I gate-crashed an interview which Sue Pearl was giving to one of her students recently. Hannah Lithgow, the keen student, was studying for her A levels including A level Art, along with Biology and Geography. As part of this, Hannah's doing an EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) in Dyeing with Flower Pigments on Silk. She was looking at how effective certain methods of mordanting are, amongst other nuances of technique, and had some hypotheses to test with Sue, the seasoned expert in this field.  The conversation was fascinating. I was listening in to an eager young mind, wanting to push the boundaries of eco-dyeing techniques, experimenting with both new and traditional ways of doing things.  

We were joined at Ardington School of Crafts in September by the delightful Richard Box for another exposé of his artistic talents.  He is so popular with our students, whether for his Drawing for the Terrified, Painting for the Petrified or Machine Embroidery (also known as free-stitching) courses, and it’s easy to see why.  Richard has a very easy going and fun style of teaching that it is difficult not to love!
 
Here’s how he describes today’s Daisies workshop:
“I show the students how to start by whizzing about on my sewing machine.  Go slowly I say, breathe and smile radiantly while you are at it!  The smiling means they don't jerk – you need a nice, smooth action for this work”. Richard is hardly going slowly at this point as he demonstrates, but then he has been practicing for a few years now, and he makes it look so simple. With the correct foot for your sewing machine (a darning or free-motion foot), you really can whizz up an exciting piece of stitchery.

Do you know your warp from your weft?
 
There’s an easy way to remember which is which.  Weft goes Left to Right, so that means the Warp is the one that runs vertically through the fabric, and generally needs to be stronger because it gets stretched onto the loom.  Our expert weaver, Angela Pawlyn, talks through how she got started in weaving and what influences her work.
 
Angela got started when she and her mum went to the lake district after her father died. Her mum started to study weaving, spinning and natural dyeing, and Angela has since taken on all of her mum’s equipment and is now a prolific weaver.  She has done some work with Martin Weatherhead, a full-time designer craftsman in Pembrokeshire who teaches weaving.  His methods of threading up the loom are the ways which Angela has adopted.