Textile Workshops at Chiswick House

Prints made by participants at Neera Sehgal's workshop

 

Recently my daughter treated me to a day of workshops at Chiswick House, London.  These were part of Selvedge Magazine's London Textile Month and the artists leading the workshops were Neera Sehgal, woodblock artist & screenprinter, Tomoko Yamanaka, clothes designer & machine knitter, and Rachna Garodia, weaver.  They all have their studios at Chiswick House. 

 

Printing blocks and paints in Neera Sehgal's studio

The day started inauspiciously as our train was late and we missed our bus. Even arriving a little late, we still managed to get there in time to enjoy our first workshop which was with Neera Sehgal doing block printing. I loved Neera's business card...

Neera Sehgal's business card

Neera had lots of materials to choose from and we all had our own palettes to add our choice of paints to. We had different papers to print on and finished the session printing onto a cotton handkerchief.  It was great fun.

My block printing on paper and cotton handkerchief

Next, we then moved on to try our hand at machine knitting with Tomoko Yamanaka and could make a small neckpiece or a little bag.  Tomoko was very patient with us and helped us sort out all our mistakes - or maybe I should say she helped me sort out all my mistakes.

Tomoko Yamanaka's studio with knitting machines, sample neckpieces, Tomoko's clothing samples

I was delighted with my finished neckpiece (I wove in the ends at home and washed and pressed it)...

My finished neckpiece

Our final workshop was with Rachna Garodia doing some paper weaving. Although we were working outside, we got a chance to look round her studio which was full of interesting weavings...

Some of Rachna Garodia's work on display in her studio

Rachna had prepared lots of paper weaving pattern samples.  We could choose a pattern to try and weave...

Rachna Garodia's weaving pattern samples

We had to cut our base paper to form a warp and then chose a photo which we cut up to form the weft.  I chose a picture of peeling paint for my weft. Here are my results...

My weaving pattern and the remains of my photo that formed the warp

After the workshops, we had a bit of time to try out the cafe at Chiswick House (v. nice) and have a short walk round the grounds.  We saw a couple of weddings so you can obviously get married there too but that wasn't on our agenda.  The grounds at Chiswick House are free to look round and are open everyday from 7am till dusk.  The Kitchen Garden is open Thursday to Sunday 10.30am – 3.30pm where they sell fresh seasonal produce.  All in all it was a splendid day!

Earth Matters, Inverleith House Gallery, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Interwoven - Stevi Benson

 

Recently I took a side trip from my holiday in Fife to see the Earth Matters exhibition at Inverleith House Gallery in the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.  This exhibition is inspired by James Hutton, born 300 years ago in Edinburgh, who was a geologist, farmer and thinker and changed the way we understand the earth beneath our feet. He alerted us to the fact that the surface of the earth is continually changing as a result of natural process that take place over enormous timespans.  The exhibition showcases work by over 30 artists who are inspired by the earth and its processes.

Here's just a small flavour of the exhibition...

50 Shades of Scottish Soil - James Hutton Institute
(and they're not all grey!)

I particularly liked that the exhibition walls were painted in soil colours from different areas of Scotland, from deep red (Merkins, West Dunbartonshire) and terracotta/russett (Dundonell, Ross & Cromarty) through deep blue/grey (Clockhill, Aberdeenshire) to ochre (Lephinmore, Argyll & Bute).  The National Soils archive is held in the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen and holds over 60,000 samples from 15,000 locations.

The Unconformities (Jedburgh, Castle St, Salisbury Crags) - Louise Bennetts

Louise Bennetts has handpainted her fabrics with soil and stitched them to represent her interpretation of John Clerk's illustrations in Hutton's book "Theory of the Earth". The pieces do indeed look like a cross-section of geological strata...

The Unconformities (Jedburgh, Castle St, Salisbury Crags) - detail - Louise Bennetts

Maria McStay has embedded and coloured her vessels with a variety of rock fragments collected from Gullane Bay, East Lothian.  She hopes the added handles suggest a shared responsibilty for the land...

Collective Futures - Maria McStay

Ilana Halperin's print uses ink coloured from soil from James Hutton's Farm in Slighhouses in the Scottish Borders...

James Hutton (Parent Material) - Ilana Halperin

In late 1990 Wilhelmina Barns-Graham visited Tentsmuir in Fife and photographed the fungi which she later painted...

Mushroom Series No 6 - Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

Constanza Dessain's fascinating work records the process of osmosis, leakage, decay and rot of fruits and vegetable scraps...

Studio Compost (detail) - Constanza Dessain

Stevi Benson's fabulous papercuts (below and top image) represent the structure of tangled mycelium (fungi) threads beneath the forest floor...

Interwoven (detail) - Stevi Benson

Kevin Andrew Morris has made a series of spade heads from clay dug from a former brickworks in Aberdeen, reflecting on past industry and past agricultural methods...

