I find myself in the envious position of having four weeks between teaching commitments with very few demands on my time. My online Breakdown Your Palette workshop is ticking along smoothly, there are no hints of impending crisis / distraction on the family front and my ‘bits and bobs’ to do list is pretty short.

So I am free to make ART! I have a ‘Cadence’ quilt in my head that is screaming to get out so the timing is good. This new series is inspired by the joy of process, the joy of making. And it certainly is joyous to be able to immerse myself in it. The fact that spring is here and we’re enjoying a spell of warm, sunny weather just adds to the sense of well-being that comes with making.

Now that I’ve cleared out the drain on my screen washing trough (it’s a glamourous life!) I have been able to spend this last week breakdown printing. I started by making and drying 25 embedded object type breakdown screens. I used the same set of objects over and over again so that there are common shapes and marks on my printed fabrics. I worked with seven of the darker value colours from a colour family and kept each colour separate so have printed a set of mostly monochromatic fabrics. And what a glorious collection of fabrics they are! Ranging from turquoise to a muted grey-purple these are definitely fabrics that make my heart sing. And I have plenty - I printed about 18 square metres this week and have lots of lighter value fabric in the same colourway left over from an earlier printing session.

Next up - cutting the fabrics up then ‘composing’ the quilt! One week down, three to go.

A very big thank you to Judy, Lis, Mandy and Sharon for being the first students back in the studio after a 6 month plus gap and for being the first students on my Colour Your Palette workshop. We had a great five days. It was so good to share my studio with like minded company who’s surname isn’t Higgins! (Not that I don’t love my Higgins boys ….). There was lots of chat, lots of laughter and most importantly, lots and lots of colour!

The workshop is a deep dive into understanding and using colour when working with dyes although large elements of it are equally applicable to other media. I’m a great believer that we learnt best by ‘doing’ and that’s what we did. We mixed and scrapped hundreds of swatches as we explored the impact of the hue bias in each of our co-primary colours and as we looked at the complex colours you get when you start mixing complimentary colours. We explored different colour schemes and considered how our colour choices are determined by our artist styles and our preferred techniques for applying colour to cloth. And we worked through colour studies based on different sources of colour inspiration. Lis and Sharon even found time to print some fabric as well. There are a couple of tweaks needed to my timings and demonstrations but I’m pretty happy with how the five days went and am looking forward to teaching Colour Your Palette again in July and October.

In fact I’m looking forward to all of my workshops scheduled for this spring and summer. My next workshop is Breakdown Your Palette on 17th to 21st May, assuming we ease restrictions on hotels and travel on the 17th as expected. I have one place left on this workshop and am going to start an hour later than normal at 10.30am so that students can travel to me in the morning. I also have a few places left on Breakdown workshops later in the summer. Breakdown is my favourite thing and my favourite workshop so if you fancy joining me please click here.

I also want to thank those of you who tuned into my first live workshop yesterday as part of The Creative Craft Shows Craftfulness Festival. I was a nervous wreck leading up to it - mostly worrying that the technology wouldn’t work but, in the end, everything went well. It did however take half a bottle of red wine and a tub of Ben and Jerries to peal me off the ceiling afterwards!!!

Needless to say that I’m planning a quiet few days ………

The design wall is a sea of colour, the 40 squeezy bottle of thickened dye are ready, the COVID safe screens are back in place and the ‘brew’ area is stocked with a variety of teas, coffees, individually wrapped choccy biscuits and mini-Haribou packs ……… Yes, after a gap of 6 months my studio will open tomorrow! And I am so relieved, happy, nervous and slightly tearful.

I can only teach students who live locally as restrictions will remain in place on travel and hotels until mid-May at the earliest but it is a step in the right direction. Tomorrow I will be teaching Colour Your Palette to four lovely ladies who have all been in the studio before. The workshop is based on my latest book and this will be the first time I have taught it …. and so I am very grateful to my four guinea-pigs. Hopefully the pleasure of learning in person will make up for any blunders on my part!

It feels like we are in a better place than we were when I opened last summer. Most of us ‘older’ people have had at least on jab, social distancing and hand hygiene have become normal behaviour and I can use lateral flow tests every few days to give that extra bit of reassurance. I know that some other studios are opening up from tomorrow and I wish them all well - it has been a long winter!

Bye for now, Leah x

I’m very pleased to announce that I will be giving my very first live workshop at 4pm on Saturday 17th April as part of The Creative Craft Shows ‘Craftfulness Festival’. Like many event organisers ICHF have moved their events online and had a great response. You can find out more about the event here. All the content (50 hours of workshops) is being recorded live on the 17th April but is available to watch until 29th May. Which means if I make a real hash of it I will know that it is ‘out there’ for 6 weeks …. no pressure then!

