At the beginning of July I had a wonderful few days at Urchfont Manor College tutoring a group of distance learning students, who are all studying  courses through Distant Stitch. It seems a long way off and such a lot has happened since then.
Urchfont Manor is a lovely peaceful venue very conducive to learning and sharing ideas. We were well looked after – almost too well!
The students in my group came from as far afield as Australia, New Zealand, Italy and all parts of UK. This was an opportunity for them to meet their fellow students face to face, have tutorials with Sian Martin and take part in workshops with two invited tutors.
We were studying African textiles and bead work from my personal collection. The aim was and to use ideas sparked off by seeing and handling authentic pieces to develop personal ideas.

Each time I use pieces from my collection with students I learn more about them  myself and new discoveries are made. I often think of a comment I read by Victoria Mitchell. Textile is a hugely significant form of cultural knowledge in its own right, and one that is considerably older than writing.

Here are two of the initial ideas at the early stages. Everyone had great ideas and so I hope to show more of them in the next post.