Online Card Shop

croft house greetings cards

It has been a long time coming but, at long last, I have created a range of greetings cards based on some of my more popular stitched works. At the moment, there are collections based on the little croft designs, the more abstract landscape interpretations of the Ardmair area and a couple of designs suitable for use as Christmas or Winter Solstice cards. Of course, they are all blank inside, so you can use them for any occasion you wish! Visit the Card Shop to see them for yourself.

Online Textile Shop

This might also be a good time to tell you about the new on-line Textile Shop. I have a few large stitched wall-hangings that are looking for a new home, so I have listed them for sale, some of them at a much-reduced price. They all come ready to hang and the price included postage and packaging.

Treat yourself, or someone you love!

New Work

Fabric of the Land - New Direction

In making new work for The Fabric of the Land exhibition, I found myself looking more and more to the moors for inspiration. Strangely, their expansive flatness makes them huge in my subconscious, even more pervasive than the hefty mountains that dramatically interrupt their slow and steady existence. And so, in a series of small works, I have started to explore the liminal point between life and decay as it manifests itself in the peat bogs and high moors of Sutherland.

To see the beginning of this new direction, have a look at the Fabric of the Land textile gallery. Soon, however, as this theme develops, I will start a new gallery of work which at this stage I think will be called "Turf".

The Fabric of the Land

With each year that I spend living my life in this rugged yet bountiful landscape I find that, in order to draw closer to the essence of the place, more and more am I using natural materials and simple methods in the mark-making and construction of my textile works. I am now into my fifth year of experimenting with eco-printing, a skill worthy of an honours degree! And so most days I have a witch's brew of plants and fabric simmering away in the oven of Ruby, my red Aga. More recently, I have begun to make my own pigments for print-making, using plant inks and the soft rocks found in and around my garden. I am very excited by the influence of time, chance, climate and season on the results of these experiments and this is having a profound effect on my work.

This year, I felt ready to share what I have learned and so, in September 2018, I launched a new course called The Fabric of the Land. It was such an exciting week, with some unpredicted results and the quality of prints far exceeded my expectations. We all learned a great deal. The photographs on the course page are well worth a look, so click on the link above. And the June 2019 class is a nearly full, so if you are interested in rolling back time and immersing yourself, or at least your hands, in the raw materials that make up the fabric of this land, best to book now!

For those of you unable to devote a full week to these processes, then you could come along to an introductory weekend in May 2019 called Easy Eco-printing.

Easy Eco-printing Course

eco-printing-course

Most of my recent textile work is full of the rich marks and subtle colours that are created through the magical process of eco-printing, whereby the colours, markings and shapes of plants are transferred directly onto cloth. It is a very subtle art, and so I have spent a lot of time over the last few years trying to perfect it. Now I feel I know enough to start sharing this hard-won knowledge through a new weekend course – Easy Eco-Printing. And this technique also plays a significant part in the week-long Fabric of the Land course too.

So, if you are interested to learn, have a look and then book! This year’s Fabric of the Land course filled up a year in advance, though, so don’t dally if you are keen.