My workshop is called Printing and Stamping with Textile Inks. Over 90 minutes I will be showing everyone how to use a thermofax screen, simple acrylic shapes and textile inks to decorate both sides of a cotton tote bag. The inks and the techniques are easy and safe to use so are suitable for children / grandchildren. Tutors don’t get paid to give their workshops but most of us have kits available via the ICHF shop - you can find out more about my kits here here. And you can find a show guide here.

The last event I attended was the Scottish Quilt Show at the beginning of March last year. It was a wonderful event and an opportunity to spend time with my daughter who lives in Glasgow. I’ve missed my daughter and being out and about so much but things are looking more hopeful now. At the moment I am planning to be at Festival of Quilts in August and have my fingers and toes crossed that it will go ahead (and that we get to see Jess soon!).

And finally I want to say thank you to the students who signed up to my online Breakdown Your Palette workshop during March. With your help and a small donation I have been able to donate £275 to YoungMinds, a charity that works with children and young people with mental health issues. Thank you.

Leah x

Breakdown printed fabric from my online Breakdown Your Palette workshop

In my last post I mentioned a couple of UK organisations that I’m a member of, The Quilters Guild and the Contemporary Quilt group. I am also a member of SAQA - the Studio Art Quilt Association. This US based but international organisation does an excellent job of promoting art quilts and provides lots of opportunities for textile artists to exhibit their work in galleries and museums around the world. I joined because I want to exhibit my work in the US and was lucky enough to have work selected for one of their exhibitions, ’Layered Voices’ which toured in 2017 -2019. I’ve also had pieces in two of their European touring exhibitions.

SAQA offer a range of membership levels including one called Juried Artist for which you have to submit a portfolio of work as well as an artists statement and resume. It was on my list to apply for several years but ‘stuff’ kept getting in the way. When I had free time last year during lockdown I moved applying to the top of my to-do list. And then found that I no longer had confidence in my work and couldn’t handle the thought of rejection. I think this was all part of the disconnect I felt from my art and my art practice.

But, as you’ll know from previous posts I set aside time towards the end of last year to reconnect with my art. And with my confidence growing I decided to apply.

And this week I heard that I had been accepted! Happy dance! Happy tears! And a massive honour. I now have an artists profile on their website which you can find here. And I have applied to have a piece included in one of their Art Quilt Quarterly magazines.

I also gave my second virtual talk on Understanding Colour to the Contemporary Quilt group this week … just as nerve-wracking as the first time but I’m determined to embrace more virtual opportunities! I have agreed to give my first live workshop in mid-April. I’m still at the ‘I must be mad / panic’ stage in my preparations but will share details soon!

And finally, take up of my first online workshop Breakdown Your Palette has been brilliant. This is an on-demand workshop that you can join at any time. If you have been thinking about joining, a little reminder - for every person that enrols during March I am donating £10 to the charity YoungMinds. They do brilliant work helping children and young people with mental health issues.

Thanks, Leah x

It may still be doom and gloom in the rest of the world but my studio has been buzzing with good vibes all week!

I have had an amazing response to my first online workshop Breakdown Your Palette. A big thank you to my new students! I had a target in my head that I thought would be brilliant to reach by the end of March and I reached it yesterday …. lots of happy tears in the studio. Together we have raised over £200 for the YoungMinds charity. And it has also allowed me to start refunding deposits to those students who can’t make rescheduled studio workshop dates or who don’t want to travel until they’ve had both jabs - which is an enormous weight off my shoulders.

The only technical hitch so far has been a couple of people who couldn’t see the Sample Video - I use Vimeo to host the videos and they don’t support older versions of some web browsers. The solution is to update your browser.

This week I also received my copy of The Quilter magazine featuring an article I wrote about colour. And I gave my first ever Zoom talk to members of the Contemporary Quilt group. It was about colour. Obviously. The CQ group are a specialist group within The Quilters Guild (UK) and The Quilter is the quarterly magazine published by the Guild. I have been a member for approaching twenty years and am a big fan of all the work they do. I also appreciate the opportunities they have given me, and other tutors, to promote our work.

This week also saw me and hubby getting our first Corona virus jabs. The process was flawless with our wonderful NHS staff being support by volunteers. Another weight off my shoulders.

And finally this was the week when I should have been joining 12 very good friends for our annual five day retreat in the Lake District. The retreat has always been a form of respite … 5 days away from work and away from family. I love my family but I love them more for getting the occasional break! We couldn’t be together in person this year so instead organised a 5 day virtual retreat. Although I wasn’t able to avoid ‘work’ it was lovely sitting at my computer listening to the quiet chatter of old friends via Zoom in the background. We had our usual book review (mine were both about colour), our usual quiz (animal based, I came last) and our usual five day challenge. Janet devised five prompts that took us from a piece of white fabric to a finished vessel. We shared our progress each day, it was joyful. I started by dyeing my fabric turquoise and ended up with a vessel that is the perfect size for holding a bottle of wine! Perfect!