Field Work - Kevin Andrew Morris

July Fields by June Eardley captures the corner of a coastal field, probably near Catterline in Aberdeenshire where she lived in later life, showing lots of species.  Current industrial farming methods and the removal of hedgerows reduces the ecodiversity...

July Fields - Joan Eardley

This earth has been salvaged from the eroding coastline at Buckhaven in Fife where otherwise it would have been lost to the sea, echoing Hutton's assertion that the surface of the earth is continually changing.  I love the way River of Earth has been sieved and presented... 

River of Earth - Becky Little & Tom Morton

Fiona Young's prints look so real you feel you can almost touch the plants and soil. Young is trying to draw our attention to the importance of soil to both our physical and mental wellbeing.  We rely on it to grow food to keep us fit & healthy and to support the natural environments that we enjoy to be out in...

Earth Works - Fiona Young

There are several cafes in the Botanic Garden.  I tried the Gateway Cafe at the main entrance and had some excellent soup followed by coffee and cake - yum!

Coffee & Cake - Gateway Cafe
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

This exhibition is on until Sunday 1 November 2026 - definitely worth a visit.  I have only shown a small part of what's being exhibited - go see!

Making Nettle Paper

My homemade nettle paper

 

Recently I've been making nettle paper with my daughter and the help of Helen Cook's pamphlet - Making Paper from Stinging Nettles.  To be honest, I got to do the fun bit.  My daughter had already picked the nettles, striped them, soaked and retted them.

Helen Cook - Making Paper from Stinging Nettles

We took the retted nettle fibre...

Retted Nettle Fibre

and with some tweakments added it to a washing up bowl of water...

Our equipment - nettle fibre, washing up bowl and water, scissors, mould and deckle

and then scooped up the nettle fibre with the mould and deckle...

Mould and deckle with nettle fibre

The soon to be paper was then tipped out onto a tea towel and sandwiched between some felt.  Then you have to apply something heavy to squeeze the water out...

Something heavy must be applied to squeeze the water out

Then the paper is left to dry... 

You have to peel off the dried paper from whatever it's drying on...

And there you have it - paper from stinging nettles.  I think we need to refine our mould and deckle technique to get a more consistent thickness of paper that covers the whole mould without any holes in the sheet of paper...  

Nettle paper of varying thicknesses

I plan to do some stitching in my nettle paper.  Watch this space...

Delcy Morelos - origo - Barbican, London

Delcy Morelos - origo

 

Delcy Morelos is a Columbian artist who makes all of her artworks by hand.  Her large installation, origo, made of soil, was outside the Barbican, London, until the end of July 2026.  

Meaning origin in latin, origo, was inspired by Andean and Amazonian traditional world views.  The material it was formed from, soil/earth, is seen as life giving and receiving, where food is grown and bodies are buried - the cycle of life.

Delcy Morelos - origo surface

It was 24m wide and took 10 tonnes of earth and clay that was applied over a month by Morelos and her team.  It consisted of a mixture of cinnamon, cloves, hay, soil and clay (and perhaps a little concrete?). It was rock hard and was applied over a wooden structure. 

Polo shaped, though more elliptical than round, part of it is like a tunnel/cave that you can walk through.  Internally it is quite dark and plant matter hangs down from the sides. Morelos calls the cave like structures within origo, profundis, and these are deemed to resemble burial sites.  Morelos sees the installation as both monumental (in scale) and humble (in terms of its materials). 

Delcy Morelos - Inside origo

It is pierced by a number of trapezoidal doorways into the structure and through it. (see first and last images) 

Origo appears suspended as though it is hovering just above ground level...

Delcy Morelos - Floating origo

The installation and the Barbican bear the traces of touch and a shared texture - origo by its handmade nature, and the Barbican with its rough concrete finish.

I got to see origo at the end of its show and would have liked to have seen it in the making too.  (And I would've liked to have tried climbing on it but that wasn't allowed).  It would have been even more impressive if it was twice the height and made entirely of soil and clay but I imagine time, resources and health & safety concerns probably precluded that.

Twined Pod Forms with Spiral Patterns - Mary Crabb

My finished pod forms

 

Recently I went on a course, led by Mary Crabb, to learn how to create twined pod forms with spiral patterns.  It was one of West Dean College's short courses at their Bloomsbury Campus in London.

Mary Crabb

Mary Crabb's pod forms with spiral patterns

Mary is a skilled basketmaker. Having started out working in willow, Mary now makes small woven creations using both natural and man-made materials to create detailed, decorative forms using twining, looping and coiling techniques.

Mary Crabb's pod forms with some more complicated spiral patterns

We were here to learn how to make twined forms with a spiral pattern which Mary demonstrated for us and also provided notes as an aide memoire.  We worked with paper yarn in a range of colours using thicker yarn for the warp and thinner yarn for the weft.

Thick paper yarn (used for the warp) and thin paper yarn (used for the weft)

We started by making a small simple sample to get the hang of the process.  Here's mine...

