Two Trips to Unique

On Saturday Al and I travelled to Spalding to visit the Open Studios at Unique Cottage Studios.  These are a series of farm outbuildings that have been converted to artists' studios and an exhibition space and there is now the addition of a lovely café.
All the artists were in their studios, demonstrating their skills and showing their work.  It was a very inspiring time.  Al studied ceramics a long, long time ago ('when dinosaurs were alive' according to eldest grandson) and has also done some stained glass work so he was particularly interested to talk to potter, Tony Orvis, and to glassworker, Gillian Wing.  I think he might sign up for some workshops with Tony in the near future and Gillian shared a technique of layering glass on glass, like a mosaic, that I think Al will be trying.  I was happy discussing the textiles group that meet at Unique regularly and seeing some of their work on display.  Something totally unexpected captivated us both, Katie Smith's 'Moveable Museum of Found Objects' and we had a lovely chat with Katie about her work.  I do encourage you to have a look at her website.

On Monday I was back at Unique, this time to do a workshop with lovely Angela Daymond and joined by my friend, Ros, all the way from deepest, darkest Norfolk.  The workshop was called 'Slow, Slow, Stitch, Stitch, Slow' and we worked on naturally dyed fabrics.

Angela had provided us with a lovely selection, dyed with woad, daffodil, logwood and weld, among others, and we arranged our pieces to create a new cloth in the boro/kantha tradition. Up cycling is not new!

We then started to stitch, with lots is support from Angela and using mainly a straight running stitch. So therapeutic, a quiet and relaxing day, even for Ros who doesn't "do random".