new workshop dates

I've listed some workshops for 2016 on my big cartel site here. These will be held at my home-based studio near Bradford, West Yorkshire. I'm starting the year with a Slow Stitch day, and in March and May will be running two day sessions for the first time, featuring dyeing and stitching. For more information and to book please visit here.

Other things...

:: The above image shows some stitch on indigo. The colour is from my small henna-based vat (I keep it in an old spaghetti jar). I've been mordanting my fabric before dyeing to get darker tones and finding the results are very pleasing. The two day workshops advertised above will include this technique.

:: Signed copies of Slow Stitch are now available here. The book is reviewed in the November/December issue of Embroidery, on the Textile Artist website and in the Winter edition of UK Handmade magazine. Thank you so much to all those who have purchased a copy and who have sent me so many positive messages about it. 

material evidence

I recently spent a day at Sunny Bank Mills near Leeds in preparation for an exhibition that opens later this month. The mill dates from 1829 and was an important part of the huge woollen industry that once dominated this part of Yorkshire. Production continued until 2008, the spaces in the building now used for a variety of new businesses, a gallery and artists' studios. 

Material Evidence will feature the work of Clare Lane, Hannah Lamb, Lorna Jewitt and myself. The work is a response to the extensive buildings around the site, some now semi-derelict and the textile processes fundamental to the development of the place. 

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I am excited to be exhibiting my work in this space, the former Finishing Room. I've been researching and writing about a dye works just over the boundary in my home city, Bradford, for the last two years, partly as I worked towards my Masters degree. The area I researched is lacking in traces of the former dyeing industry - just paths and  the edges of the space remain. Exhibiting in this space, where the traces of the industry, the work and labour connected to the building have been so recently in use has been an interesting contrast. I'll be showing 'Dyers' Field', a slow, performative absorption of colour into woollen cloth, alongside some altered fragments of cloth, wood, and plant material. I've also made some smaller stitched pieces of work and these will be for sale.

Material Evidence opens at Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley, Leeds on October 24th and runs until November 29th.

:: Thank you to all of you who commented on my last post, and for the lovely things you said. My six year old kindly assisted in drawing a winner who was Tess Hardy - Tess, contact me by email with your address and I'll put it in the post to you.

slow stitch - book giveaway

I am very pleased to share that my book 'Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art' was published last month by Batsford with wonderful photography by Michael Wicks. I am hugely grateful to the artists and community groups who contributed beautiful images, words and stories to this project. They are: artists Abigail Doan, Alice Fox, Pat Fuller, Lotta Helleberg, Celia Pym, Roanna Wells, Hannah Lamb, Kate Bowles, Christine Mauersberger, Mandy Pattullo, Judy Martin and Roz Hawker, The Manitoulin Circle, Naye Subah, Parkside Creative Threads and Hive community projects, and stitchers from my community education classes for the Workers' Educational Association, Cath, Pat, Sue, Mary and Vicki. It has been such a pleasure working with all of you. 

I have one copy to give away (and will post worldwide),  if you are interested in receiving one please leave a comment on this post and I'll draw a winner on Sunday (11th October). 

Update:: Thank you to all who commented on this post and for all your kind words. Congratulations Tess Hardy, please email me with your address and I'll pop it in the post.

summer yellow

Yellow dominates in the dye bed at this time of year. Tansy, goldenrod, dyer's chamomile and tormentil (which actually produces a red dye if you use the roots). This season I've been admiring the plants in full bloom more often than using them for dye. It's been a different experience and as some of these were grown from seed this year gives them a chance to get properly established. 

(Although today I harvested a handful of chamomile flowers and steeped them in boiling water to quickly dye a skein of silk - the vibrancy of the shade is too good to miss). 

Slow Stitch - book news

I've been quiet about this but can now share some news. I'm delighted that my first book, 'Slow Stitch: Mindful and contemplative textile art', will be published in September by Batsford. A practical book that shares ideas for creating a meaningful and thoughtful approach to textile practice, it also includes wonderful work from international textile artists. I'll be sharing more information about it soon and the book is available to pre-order here.

The images are not from the book, but the beginnings of 'Dyer's Field' - a four month stitch and local dye project.

Home Ground film

I recently had the pleasure of working with Richard and Arron from R&A Collaborations on a film as part of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen project Home Ground. They came and spent a day with me at my studio and allotment (pretty cold in early February and not many dye plants growing...) and talked about slow, localised craft practices. Here it is...

studio

Slow work in the studio today. Oak galls and iron travelling along the edge of some local worsted cloth, dyer's detritus in the sink. Making time for a few stitches on my stitch journal. I should be tidying up, working out quantities and weights for some mordanting. Another day. 

everydayness

It's been far too long since I last posted here. My blogging hiatus has mostly been due to research and writing commitments, the end of several projects all coming at the same time.

I'm continuing to work on a personal project that is exploring the area around a former dye works, walking a familiar route and recording using photography, collecting and making. The same research leads me back to the archive where I am investigating the communities that lived and worked in the area. I managed to collect some early foliage on my walk this week, wild raspberry and brambles, for a very small dye bath. The season has begun.

There is an everydayness in my approach to this project now, I've been working in the area for over two years, both with community groups and by myself. I'm interested in exploring whether a slowness of method can activate some reimagining of a place, long after most of the industry (in this case dyeing) has ended.

Some other things...

:: A couple of additions to my Spring/Summer workshop schedule here.

:: I'm presenting a paper as part of the 'Infinite and Various' Conference, about Bradford Textile Archive, at Bradford College in April. More details here. 

:: I'm going to try to restart some regularity in blog posting, but most often at the moment I can be found here on instagram. Say hello if you use it too.

winter: inside

More light is beginning to filter into the days here but the greyness and dormancy of this time of year is something of a struggle. 

I'm working on some new pieces, continuing with themes begun for this exhibition last year. The colours are more muted - the season dictates this - my local sources of colour are limited by this part of the growing year. I am enjoying the way the dyes travel through the wool I am using. Pieces are left to absorb colour for several days, and I find time each morning to go down to the studio to check on their progress and to maybe sadden the colour with a solution of oak galls and iron. 

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(Re)reading:

Edgelands by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts - beautiful prose exploring urban/rural wildness mostly around Northern English landscapes.

Enjoying:

The return of Tinctory, so lovely to read Eva's writing again.

winter: outside

Gone to seed Japanese Indigo frozen in the back yard. I gathered enough seed earlier in the Autumn for planting in the next few weeks.

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Dyer's chamomile - the beginning of a new year of growth just starting to show.

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Scraps of local colour now under ice on the back wall. They have been outside 'weathering' for a few months. I imagine they will be beautifully soft when I bring them inside and start to stitch them.