In my last post I told you about the things that I’m doing to raise some money for The Trussell Trust, a charity that supports food banks in the UK and campaigns to end food poverty. Having recovered from The Creative Craft Show at ExCel last weekend I’ve spent some time updating my online shop. So …..

• I have now added the Charity Inspiration Packs that I have left to my online shop. Each pack contains a mix of silk, linen, cotton and viscose fabrics and threads. Each pack costs £12.50 and I will donate £5 from each sale to The Trussell Trust. You can find them here. I’ve also added some more Wonky Print Inspiration Packs.

• I have added new dates for a Breakdown Your Palette workshop (12th to 16th September) and a Simply Screen Printing workshop (16th and 17th July) as the other workshops had sold out. You can find out more about all my workshops here. And, as a reminder, I am donating £10 from every workshop place I sell between now and the end of April to The Trussell Trust.

• I have reduced the cost of my online Breakdown Your Palette workshop by 25% from £240 to £180 until the end of April in recognition of the fact that not everyone is free to travel yet. And in recognition that attending a workshop in my studio is not cheap and not accessible to all.

I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by my stand at the show last weekend, it was a real pleasure to be able to exhibit Ruins 7 and I’m humbled by the response it received. Ruins 7 was made in response to the Russian devastation of Aleppo in Syria. Let’s hope the world learns some lessons this time round.

Thank you for your continued support, Leah x

Ruins 7

Those of you who have been reading my posts for some time will know that when the pandemic hit I, like many others, felt completely useless. One of the things that helped me feel slightly less useless was raising money for The Trussell Trust along with help from my brilliant customers and students. In 2020 we raised £692.50 through the sale of limited edition bookmarks, donations for Colour Your Palette books sold, donating and buying second hand textile books from the bogshed library etc. These efforts continued in 2021 albeit at a slower pace and we raised £345 for YoungMinds.org.

And now this year. Well that feeling useless thing is back. At least it is for me. The war in Ukraine is horrific and I am in awe of the generosity of people across Europe and around the globe in supporting the Ukrainian people. But there is something closer to home that I’m also finding distressing. And that is the effect of rising energy and food costs. It is incomprehensible how so many people will fall into poverty in the UK when we live in a country with the 6th or 7th biggest economy. The pandemic hit the poorest families hard; the staggering rise in cost of living is going to cast a much wider net with those on fixed incomes and those who were getting buy facing tough months ahead. I am ashamed to live in a country were ‘heat or eat’ is a decision that so many people will have to face every day and where there are more food banks than McDonalds.

So I am going to try, with your help, to raise money for The Trussell Trust again this year. The Trussell Trust is a charity that supports food banks and campaigns for the end of food poverty in the UK. At some point I will make more bookmarks but for now …..

• I have made 36 Inspiration Packs each containing a mix of silk, linen, cotton and viscose fabrics and threads. Each pack costs £12.50 and I will donate £5 from each sale to The Trussell Trust. (I’m taking them to The Creative Craft Show at the ExCel Center, London on the 1st and 2nd April and will add any that remain to my website early next week).

• I will donate £10 for every workshop place I sell between now and the end of April.

• I have reduced the cost of my online Breakdown Your Palette workshop by 25% from £240 to £180 until the end of April in recognition of the fact that not everyone is free to travel yet.

Thank you to the lovely Millie T for donating thread to the cause!

I know that some will believe that any money raised should be used for Ukraine as their need is greater but hope that most of you will understand and support my efforts.

Leah x

Although I did a few days teaching in the studio earlier in the year my teaching ‘season’ started properly from last weekend with a wonderful couple of days with my Creative Surface Design students and will continue with my two day Simply Screen Printing workshop this coming weekend. From then on I’m teaching regularly until the end of October by which time I might need to take a day off!

In between teaching I’ll also be giving talks to different groups up and down the country and attending two shows - The Creative Craft Show at ExCel in London in a couple of weeks and Festival at the NEC in August.

It is going to be SO GOOD to be face-to-face with so many like minded textile lovers this year. A big thank you to the ladies at Art Through Textiles who I gave a talk to on Monday - your enthusiasm is infectious!

This year still feels like a ‘catch-up’ year though. I’ve had some cancellations recently as people catch up on much delayed holidays, family celebrations and hospital treatment. So I now have places on some workshops that were previously sold out. I have places on Helen Parrotts’ Northern Landscapes with Hand Stitch, Debbie Lyddons Decorative Surfaces for 3D Textiles and Louise Baldwins Accidently on Purpose.

Please follow the links to have a look at these workshops - all three artists are excellent teachers and time in a dedicated studio is such a joy.

I also have spaces on my 5 day Print Your Palette workshop (25th to 29th April) - this is a deep dive into lots and lots of ways of using a screen to print beautiful fabric. No previous experience is required though as we start with the basics on using a screen and on using dyes!

Bye for now, Leah

It was wonderful to be at the Scottish Quilting Show in Glasgow last week. The atmosphere was very different to the last time we were there two years ago. Then we were all nervous and anxious about a new virus that would go on to cause so much sorrow and hardship. This time there was a sense of hope and of life getting back to normal. It was so lovely to meet old friends and to see many familiar faces.

