I am very pleased to announce that Christine Chester will be teaching her five day Poetry of Stitch workshop here at Urban Studio North next September. Christine is a talented artist, popular teacher and runs her own studio in Eastbourne.

Stitching, whether by hand or machine, is usually the final layer on a piece of work and often the process we enjoy the most. But we can get into a routine of using the stitches with which we are most familiar. In this workshop Christine will encourage you to look at ways of stitching that will extend your language of marks. She will look at both hand and machine stitching thinking about the character and the weight of the stitching that we are using and how to apply that to printed work so that the stitch either enhances the printed layer; or creates focus within the print. There will be an emphasis on trying lots of small sample pieces before starting to work on a larger, more considered piece of work.

The five day workshop costs £450 and requires students to bring their own sewing machine. If you want to learn more about Poetry of Stitch please click here.

This is the final announcement about workshops in 2021 - the studio calendar is pretty full and I have all my fingers and toes crossed that we can run without restrictions, hopefully from March onwards. Normally I would now be thinking about workshops in 2022 but, given all the uncertainty in our lives, I’m not planning on making any announcements until Easter.

Before I go …..tis the season of shameless marketing ….. did you know that you can buy Urban Studio North gift cards in my online shop? Available in £20, £50 and £100 values, these digital gift cards can be used on all of the products in my shop including workshops, books, dyes etc and never expire! So if your loved ones don’t know what to get you for Christmas why not suggest a gift card?

Thank you for reading, Leah x

Those of you who follow me on Facebook might know that I have been ill for a few days and had a Covid-19 test on Monday. Which thankfully has come back negative. I wasn’t too surprised when I started to feel extremely tired as I had been pushing myself too hard to finish the book. But then I started dry coughing and was a bit short of breath. Me, husband and son had a long discussion along the lines of ‘you can’t have it’, ‘but I went to the supermarket last Thursday’, ‘but your were masked up and your hands were gelled’, ‘but I had to queue at the checkout for longer than normal’ ‘but you were masked ……. ‘ .The more we talked the more I coughed. So ‘nurse’ Joe took charge and a Covid test was booked. Husband moved stuff into the spare room and I was escorted to our bedroom along with a supply of books, jigsaw, devices, chargers etc. I’m not very good at being ill and I am definitely not very good at being isolated. But it was the right thing to do and I’m grateful for Joe looking after me and for making sure that I couldn’t infect my husband. And I’m grateful for all the kind words from friends and social media buddies!

I have been lucky. My test was negative so I can get back into the studio. Albeit in small doses as I’m still tired.

Which means I can get back to what I was doing before all this. Which was looking at postage rates. I had a little surprise a couple of weeks ago when I shipped a copy of my Breakdown book to Australia and the postage was £3 more than I was used to. I thought it must be a mistake. But no. Royal mail has increased to cost of shipping to locations outside of the UK and Europe by 20 - 30% depending on the location and service. They have also introduced a US only rate which is about the same as the rate to Australia - yes, it now costs more to ship to the US than to Canada. Their UK and EU rates have also increased albeit not as much. A quick check confirmed that international couriers such as UPS, FedEx etc also seem to have put their prices up. I guess because fewer planes are flying there is less capacity.

I also realised that my new book is bigger, and heavier, than my first book so can’t be shipped as a ‘large letter’. I have spent some time looking at different options and used past orders to test different scenerio’s. So I will be taking my website offline for a few hours tomorrow to switch from a postage system based on the cost of the order to one based on the weight of the order. Unfortunately my website doesn’t have the ability to set postage by product type which would have allowed me to separate heavy books from light pots of dye powder.

In the UK there will be three rates - £3.70 up to and including 1kg (which covers the new book), £5.57 up to and including 2kg and £7.79 for anything over 2kg (which is actually cheaper than I was charging as I’ve switched to a different provider). Outside the UK the weight increments are much finer so I won’t list them all! I have been using International Standard but am now going to include the option of International Economy which is very significantly cheaper if you are outside the EU. The downside being that it takes longer for post to arrive.

I am also making the commitment to you that for any order that weighs over 2kg I will check the cost of shipping via other carriers and, if I get it cheaper I will refund you the difference.

I wish that I could absorb these increases as I know that for some outside of Europe the postage may make my new book unaffordable. But, like many, many self-employed people my income has been significantly reduced thanks to that pesky virus. International Economy does provide a much cheaper option as does getting together with a group of friends to place a bigger option.

Apologies for a rather long post but I prefer to be transparent in my pricing.

