March

Dyeing for Wonderwool is still continuing apace. Who knows what situation we will be in come April, but for now I am working to the plan that we will all be gathering at the end of April, and if not, then there will be lots of lovely fibre ready for the online shop, and I'll be able to take a bit more time off than Would normally for a few weeks. 
February has been an extraordinarily wet month here with nearly as many inches of rain as there were days in the month, and one day when we got 3 inches (7.5cm) in a single 24 hour period

Combined with some ferocious winds it's left us feeling a bit battered, but everything is still standing, a few things are a bit damper than normal, and it's amazing what a couple of days of sunshine can do for the spirits! 
​The bad weather, and the fact that the DVLA are still processing my driving license has meant for a rather dull month. I taught a workshop at Avon Guild, but requiring a chauffeur meant I won't able to extend my stay and explore the local area as has become my habit when travelling to different parts of the country. 
However, at the end of the month I had a pre-planned trip to London to do lots of lovely textile things. 

It's a long time since I went to a fibre festival as a visitor, so a walk around The Stitch Festival was really lovely. It's different enough to the fibre shows for me to really enjoy seeing new things and getting new ideas. I ended up with lots of fabric to make a quilt for my Aunty, I had a plan in mind, and if you want to mix and match lots of fabric nothing beats seeing it in person specially when you're trying to match a specific shade of red! 
It was lovely to be in a warm and indoor venue, with loads of extra seating, though after the spacious aisles of Wonderwool it did feel a bit claustrophobic in the main shopping area. I fell in love with the beautiful dried flower embroideries by Olga Prinku.
​On a making front, I sewed myself a new skirt using some Liberty Chambray that was excellent for swooshing around London in. I have also managed to finally put up some beautiful prints of the textile art created by Rachel Wright. Though changing around pictures has led to the discovery that there is none of the paint left I used in my living room, which has left some great big nail holes on display. I'd been thinking about changing the wall colour anyway, so have just bought a huge tub of yellow paint... really yellow. 

A trip to London also meant a visit to The Fashion and Textile Museum to see the exhibition on 50 years of The Designers Guild, which provided lots of colour inspiration, but sadly very little by way of textile inspiration. It felt a little bit like walking through time capsules of their showroom displays, and very little information about the textiles themselves. 
If you are in travelling distance of London however I can't recommend the  Unbound: Visionary Women Collecting Textiles exhibition strongly enough. So many beautiful pieces, and lots of detailed information about them. Plus the Two Temple Place venue is an absolute delight. 
Many of the photos don't do this exhibition justice, but I have tried to make sure I took photos of the captions, which should follow the photo of the exhibit itself.

We then crossed over the river, and went to look at the Costume Display at the National Theatre, where I completely failed to take photos, but rather handily put us next to the Skylon bar where we had an evening of cocktails, with the most fabulous service from the waiting staff, and a view of the river Thames. 

Last month I teased you with some weaving photos of the hand dyed range of warps I'm working on. These won't be going in the online shop until after Wonderwool, but I have updated the website to include all the technical information you might want know about them.