Jan Miller workshop

 I have just spent three wonderful days in the company of six other like minded women enjoying a workshop with Jan Miller. I have come home with a head full of thoughts gently planted there by this lovely person. It has been three days of revelation about what I value in my work - or more about  why I don't value it enough. I have a new regard for the overlooked and discarded. I see the joy in seemingly unrelated things being placed together and have a new regard for processes I have tried and so say 'moved on' from. Hmm. I need to retrace my steps with a few things I think and re-evaluate.

I stayed away from textiles unlike the others who dyed so much fabric in the tea bath that it went black with the amount of iron and tea bags that kept being added to it. It ended up like treacle but they produced some stunning results.

I have to absorb in workshops. I make mental notes and take photos. If I close my eyes now I can see the table laid out with some of Jan's treasures - calligraphy tools made with found materials, smudge sticks from sage tops, tree bark lined with vintage fabrics, folded boro like textiles and long, landscape textile 'maps' with simple, exquisite stitches detailing Jan's movements around her allotment.

I opted to work with paper and with books. I often call it my default mode. almost apologising for not thinking of anything more original, but as of now, I am stopping that. I have come to accept that making books is what I'm about. It's not the only thing I do but it works for me to cement all the ideas from a workshop and I made three yesterday that I love and want to do more with.

I fell in love again with waxing paper this weekend. It's been too long since I did this. So simple yet so satisfying. I'm even eyeing that bag of linen and rusted fabrics I've been hoarding and rumour has it that I might even take up the needle......

It was one of those workshops when everything seemed 'right' and I feel incredibly lucky to have been a part of something so special.

Workshop frenzy

 I think 'workshop frenzy' is a misnomer for the title of this post but one of the photos I took of last Friday's workshop shows Gill working like a demon so it seemed apt! Thank you to the group that came and raised funds for the charity Hands Up for Uganda. Let's hope we bought a few more bricks to build something much needed. In return they got a notebook to record the process - so they knew I meant business from the off - and all the materials to walk away with both a soft cover and hard cover version of a coptic stitch notebook. Not everyone finished both books but I know they will be completed at home and all of them were wonderful. I also know they will make more and I love a workshop when you know that everyone just 'gets it'. It really was a lovely day in great company despite snow in Shropshire in late April.

 ..... and just because I want to.... I met a lovely girl at a recent workshop I taught and it was mentioned that she made jewellery related to butterflies. So, I asked if she did moths and she said no but she was up for the challenge. This photo does not do justice to the scale and detail of these two moth brooches I am now the lucky owner of. I sent my photos and this is what Martha came up with. The Elephant Hawk Moth now adorns my printmaking apron (an idea I nicked from a friend!) and the Garden Tiger is waiting for its moment in the spotlight. Guaranteed that if I wear certain pairs of earrings people always stop me and ask where I got them from. If I was wearing these two in the street I think I'd be inundated and would need to ask Martha for a set of business cards! Seriously, this girl is talented and if you have a commission contact here her.