Stay well, Leah x

I am very pleased to say that I have now started shipping internationally again. Postal services seems to be working better although there may still be delays shipping to some countries as they struggle to cope with Covid 19.

To celebrate I have decided to add my new Absolutely Darling Hand Dyed Fabric Packs to my webshop. Each pack contains 6 fat quarters of lovely hand dyed cotton poplin fabrics. Each piece is approximately 50cm x 50cm and the packs contain a mix of textured multi-coloured pieces and ‘nearly solid’ coloured pieces. Each pack is totally unique. These are fabrics that I had been dyeing for sale at this summers Festival of Quilts. With FoQ cancelled and no idea of when I will next be exhibiting at a show I thought I would make them available online.

I have also been busy printing fabric this week and have added some lovely new Wonky Print Inspiration Packs to my shop. And, as I promised I would, I have taken some of the yummiest bits of fabric and made bookmarks that I am selling to raise funds for the The Trussell Trust. The work that The Trussell Trust do to support food banks in the UK and to fight food poverty is more important than ever as we face a prolonged period of high unemployment due to the corona virus. I have made 12 bookmarks each in three lovely colourways and am selling them for £5 each. There is no postage on these and every penny will be donated to the charity.

And finally, when I set up my webshop I was only selling my book and set the postage rates accordingly. Since March I have been selling a much wider range of products. Some are heavy, some are light, some can be posted large letter and others need to be posted as parcels. I’ve spent some time looking at what the actual postage has been and tried to figure out a better, fairer system. So, for UK customers, I am pleased to say that I have been able to reduce the postage and packaging rates on larger orders with a cap on postage at £10. Postage and packing rates are unchanged for international shipping but I will review these in a couple of months time.

Stay well, Leah

Intersecting Lines 2

The very good news is that my roll of thermofax mesh has arrived safely from Australia so I can now make screens. Hooray!

But nothing is straight forward at the moment.

The bad news is that I only have 15 large frames and 30 small frames and am struggling to source more. Manufacturers are busy using their perspex supply to make protective screens for supermarket tills etc. I’m currently being quoted at least another 5 - 6 weeks for frames. I did think about waiting until the supply chain was back to normal but I know that some of you are waiting to order. So I have made all the thermofax screens available in my webshop. Hooray!

My webshop isn’t clever enough to total up orders and stop at 15 large or 30 small so I will fill orders as they come in and will make the screens unavailable once I have used all the frames. My apologies up front if I don’t do this soon enough and you are able to place an order that I can’t fill. I’ll issue you a refund.

Of course it could be that I am not clever enough to figure out my own webshop. Surely not!

The other bit of good news - I have now added gift cards to my webshop. Available in £20, £50 and £100 amounts each gift card is a unique code sent to you by email. The code is used by entering it at checkout and is valid for ever.

Stay well, Leah

Scattered Lines 1

Last week my daughter Jess and her pals at Good Press in Glasgow designed and printed bookmarks to sell to support local charities. I thought it was a brilliant idea. So brilliant that I have stolen it! So let me introduce my Limited Edition Fabric Bookmarks which I am selling, via my webshop, to raise funds for The Trussell Trust. The UK has a frankly shocking level of food poverty and this charity supports food banks across the country as well as campaigning for an end to hunger. The Corona virus crisis has made the situation worse so their work is even more important. Hunger is unacceptable anywhere in the world but I have chosen to support a UK charity as I am currently only shipping to UK addresses.

I have made each bookmark by sandwiching a piece of interfacing between two pieces of my hand printed fabrics and have finished with stitch. I selected the yummiest bits from my latest batch of breakdown printed fabrics to create sets of ten bookmarks in each of three colourways. I thought long and hard about pricing and have decided to sell each bookmark for £5. I know that there will be some reading this who are suffering financially right now but I also know that many of you are doing OK and for whom £5 is not too much. I’m not charging for postage on these bookmarks and every penny will go to The Trussell Trust. And I am committing to making more sets of 10 bookmarks each time I print and dye fabrics to sell in my webshop for the duration of this crisis.

As well as the bookmarks I have added my latest batch of Wonky Print Inspiration Packs to my webshop. Eleven different colour combinations this time. I hope you like them.

As always, stay well,

Leah

Just a quick post to let you know that I have loaded some more Wonky Print Inspiration Packs onto my online shop. Seven new colour combinations this time. I have already made a bunch of breakdown screens in lots of different colours and will be printing these soon. However I have decided to pause for a moment, and to ‘go quiet’ on social media for a few days whilst I try and get my artistic mojo back. I have been really struggling and honestly don’t want to work on my most recent series but I have some thoughts about how I might respond to this strange and frightening world we find ourselves in. These thoughts may just produce a lot of rubbish fabric and go nowhere but I won’t know until I try.

