Now that my studio isn’t a teaching space I’ve been busy sorting ‘stuff’ and have started going through all of the fabrics that I printed when writing my books and filming my online workshops. I’ve kept a good selection as I’ll need them when I’m teaching in other studios next year and beyond but there are so many more!

And so I have added 49 ‘one of a kind’ fabrics to my webshop. Each piece is completely unique with lots of different colours and printed using lots of different screen printing techniques . The pieces are approximately 75cm x 75cm each and have been printed on a lovely Cotton Poplin using Procion MX dyes (which means that they are washfast to 60C). Each piece costs £10 and you can find them here.

At long last I have also added the range of greeting cards that I had printed for my exhibition in Salford at the start of the year. There are 10 different designs with images from my Ruins, Traces and Artefact series. Priced at £2.75, each card is supplied with a plain white envelope. (They were printed by The Dandy Arthouse who I can really recommend if you need cards printing). You can find my greeting cards here.

I’ve been selling cards that feature pieces of breakdown printed fabrics at shows over the last few years but have decided to discontinue this range. Originally £3.95 each I’m now selling these in sets of 4 cards for £8 to clear them. The cards are A5 sized and actually look really good when mounted in a frame … think little piece of affordable art. You can them here.

And there will be more to follow over the coming weeks / months as I work my way through the studio but for now I need to turn my attention to the house …. I have set a target of clearing the cellar before Christmas (two rooms plus two wide corridors with 26 years worth of ‘stuff’ in). Wish me luck!

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 …..

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!

Detail from fabric printed using a reusable drawn and distressed washable PVA glue resist screen.

I’m dancing a happy dance here in the studio as my new online workshop ‘Simply Screen Printing’ is now ready. Based on the book and the in-person 5 day workshop of the same name, the online workshop contains approx. 25 hours of video plus detailed notes and support from me via monthly Zoom meetings, a private Facebook group and email. The notes are an edited version of my book so contain different examples to those featured on the videos. The cost is £300 for 12 months access. If you go to the preview page you can watch a ‘Welcome’ video in which I share an outline of the workshop. You can also watch a sample lesson to get a sense of what the videos look like and how I teach.

I am offering an EARLY BIRD SPECIAL with up to 2 months extra access. If you sign up in March or April your membership will run until the end of April 2025. Why …. well because I’m a nice person and well, I still have some videos to edit and upload. 80% of the content is available today and the rest will be in place by the end of March. I’ll notify you as the final units are ready.

I have also added two new items to my shop for those of you who will be setting up for screen printing for the first time. The Basic Kit contains a 12 x 14inch screen, a 9inch Speedball squeegee, 300g Soda Ash, 400g Urea, 150g Manutex RS and four 50g Procion MX dyes (in acid lemon, magenta, turquoise and dark brown) at a 10% discount on the usual price. I also throw in a free tile grouter! The Deluxe Kit contains two screens, one Speedball squeegee, 2 x soda, 2 x urea, 2 x Manutex RS and ten 50g dyes (acid lemon, golden yellow, magenta, scarlet, turquoise, royal blue, black, dark brown, petrol green and rust brown). Again at a 10% discount with 2 free tile grouters.

I am blessed to be able to earn my living working in my studio doing the things I love doing. It is a good life. But not everyone has things so easy. And so I will be donating £10 for each workshop sold in March and April to The Trussell Trust, an organisation that supports food banks across the UK and campaigns for an end to food poverty.

Phew! I might go have a little lie down now! x

In what will be a bit of a theme for 2024 I have started going through the studio and our home in preparation for our planned move (and downsize) in 2025. I could have started in the cellar which is full of all sorts of stuff (otherwise known as rubbish) that have magically appeared over the last 25 years. Instead I opted for a very pleasant couple of weeks sorting through my boxes of hand printed and dyed fabrics.

Even though I’ve sold lots of Wonky Printed Inspiration Packs and Absolutely Hand Dyed Packs over the last few years I’ve still managed to accumulate lots of fabric often when researching and sampling my books. Certainly more fabric than I will ever use. And then there are the fabrics that have been dyed and printed for series of artworks that I know that I’m not going to go back to. And so I’ve put together lots of fabric packs that I hope to find new homes for! Have a look at my website here.

Now a more commercially savvy person would have got the packs ready for sale in the run up to Christmas as they do make lovely gifts but I was rather tired after the mad panic that was getting ready for my exhibition. Instead I am going with ‘stave off those winter blues / fabric is for life and not just Christmas / because you are worth it ……’

Printed using a screen made with a washable PVA glue resist.

