Red kite SUn 10th September 10-4 at the hearth £65 incl all materials FULL
We are so lucky to have so many Red Kites living and gliding about above our part of the North East. In Horsley you can often hear them as you get into your car in the car park and then glimpse them as they soar in and out of the clouds. This course celebrates the Red Kite and introduces you to the textile techniques that I use to build up all my birds. This is quite a big project but you will be given enough information to finish at home and a small pack of fabrics to build up your collage.
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE stating name of course.
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE stating name of course.
FULL Borrowing from boro Sun 22nd october 10-4 at the hearth £65 incl all materials FULL

Traditional Boro textiles from Japan provide the inspiration for this course where the palette will be the blues. The Boro aesthetic patchworks rags and old fabrics together and then holds them in place with lines of obvious running stitching which remind us of the lines and marks of painters and has rightly elevated these beautiful textiles, which emerged from poverty ,into what is now regarded as art pieces. In this course we will not be copying Boro as we will be mixing the cultures up a bit as I will have sourced blue worn quilts from Cumbria for you to use in conjunction with indigo and woad dyed cloth, block printed Indian and ikat fabrics. This is very much free style patchwork which is harder than you think but I shall show you how!
To be put on the reserve list for course contact me HERE
To be put on the reserve list for course contact me HERE
FULL sewing box Wed 25th October 10-4 at the hearth £65 incl materials FULL

In this course we will be drawing on the traditions of red work embroidery often found on nineteenth century American quilts and signature quilts. You will be working on to a French tea towel and making a record of, if you are a sewer, the contents of your sewing box/bag. It doesn’t just have to be your sewing box but it might be one you have inherited. This sounds as though you are going to have to be very good at drawing but I will show you techniques for getting the information on to the tea towel and if you are stuck you can use my drawings of old haberdashery items and the tools of our trade eg.scissors. You will learn which is the best thread to use and which the best stitch and you will create a unique heirloom and have a very personal project to take you through the winter.
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE
winter windowsill Sat 4 Nov at the hearth 10-4 £65 incl materials FULL

In winter a palette of muddy brown, beiges, grey and white persist with a touch of blue in there on good days. Green and Spring is yet to come. This course is based on a body of work I have made where I mix research into Ben Nicholson’s paintings of pots, jugs and windowsills with drawings I have made of the bare silhouettes of plants and a subdued soft winter palette of colours that I love. I will demonstrate how I paint up fabrics to achieve painterly cloth ( I will have done it for you as there is not time in a day to do everything) and you will get a chance to overprint if you wish and use a discharge technique to make marks on your pots. You will make one small collage which can be embellished with simple surface stitching. To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE.
FULL Pigeon Sun 5 Nov at the hearth 10-4 £65 incl materials FULL

Jimmy Floyd, one of the Pitman Painters, captured a unique way of life, particularly associated with the North East in his painting “Pigeon Crees”. You can still these structures for keeping racing pigeons all over the north, particularly on allotment sites. I have long wanted to commemorate this style of architecture and in this course you will have the choice to either create a textile picture that combines a typical pigeon loft with a racing pigeon or if you just want to have a go at doing a pigeon then you can. The shed pictures will be built up on to a patchwork of old tweeds and suiting samples and the pigeon on to the surface of a piece of quilt. You choose! This is a hand stitching workshop and I will provide all the fabrics you need.
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE
FULL christmas peg dolls sat 2nd dec at the hearth 10-4 incl fabric but small charge for hand made pegs FULL

In this workshop you should have time to make at least two original peg dolls using a palette of Christmas colours and incorporating nineteenth century turkey (!) red fabric. They will be dressed in fabric extracted from old quilts not horrible commercial Christmas fabric. I will source some interesting hand made gypsy pegs for you to use which there will be a small charge for. Some of these might be more contemporary but they will be authentic hand carved pegs. If you have some interesting pegs yourself then please bring them along. The process of dressing the doll is quite fiddly but I will demonstrate every step I take to create my own peg dolls. I like mine to remain faceless but you might like to give yours some eyes and red lips. Up to you…
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE.
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE.
FULL icon sun 3rd dec at the hearth 10-4 £65 incl some materials

I swore I would never teach another mixed media course again but here I am offering a seasonal messy play session! This a predominantly paper based course. You will start with an image – I have chosen angels and madonnas as after all it is the lead up to Christmas but you could bring a picture of some other icon – Freddie Mercury, Frida Kahlo? I will show you how to create a collaged and textured background, how to use resists, apply coloured inks, discharge with bleach and then overprint. I will provide the basics but you will need to provide some of the art materials yourself and I will provide a list of these well in advance. You will learn lots about mixed media and surface decoration techniques which you can follow through into sketchbooks if you are so inclined.
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE
To be put on the reserve list for this course please contact me HERE
Further afield in 2024
Studio Preniac France 8/05/2024 - 15/05/24 information HERE
French General France 10/06/2024 - 17/06/2024 AND 28/06/2024 -05/07/2024 information HERE
Le Manoir de Ecureils 03/10/2024 - 09/10/2024 information HERE