Umbria

I am in Italy and whenever I am here I am reminded of why I originally trained as a surface pattern designer. You can see how patten making is cross cultural and same things turn up in Indian textiles, English wallpaper, American quilts. 

Here are a few patterns I have seen today . Hope the pics are OK they haven't been edited

French finish

Today I sat in the warm sunshine at the allotment and finished the stitching on to a collage I started at Chateau Dumas. I was encouraging the students to use patchwork over papers to construct shapes to layer up in their collages. In this one a piece of french text donated by one of the students has been left in. I have used stars within my collages a lot over the years, sometimes constructing them and sometimes using ones unpicked from quilts. They always remind me of old patchwork.

Indian inspiration

I never thought I would go back to Indian fabrics for inspiration but I was given some  old embroidered pieces unpicked from a wall hanging and couldn't resist trying to mix them up with my other vintage bits and pieces. I have purposely used the back of the fragment at the centre as I love that neon orange thread. I am working in a hospital project at the moment where we are using neon threads and hi vis clothing and I guess this echoes where I am with that. I am however letting it go… it is on Etsy now.

Stygga Barn Och Snalla

Something I did with a book bought in a charity shop in Sweden.

Textile Collage now out!

My book is officially published today! Thank you to all the artists who contributed images as your work will surely help to inspire readers too. If you have pre-ordered and you receive your copies over the next few days I hope you are not disappointed.

Waxwing and Wool

My studio at The Hearth, Horsley will be open today as part of the Horsley Wool Fair celebration. Here's a waxwing I have done as a sample for next weekend's bird collage course. Full I'm afraid folks!

Embroidery magazine feature

I am featured in the new issue of my favourite magazine "Embroidery" published by The Embroiderer's Guild. Here is the link to the magazine's site

https://embroiderersguild.com/index.php?page_no=207