Taking a quick break from quilting ….. I have one place left on my five day Simply Screen Printing - The Full Monty workshop on Monday 2nd to Friday 6th October. I’m offering it at a 20% discount so £360 instead of £450. You can find out more about the workshop here. The workshop is suitable for beginners and for those you want to add more screen printing techniques to their tool kit. Please email me if you have questions.

Looking forward to 2024, I only have one place left on my new workshop Luscious Layers running from Monday 3rd to 7th June 2024. This workshop isn’t suitable for beginners as it assumes a basic knowledge of screen printing and other ‘wet process’ techniques. I’m really looking forward to teaching this workshop as it is all about adding multiple layers of colour, mark, texture, line and shape to fabric to create beautiful, complex art cloth. You can find out more here.

And if you’ve been thinking about doing my Breakdown Your Palette workshop the only places left are on the workshop running from Monday 1st to Friday 5th July 2024. You can find out more here.

And now for the bad news …. unfortunately I’ve had to put up the price of my screens by an average of 19% (actual increase depends on the size of screen). I could probably source cheaper screens from outside the UK but I prefer to continue to buy from the small family company that I’ve been using for years. That said, a well looked after screen will last for years and years.

Now, back to quilting ….

Festival of Quilts starts on Thursday and I am (nearly) ready! I’ve got a bigger stand this year, B50 in Hall 9 (if you stand with your back to the theatre entrance you should be able to see it). We had a great show last year but it was exhausting with just me and best buddy, Ruth, so this year we are going to be joined by my son Joe. Some of you will know him as he’s done shows with me in the past. I’m hoping this gives me a little more time to chat to old friends, meet new friends and possibly look at some of the wonderful galleries. If you don’t have a ticket yet please use the code LEAHHIGGINS23 to get a £2 discount. If you’re at the show please come and say hello!

As well as promoting next years workshops I’m hoping to get some sign-ups to my last 2023 workshop - Simply Screen Printing (the Full Monty) which runs from 2nd to 6th October. I will be offering the workshop at a 20% discount during the show and, because not everyone can make the show, I’m offering it at a 20% discount online from the 1st to 31st August - just use the discount code SSP5DAYDISCOUNT. The workshop normally costs £450 so you’ll save £90.

I will be taking lots of my hand printed and dyed fabric packs (112 Wonky Print + 35 Absolutely Hand Dyed). I’ll have lots of copies of my latest book, Simply Screen Printing along with my book on translating colour theory into colour practice, Colour Your Palette. I will also be taking all the remaining copies of my Breakdown Your Palette book to the show. I only have about 30 left. I’m not going to reprint the book as I’m planning to write a new version either next year or the year after, so once they’re gone they’re gone! (The digital version of the book will still be available). And I’ll be taking Procion dyes, soda etc, screen and squeegees. In fact, I will be taking as much stuff as I can physically get into mine and Joes cars!

And finally, both myself and Ruth will be demonstrating in The Creative Textile Studio which can be found to the left of the theatre. Ruth will be demonstrating different book binding techniques all day Friday, Saturday morning and Sunday morning. I’ll be demonstrating simple screen printing techniques on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. I’ll be demonstrating on my stand as well. Phew, I need a lie down and we’ve not even set off yet!

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!

Printed using a loose paper resists in different values of a lovely teal colour.

I’ve been elbow deep working on my next book over the last few weeks but have put my head above the parapet occasionally. And noticed that Christmas is nearly here.

So, a couple of things - if you are planning to order anything from my online shop please do so ASAP. In theory the last postage date within the UK is the 21st but postal strikes are taking their toll and I’m seeing that it is taking far longer than it should for things to arrive. I use Royal Mail for anything that weighs under 2kg and DPD for heavier boxes. Royal Mail seems to be badly affected in some areas and DPD have temporarily withdrawn their next day service and their collection service in my area.

And, if you’ve looked at my online shop recently you will have noticed that I have reduced the price of my Colour Your Palette from £25 to £20. With a new book imminent I need to clear some space!

The book ….. the words are (mostly) out of my head and on paper, or more accurately on One Drive. The bottle neck is sampling and photography which I can only do in my studio. My electricity smart meter is happily doing somersaults as I heat the studio during the current cold snap. Wearing thermals, sweaters, fleece-lined trousers, a woolly hat and fingerless gloves I find that I can work at 12 - 14C provided I don’t sit still for too long. My heart goes out to all those who can’t afford to heat their homes. It’s going to be a long winter for so many.

Hoping that you are lovely and toasty as you read this, Leah x

Printed using loose plastic resists in acid lemon and scarlet. Makes me feel warmer just looking at this one!