park right outside at the weekend.

And looking further ahead I have just received confirmation that I will be teaching two 5-day workshops in Colorado, US in September 2025. I will also have a solo exhibition at the same venue. Super excited about this. More details to follow later in the year.

And the cherry on the icing on the cake - Storm 1 (Jagged), above, will be going to its new home in a few days.

Happy days, x