A selection of beautiful beaded bowls by Sue Redhead, Jane Wolfe & Gina Dean I find it amusing that a workshop I created based on bowls and bangles I have been making all my life - has become very popular in the The Experimental Textiles Video Library & Membership. I have never taught this workshop as it is something I have always just - done. Making strange and unusual pieces with random beads has always given me great pleasure - I hadn't realised that it might intrigue others too.  I decided to film the workshop and see if any of the membership wanted to play with the ..read more

One of the memorials in the Maharani Gardens in Jaipur that is featured in my Textile Travels online lecture.  How are you all doing? Are you coping with and all the rain we are having? I know some of you will be enjoying warmer temperatures on the other side of the world. Wherever you are, I hope all is well. As I now live in Ireland, I am delivering less lectures, it is a bit far to travel now!! However I do deliver 3 or 4 during the year - online. Guilds and textile groups are much more experienced with Zoom now, so it is easy to talk to groups in real time, if not the same p ..read more

  I look as though I mean business . . brandishing my iron . . It's been a busy time since I last wrote the blog. I am now in full time filming and editing mode. Whilst I can't make up the time I lost when I had the TIA, I can make sure I don't dilly dally about recording the remaining 5 online workshops for The Experimental Textiles Video Library & Membership. Whilst it is hard work, it will be worth it to get them all up on the website by the end of the month. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to be able to talk to students online when they ask questions or post their ..read more

Nicola and the girls  Happy New Year!! How are you all? Have you survived the Festive Season? I hope that you have great things to look forward to, something simple like starting to knit a new jumper or maybe a larger project? New Year saw me and the girls (my dogs) staying at Clasheen with my dear friend Nicola Brown for a few days. We go there every year. It's a great chance for us to catch up properly, talk about things that have gone well, and some things that have not gone so well. When you work for yourself you are always learning . .  It rained almost continuously, s ..read more

Gur-e Mir (Tomb of the Emir) Samarkand It's happening!! Hurrah!!   The Textile & Architecture Journey of Uzbekistan 2025 with Kim Thittichai is now up on AAhilya Holidays website - here is the link - https://www.aahilyaholidays.com/tour/6c2e/-a-textile-&-architecture-journey-of-uzbekistan-2025-with-kim-thittichai#Tours_Name As you can probably imagine, I am so very excited about this trip. I have always been fascinated by The Silk Road. The colours, the designs. The wonderful structure of the buildings. The huge rounded forms against the stunning blue skies. Bib ..read more

5pm on October 30th   5.16pm on October 30th Well it is November - so we do expect to have storms here on the west coast of Ireland. Storm Ciaran has passed over Ireland and is now thrashing parts of the UK. It has been pretty windy and the rain has been horrendous. We have had a lot of local flooding. However the house is fine, everything outside is a bit squidgy and soaking wet. Taking the dogs out is fun at the moment! Though with everything that is happening in the world at the moment, I certainly can't complain . .  With the nights drawing in, in the northern ..read more

Bronnie and Larissa, what a team!   This is the last of 5 daily blog posts about The Geelong Fibre Forum 2023. It was important to me to record as much as I could about my students, their work and all the fun . . . and my dear friends. To see the first post and then the others - go to - Geelong Fibre Forum 2023 The organisation of an event the size of the Geelong Fibre Forum is mind blowing. It is all run by volunteers!! The main 2 being Bronnie and Larissa. How they manage to run The Geelong Fibre Forum every year, whilst working full time and running homes and families - I rea ..read more

A small selection of work from our exhibition on the Friday night   Welcome to the 4th blog post this week. If you have missed any of the first 3, you can catch up here - https://hot-textiles.blogspot.com/2023/10/geelong-fibre-forum-part-first.html It always amazes me, when you look around the class room the first morning of the first day of a workshop and there is nothing on the tables apart from the students bags and stuff. And then . . the magic happens. This group was particularly special, they worked through everything I asked of them with good humour and trust. And boy we ..read more

Simone and Kath cutting the S133 - the big boy!!!   So - we have worked through The Journey design exercise, we have made printing blocks from the isolated designs. Then we created some fabulous torn paper and painted Bondaweb surfaces using my 'Background & Pretty' technique.   Decovil 1 and Decovil 1 light, cut and rolled ready for the group to use   And then, I brought out the the heavy interfacings!!  Decovil 1 and Decovil light are leather-like interfacings for making bags, but we can do so much more with them. They are great for making book cove ..read more

Gorgeousness by Wilma And then this happened . . . It is very satisfying when you have developed a process and your students really run with it. A New Starting Point is a workshop I developed in 2012 when I was playing with old papers and scraps of painted Bondaweb - and of course, a bit of sparkle. The process became a great 1 - 2 day workshop that can be slotted into a 5 day workshop quite nicely. The great thing is your work doesn't have to look like anything, there is no pressure. The torn and layered process creates a great background to print onto. And then you can iron your wor ..read more