With the sound of trumpets in my ears I am very, very pleased to announce the arrival of my first online workshop! You can find full details and sign up HERE, As well as a summary of the content there are a couple of videos that you can watch for free.

(I’m hoping I pressed all the right buttons and everything is linked up, please let me know if not).

The online workshop contains everything that is in my five day Breakdown Your Palette workshop but in a lot more detail. It is split into eight units with the content being delivered by a mixture of videos that can be watched over and over, and detailed notes that can be downloaded. I’m keenly aware that it isn’t the same as teaching face to face but I hope the increased number of demonstrations inspire students to experiment. And I will be providing support via a private Facebook group, email and monthly Zoom meetings. The workshop costs £240 for 12 months access to the videos and to support from me.

This is all very new to me and I will be amazed if there aren’t a few technical glitches to sort out! Although this is an on demand workshop, I will only be releasing one unit per week. If everything is working well I’ll release units more quickly. To compensate those brave students who join up during this early period I will start the timer on their twelve month membership when I release the final unit.

I’ve also decided to donate £10 for every student who signs up before the end of March to charity. One of the few brilliant things that happened last year was the money we raised together for The Trussell Trust. And whilst food poverty is still a massive problem I have decided to support a different charity this year. It is called YoungMinds and you can find out all about them here. The impact of the pandemic on children and young people goes beyond just the loss of education. Children need to be with other children and the partial closure of schools is having an enormous effect on their mental well being.

So, have a look at the videos. Try not to cringe. Or laugh too loudly. I am a nervous wreck already. Leah x

Coming soon ……. Wonky Phone Productions in association with Real Artists Hands and Slightly Dodgy Lockdown Hair present Breakdown Your Palette the online workshop …..

Yes, after a restorative few months focusing on my art, I have started my next ‘big project’. I love teaching in my studio. I love demonstrating at shows. And I love giving talks. But I hate having my photo taken and the thought of standing in front a video camera has me running for the gin. So I have been putting off creating online workshops until now. But here I am.

It is a very steep ‘learning curve’. There is lots of help out there and I’m grateful to all the textile tutors who have shared their experiences. For the first time ever I am also grateful for uTube. And it seems that if you have an iphone / ipad / mac then iMovies makes it all fairly seamless.

Hmm …. if only. I dusted off my old laptap. Which started making the most horrendous grinding noise as soon as I googled ‘video editing’. I have found it a comfy corner to live out its days and moved my PC to the centre of my studio. Good job the studio is currently closed as I have cables running everywhere!!! Turns out that the webcam on my PC is rubbish. My rather old android phone has a great camera. And works with Zoom for live streaming. But I can’t find any combination of bits of software / settings that allows me to use it to record video via my multicam capture software. So I am now the proud owner of two decent quality webcams. And a serious boom arm to allow me to shoot from above my print bench.

I starting making short test clips and used them to learn how to use my editing software. Let’s just say that it is a good thing that I don’t have a swear box in my studio. My family are staying well clear …..

But I am making progress. The workshop will be an online version of the five day class I teach in my studio. It is going to be split over eight units each containing downloadable PDFs and videos (about 30 of them in total!). I’m just not brave enough to do a ‘live’ workshop but will be providing support via a private Facebook group and email. And will run monthly Q&A sessions via Zoom. I’m hoping to have it ready for early March and will share more details soon.

In the meantime, if you hear somebody crying whilst banging their head against their PC it will be me.

Leah x

Sample by Helen Parrott

Whilst I don’t know how long the current UK lockdown will last, I am proactively working with guest tutors and students to reschedule workshops etc. I’m also doing my best to support those who find themselves unable to attend workshops later in the year. So this is a brief post to let you know that places have become available on workshops that were previously sold out.

There is one place available on Northern Landscapes and Hand Stitch with Helen Parrott. This five day course is split across two sessions. The first session is 7 - 9 May 2021 and the second session is 12 - 13 June 2021. And there are two places available on the now reschedule workshop Poetry of Decay with Christine Chester. The new dates are 21st to 25th June 2021. Both these tutors are incredibly popular and I’m keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that life will a bit more normal by May.

If you have a look at my workshop page you’ll also find details of the workshops that I teach in my studio and their availability. If you are a bit nervous about booking rest assured that I give refunds if the workshop can’t go ahead or if you can’t attend due to COVID restrictions.

Sample by Christine Chester