These are the half day workshops planned for Workaid in the new Year. they will be based on padded and raised techniques.

January 26th 2017 – Raised stem

February 23rd 2017 – Raised chain

March 30th 2017 – Raised bits and bobs

I have just done a talk for the Maidstone branch of the Embroiderers Guild about the making of my latest book. I will be doing this again for the Enfield branch on Saturday 11th March 2017 with a follow up workshop on Saturday 29th April on ‘Chuck Close’. The workshop will be about working with squares, a key feature of the work by Chuck cCose.

The book  has generated a number of new courses based on the work that I have done for it. These are:

Chuck Close – grids, print and straight stitch

Van Gogh – colour mixing with textured stitch

Kandinsky – Geometric shape with couching

Hundertwasser – Bright primary colours combined with pattern and darning for painterly surfaces

John Piper – mono print and mark-making

Morandi – small scale still life with detatched buttonhole stitch

Matisse – pattern and composite stitches

from pattern book

This course aims to inspire embroiderers and textile artists to generate a book of designs that may be interpreted using fabric and thread that may then be made into a variety of items.

During the course we will use a variety of coloured papers to cut and tear, together with simple print to build pattern as a reference for future embroiderey projects. We will try out small stitched samples, to bring the patterns to life and suggest methods of working with fabric and thread. Other techniques will be incising, layering and adding found objects and beads to surfaces.

By the end of the course participants will have a little book full of ideas to take away and stitch.

I have just taught a course at Belsey Bridge Conference Centre as part of the East Suffolk Summer School.

It was a friendly and inspiring event with members of Embroiderers’Guild Branches from the Eastern Region coming together to create, stitch and meet with friends and make new ones.

Lesley Jones who organised it together with Helen did a fantastic job and made us all very welcome.

I was surprised to meet up with a student whom I have not seen for about 30 years. She was in one of my  groups when I first began teaching. That must be a networking first!

My group was exploring the work of Italian artist Georgio Morandi who painted the simple beauty of light on forms with a soft delicate palette of colour that reflected the colours of his home town Bolognia where he painted the same small group of vessels all his life. He painted landscape too but we were focusing on the still life objects and working small scale.

I have shown my work at the Snape Maltings with the exhibiting group Vision. It is a wonderful place with lots to see and much to spend money on! The reed beds nearby are inspiring and lend themselves to stitch.

This is obviously my year! First the medal for excellence and then the Broderers Prize. I have just been presented with my medal on my last City & Guilds weekend at Missenden Abbey. I have worked there since 1991 delivering C & G courses and others during that time. I will miss meeting people from all walks of life and sharing in their creative journey. I hope that I have made a difference and inspired all those who have come to the Abbey to develop their creativity. There have been many talented embroiderers and it has been a very great pleasure to work along side them.

There is much work still to do, free-lance workshops and summer schools, more books to write and my own work to develop. I look forward to it all.This is the last group of City & Guilds students I will have the pleasure of working with. They have produced some stunning work and I am proud to have played a small part in their creative development.