So I will be back in a bit … either with news of exciting new work … or with some more inspiration packs! Until then, stay well and stay creative, Leah

I create a lot of hand printed and hand dyed fabrics during my workshops and when I am demonstrating at shows. The colours and designs are somewhat random as I like to use lots of different colours in order to, hopefully, inspire my students or audience. But the majority of these fabrics are never going to make it into one of my quilts so last autumn I started to ‘curate’ the fabrics into inspiration packs to sell at shows. I pick between 3 and 5 printed fabrics and match them up with 2 or more dyed fabrics. Sometimes I stick within quite a narrow colour palette. Other times I add a piece in a complimentary colour. I really rather enjoy the process!

But times have changed and so I have now added Wonky Print Inspiration Packs to my online shop. Each pack contains approximately 1 square metre of fabric and costs £20.

As I have already blogged I am only posting out to UK addresses right now. Partly because I suspect that international post is going to be disrupted but also because I know that the Royal Mail are doing their bit to keep some of our economy going whilst looking after it’s employees. (The presence of a strong union protecting its workers is a big factor in this but that is a bit political for this post!)

I do know that people are worried about the spread of virus on surfaces. Rest assured I am taking every precaution - my husband falls into one of the high risk categories so we have isolated ourselves. Our son Joe is our contact with the outside world and takes the parcels to the post office for me (having stood over 2 metres from me when I put the bag out for him). Obviously we worry that post people and delivery drivers might inadvertently spread the virus …. I wash my hands immediately after taking delivery of parcels and then leave them for at least a day before handling again. And as I write this I can’t quite get my head around how quickly everything has changed ….

I truly hope that you are all in good health and that those of you who are self isolating have the support you need and lots of creative activities to keep you busy!

Leah

Big box has been ticked today here at Urban Studio North! Yes, I have now added a range of thermofax screen designs to my website. I have added the designs that have proved most successful with my students over the last 18 months. There are 12 designs available as a large ‘A4’ screen. Eight of these designs are also available as small ‘A5’ screens as well. And I’ve added thermofax squeegees.

For those of you who don’t know thermofax screens use a fine polyester mesh that has a very thin polyester film on one side. The design is burnt onto that thin film using thermal imaging technology that was originally developed for use in the earliest photocopiers in the 1950’s. The thermal process only affects the film - the mesh is left intact but is now ‘open’ so that you can now print your design onto fabric or paper. To make life easier the mesh is mounted onto a sturdy perspex frame. Whilst not as robust as traditional silk screens, thermofax screens will last through many, many prints if used correctly. They need to be used with a special squeegee as the regular screen printing squeegees drag on the fine mesh and can stretch it. They also need to be cleaned very gently to protect the remaining polyester film on the back of the mesh.

I use thermofax a lot. The designs on my website are great for putting a layer of marks onto fabric before adding colour and shape on top using a regular screen. I use them with both thickened dye and with textile inks although you do need to wash your screen immediately after using them with textile inks (or fabric paints) as these will ruin a screen if left to dry.

Next on my ‘keep busy and try not to worry’ list is printing fabric to make up some of my Wonky Print Inspiration Packs.

Stay safe, stay well,

Leah

Who would have thought that our lives could change so quickly? Having already postponed or cancelled my March and April classes it looks increasingly likely that I’ll have to do the same for May … and who knows how much further out. Like many self-employed people it is impossible not to worry about the financial implications of this. Worry is a bit of an understatement. But having wallowed in self pity (and gin) for a few days I have pulled myself together and got busy!

And so I am very pleased to announce that I have now expanded the shop on my website to include dyes, textile inks, acrylic shapes and other stuff that I use all the time in my studio. In the next few days I will also be adding a small range of thermofax screens designed by yours truly. And, as the days / weeks go by I will be adding packs of hand dyed and printed fabrics. Developing an online shop has been on my to-do list for a while. It is horrid that it has taken this crisis to make me sit down and do it but there you go.

It may be that online trading becomes impossible if things get really but for now I am shipping using Royal Mail. The one bit of bad news though is that I am only shipping within the UK from today. Whilst stuff is still moving internationally I suspect that this will become increasingly unreliable as the weeks go buy. Those of you in the US who want to buy my book can do so from Dharma Trading Co whilst they have stock.

(This has all been done in a bit of a hurry by a seriously distracted Leah so please help me out and let me know if bits of the website don’t work!)

Stay safe, stay well,

Leah x