This weekend’s a workshop double whammy, after a fab candle making session yesterday, it’s a silk painting workshop today. I run silk painting in the gorgeous wee craft shop on Gillygate, The York Makery. My eight booked ladies turned up nice and early and we got started on some festive silk painting, with everyone choosing or in some cases designing their four scenes for the fronts of their Christmas cards. Starting with the gutta outlines we then moved on to using the colou

Today’s class is another one run through City of York Council and we were in the same space as the Soap making class of a fortnight ago; a cookery room in Huntington School. Before my twelve learners arrived for the day I laid out each of their work spaces with moulds and equipment and arranged the central tables so that throughout the day folk could come to one spot to measure out and collect their waxes, wicks, fragrance chips and colour flakes for each candle. The five can

Today I ran another wet felt making course up in the lovely workshop space above Knit and Stitch. This week’s class was Wet Felting bowls, vases and vessels. This three dimensional way of working the fibres is one of my favourite felting techniques and teaching it is great fun too. Once everyone had decided whether to make a bowl or a vase and selected which colours they were going to use (this is one of the hardest bits, so many beautiful colours to choose from!) we started

Between now and Christmas I’m teaching a different workshop each weekend. This weekend’s class (Sat 12 November) was soap making. I ran it through City of York Council so they handled the bookings side of things and provided the teaching space, a cookery room in Huntington School. Every learner had a hob and work space. In each workspace I’d set out moulds and equipment and in the centre of the room I set up a station where everyone could come and collect their clear or opaqu

The book is finally here. I’ve been working with Lesley Seeger to design her first book for some months now. The lovely hard back book, Coming Home, is finally here and it looks fantastic (if I do say so myself). We launched it at two of my favourite galleries in the UK, the Biscuit Factory in Newcastle and then again in Pyramid Gallery in York. It can still be purchased in both the Biscuit Factory and Pyramid or you can buy it online by clicking here.