My sample

After that we moved on to our main piece of the day which had a spiral pattern.  I opted to do a simple spiral but other participants were more adventurous and went for wider 4 colour spirals which Mary explained.

My simple spiral pod form

We also began another piece which I finished at home with a slightly more adventurous two row spiral...

My pod form with a deeper spiral

At the end of the day we put our pod forms out so everyone could have a look...

Everyone's pod forms

It was a super day and although progress was slow as it often is with handmade craft, it was very enjoyable.  Thank you, Mary and West Dean.

My initial sample finished as a small pod form with a simple spiral

Yorkshire & Humber Embroidery Group (YHEG) Summer School - July 2026

 

My finished piece from Rebekah Johnston's workshop

Every year the Yorkshire & Humber Embroiderers' Group (YHEG) organise a residential Summer School at Bishop Burton College near Beverley, East Yorkshire. It is a two and a half day stitching extravaganza. This year there were 4 workshop streams to choose from, each led by a different tutor.  This year's tutors were:

Rebekah Johnston - The Fabric of Home

Toni Buckby - Introduction to Historic Blackwork Embroidery 

Rachael Singleton - Re-Imagined

Kate Slaughter - Waxing Lyrical with Colour and Print

I am a member of YHEG but this is the first year I have been to Summer School. I took Rebekah Johnston's workshop.

Examples of Rebekah Johnston's work

Rebekah Johnston - The Fabric of Home
Rebekah is a Nottingham based textile artist working with repurposed domestic fabrics and natural dyes to create quilts and textile pieces rooted in memory, resilience and a sense of home. Her practice combines hand-stitching, needle-turn and raw edged applique, boro inspired mending, darning methods, distressing fabrics, as well as quilt construction and binding methods.

Rebekah's natural dyed fabric & threads & commercial threads for us to use 

Rebekah’s workshop was inspired by her quilt project “The Fabric of Home”, which explored the meaning of home through cloth, memory, and repair. Images of the quilt and examples of her work were at the summer school to introduce the theme and activities of the weekend.

My piece (see top photo) was based on a repeating theme of a window in my house. Other participants'work from Rebekah's workshop can be seen below...

 Some of the participants' work from Rebecca Johnston's workshop

At the end of the weekend everyone lays their work out and we get a chance to go round and see what everyone has done in the different workshops. As a bit of background here's a little about the other tutors and what each workshop offered, taken from the Summer School info...

Toni Buckby - Introduction to Historic Blackwork Embroidery 
Toni Buckby is a Sheffield based artist working with traditional textile techniques, experimental digital/electronics, and acts of collective making. Her work explores ideas of skilled practice, the value of labour, the visibility of authorship, and the creation and accessibility of practical knowledge. Specialising in fine hand embroidery, Toni is currently undertaking a PhD with Sheffield Hallam University and the Victoria & Albert Museum, investigating how fine art practice can be used to reconstruct, interpret, and present fragile and inaccessible Blackwork embroideries.

The summer school project consisted of one of Toni's Historic Blackwork Kits with pre-printed fabric, embroidery threads and needles.

Some of the participants' work from Toni Buckby's workshop

Rachael Singleton - Re-Imagined
Rachael Singleton is an experimental textile and mixed media artist living in South Yorkshire. Her work brings together creative thought and practical engagement with a variety of materials. Layering forms her signature process through the use of varied materials in order to make her ideas come to life.  She is inspired by the natural world. 

Working with a well known favourite painting, students ‘mined’ their images of it for various visual elements, collecting a bank of patterns to translate onto cloth. The aim was to create a range of samples that could be reconstructed into abstracted designs by either hand or machine stitching.

Some of the participants' work from Rachael Singleton's workshop

Kate Slaughter - Waxing Lyrical with Colour and Print
Kate Slaughter is a textile artist, dyer, and tutor who takes inspiration from the beautiful flowers and landscapes of Northumberland and Cumbria. She creates hand painted yarns and threads in a range of colours, adding unique texture and character to her designs.

Kate's workshop taught students how to transform plain fabrics with surface decorative techniques including wax crayons, bondaweb, inktense ink blocks, transfer paints and wooden printing blocks. Participants were also encouraged to add additional surface decoration using simple hand embroidery with a range of different threads and yarns. 

Some of the participants' work from Kate Slaughter's workshop

Kate also had some very colourful threads and kits for sale...

Kate Slaughter's Kits & Threads 

Apart from the luxury of two and a half days stitching with like-minded souls there was good food (Yorkshire portions), a superb walled garden and pleasant accommodation.  Thank you to the fab tutors and to Pauline and the other YHEG organisers - it was a great weekend!  

It was the heatwave weekend so it was very hot.  Afterwards I took myself off to Bridlington for a swim and an ice cream which was the perfect end to a very enjoyable Summer School...

Bridlington South Beach

Refreshment after a swim