Must try harder

as my teachers always said! I have been busy, just not astonishingly productive. We had teenagers to stay so the house had to be made ready, then it had to be made tidy again and unteenaged! Not that they were too bad bless them; they went to Hastings together and played Crazy Golf on the seafront - mad things. It's a regular ritual when they come and stay. Should I admit to never having played Crazy Golf?

I've been doing little bits of stitching here and there, mostly on the Homage Cloth and my breakdown printing piece which is finally coming together, albeit slowly. I won't post pictures today is it's getting dark outside and artificial light just doesn't pick up the colours properly. I will announce an adventure though. I have next week off work and am going to another workshop with Leslie Morgan at Committed to Cloth. Having worked my last work day today I can now begin to believe I'm having a holiday (life is stressful in the world of libraries just now!)

So, this is what I'll be doing next week, every day. Won't that be fun? I've got some fabric to take with me - 3 metres of cotton poplin, and will buy some of Leslie's lovely cotton sateen while I'm there; it takes colour so very well. Even better, one of my friends from Studio 11 is coming too, so we can swap notes and report back at our next session there.

We've been advised to take some picture inspirations along, so I've put together some images to work with:

Klee - just love the colours here and the way this looks like a quilt. I'm taking another image of his as well for contrast

Charles Rennie Mackintosh - Harvest Moon, my favourite of his, though I've also printed out the lovely Descent Of Night

Jan Myers Newbury, whose shibori pieces are just so amazing

and Paul Nash, whose wonderful sense of mystery and the indwelling spirit of landscape has always thrilled me - though this (Landscape of the Vernal Equinox) might be a bit too gentle for the colour exercises

Hopefully these, and the other six images I'm bringing, including the beautiful Incantation Under a Winter Sun by Rima Staines, will provide plenty of inspiration. I will come home with lots of colour samples like those I did with Michel Garcia, some solid colours, some surface design pieces and a much deeper understanding of how Procion MX dyes can be mixed to get the colours I want.

I do love this dabbling in textiles - what more could you want but colour and texture all together.

Just don't ask me "what are you going to do with all the fabrics" - a common query .... I refer you to my opening statement!