I was busy demonstrating breakdown printing on my stand and enjoyed explaining the process to so many visitors. I’d like to thank all of those who took the time to talk about printing and about the quilts I had on display. And all those who spent money …. the Wonky Print Inspiration Packs went down very well! I’d like to thank the lovely ladies on adjacent stands for ensuring there wasn’t an unwanted puddle behind the stand on the Thursday when I was on the stand by myself. And a very big thanks to my friend Ruth Brown for joining me for the rest of the show (Ruth is teaching two bookbinding workshops in my studio this year).

I printed ten pieces of fabric during the show. These will be appearing in a Wonky Print Pack soon as I am exhibiting at The Creative Craft Show at the ExCel Centre in London on the 1st and 2nd April. As soon as I have details of my stand I will share them with you. I will be printing on my stand and will have lots of my hand dyed and printed fabrics with me …. but only if I get a wriggle on ….

Bye for now, Leah

I am delighted that textile artist Helen Parrott will be teaching in my studio this spring but wanted to know a little bit more about her work and the course she will be teaching ‘Northern Landscapes and Hand Stitch’. So I asked Helen a few questions and hope that you enjoy reading her answers. She also sent some lovely images of her recent work and inspirations - eye candy on a somewhat bleak, cold winters day here in Northern England.

Q. What is it about the landscape surrounding your home in northern England that inspires your work?

Helen: There is great beauty and interest in so much of what is around me on several levels:

I moved north over 40 years ago and still find the landscape fascinating and so different to where I grew up in Cambridge. Initially it was the urban landscapes of mills, factories, terraced houses and grand Victorian buildings in places like Leeds and Manchester that excited my curiosity. I spent years walking the cities of the north seeking to understand what I was seeing and how it came to be and look that way. I moved uphill to the edge of Sheffield in the 2000s and that is when more rural landscapes became part of my daily life. I still love to walk to town along the Porter Valley will its long unused millponds and traces of previous industry.

At this altitude the landscape is constantly changing, sometimes from moment to moment, sometimes boldly, at other times the changes are very subtle. The light is often unstable, fleeting and beautiful. (Taking daylight photos of my work can be a real challenge at some times of year because the light is so unstable.)

The landscape around here has a deep history of human occupation over millennia. The traces of these peoples and their lives are still visible in the landscape in the present day. I find that sense of continuity and connection with people over time a powerful one. These feelings of connection and continuity have been helpful to me as we live through the pandemic and the changes it has brought to our lives.

I love the wide valley vistas, the stone walls and the tiny details of the plants and trees. They all feed into my visual and creative life and work.

Q. How might running the course in a more urban setting influence the students experience?

Helen: I hope that the urban location will be thought provoking for all of us and that we can explore the idea of ’north’ as part of the course. We will each have our own experiences and ideas to share so I look forward to a lively conversation. I’d like students to go home with a clearer sense of what ‘north’ or ’northern landscape' means to them personally and why. For those that wish to take an exploration of north further my aim is to support that direction, including by recommending artists, images and writings to research.

Q. How will you combine the creative work that forms part of the course with providing one-to-one coaching/mentoring for the participants?

Helen: The way this usually works is that we spend the first day or so getting to grips with the theme, doing some collages and then working through some key hand stitch techniques. People love to get to the hand stitching! I then begin one to one conversations with students. Usually it works out that one or two people are very keen to talk early on, others prefer to wait a bit. I’d expect to have at least one coaching conversation of 20-30 minutes with each student on each of the two weekends. The actual length of each conversation varies, it depends a bit on the people, the size of the group and how the teaching and group discussion goes.

These are confidential conversations so we may sit in a quiet space or walk round the block, it depends on what people prefer (and the weather). I aim 'to meet people where they are' so conversations can be very broad, or very focussed, it depends. This is about supporting the student and their creative journey. Previous topics have included developing a portfolio of work to apply for a course, planning an exhibition or body of work, how to ‘make better work,' how to manage time, getting a studio and so on. I’ve been an artist, coach/mentor and arts manager/leader for over 20 years so have a wealth of experience to draw on.

Q. You have combined creative development with individual coaching time in workshops in the past, in your experience who might benefit most from this approach?

Helen: This is a good question - in my experience coaching can be really helpful when people can’t see the creative wood for the trees. It can help bring clarity and focus to art and creativity, support individuals to develop a plan and create ways forward for their creativity that suit their lives and circumstances.

Northern Landscape with Hand Stitch runs over two weekends to enable students to have time to work on their own and to reflect in between the two sessions. At the end of the first weekend students will go home with ideas to explore before the second weekend. The first session is Friday 8th to Sunday 10th April and the second session is Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th May. There are still places available on this course; you can find more information here.

Helen has a wealth of experience supporting artists. If you are worried about whether the course is right for you please contact me here and I’ll put you in touch with Helen. Spending time with like minded people, working and making art in a lovely space, can be a real boost to morale and confidence. I hope you’ll join myself and Helen in April and May.

Detail, full image below.

You may remember a small quilt (well small for me) that I made last year in response to the Contemporary Quilt Group challenge ‘Uncharted’ called Taming The Wilderness. It’s the long skinny one that is part of my Cadence series. The organisers will be showing all 77 entrants in different groupings at different events over the next 12-18 months. I am absolutely delighted that my quilt has been chosen to be one of the 35 quilts that will be shown at this summers Festival of Quilts (18th to 21st August). It will then travel to Exeter, Glasgow, Birmingham and London between September 2022 and April 2023 as part of the ICHF shows.

But before then the quilt is getting its’ first showing at QuiltFest at the Llangollen Museum in Wales. QuiltFest is a little smaller than normal due to Covid restrictions but will still be worth a visit if you live nearby. Llangollen is a lovely town surrounded by stunning countryside. Sadly I won’t make it this year but have enjoyed the show in the past.

Taming The Wilderness was inspired by the artwork on an album called The Wilderness by Explosions in the Sky. The artist is Jacob van Loon and you can find the piece 8th & Main here. His work is amazing and I can see it inspiring more pieces in the future. So, in all its glory, here is Taming The Wilderness -

I have a bumper crop of guest tutors teaching in my studio this year. Some are rescheduled workshops from 2020/21 and some are new for this year. The tutors are artists whose work I admire, who offer something different to the workshops I run and, most importantly, come highly recommended by friends and students.

We start the year with the fabulous Helen Parrott who will be teaching Northern Landscapes and Hand Stitch. In this five day workshop spread over two weekends you will explore mark making and hand stitch inspired by images of your favourite northern landscapes. The workshop combines creative personal development with individual coaching and is suitable for ‘intermediate’ embroiderers and textile artists. The dates are 8th to 10th April and 14th and 15th May and places are available.

I am delighted to tell you that Alice Fox will, after a 2 year delay, be teaching her Rust Marks workshop in the studio from the 22nd to 24th April. And Debbie Lyddon, again after a long delay, will be teaching her Decorative Surfaces for 3D Textiles workshop from the 3rd to the 6th May. Both these workshops are sold out but if you would like to go on a waiting list please contact me here.

I will be welcoming the lovely Ruth Brown into the studio twice this year. Many of you will know Ruth from her books on Cyanotype and on using Photoshop for textile art. More recently she has turned her talents to book binding and the workshop she ran here last summer was brilliant. The two workshops she will be teaching this year are both ‘stand alone’ workshops teaching different types of binding. Ruth will be teaching More Books for Textile Artists on 21st to 24th June and Books for Textile Artists on 30th August to 2nd September. There are 2 places available on the June workshop and 3 on the August workshop.

And finally, I am so looking forward to welcoming Louise Baldwin into the studio. Louise will be teaching her 4 day Accidentally on Purpose workshop from Sunday 24th July to Wednesday 27th July. In the workshop you will explore ways of constructing, breaking down and reconstructing a series of stitched mixed media works using a range of materials based around found packaging, fabric and ephemera, alongside any imagery that you might find particularly evocative. Because of a slight change of dates I now have 1 place available on this workshop.

I am feeling really positive about 2022 and looking forward to a year without cancellations / rescheduling. But I’m also cautious - I will be keeping the ‘Covid-safe’ measures in place in the studio for the foreseeable future including plastic screens between benches, mask wearing when moving around the studio and in shared work areas and lateral flow testing before and during the workshops.

If you have any questions you can contact me here or through the comments option. Thank you, Leah.

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.

My studio is a ‘bit of a tip’. Unlike our inglorious prime minister I won’t be asking somebody to pay for eye-wateringly expensive wallpaper to make it look pretty. Because my tip is a glorious tip! Everything has been moved about so that I can photograph some new pieces. Which is a sign that not only have I been creating new pieces but that I love them!

Because I work intuitively with my fabrics the early pieces in a new series are often not quite right or are, frankly, rubbish, and they don’t always get photographed. That was certainly the case with the Cadence series but then I was starting from a low point in terms of my artistic confidence. My new series has been fermenting inside my head for quite some time but I only unleashed it onto fabric once I had regained confidence in my creative process. There have been a few false starts, and yes I have printed (and thrown away) some butt ugly fabric, but I am actually rather pleased with the first two finished pieces. I’m not quite ready to share images of the full quilts but I am ready to talk about my inspirations and to tease you with a couple of images.

My new series is called Artefact. It is inspired by our relationship with man-made objects, especially those made with material taken straight from the earth and shaped into tools and decorative objects. Those objects which are collected and proudly displayed; those which are passed down within families; those that tell us about our past; and those that are lost to us. As a source of inspiration this has the potential to go in many different directions but I’m starting by referencing the vases and pots made by Pilkington Tile & Pottery Company. Their manufacturing site, which is now derelict, is only a few miles from where I live and I remember when their factory shop selling cheap tiles was still open. As with my Ruins series and my series on coal mining I like to work on subjects to which I feel some connection. And, as always I am inspired by our industrial heritage. In the detail shot below I used a breakdown printing technique to print the vase. I used a variety of printing techniques to create the fabrics used to make the background. I hope you like the result as much as I do!

Artefact 1 (detail)