... march deals…...

Julie Arkell - ONLY TWO SPACES LEFT! Julie will be returning to Les Soeurs Anglaises from the 1st to the 7th of June 2016 to lead another of her immensely popular workshops here, this year entitled, "Birds on a Nature Table". Participants will be encouraged to bring nature books, a favourite shell, dried flowers as well as any other nature find they love, all of which will be used to populate their unique nature table. Julie Arkell is one of the UK's best recognized contemporary folk artists working in papier-maché and mixed media. She combines these with stitch, knit, ephemera, and vintage fabric and papier maché to produce her own distinctly personal and sophisticated "creatures". Everything is produced by hand using knitted adornments, curious accessories, ribbons and found objects. The results are magically creative and appealing.  Her work has been exhibited at the Crafts Council of Great Britain and the Contemporary Applied Arts, and is collected in the UK, USA, Japan and Australia. Her 2 bestselling books,"Home" & "Away" are published by the Ruthin Craft Centre. We have only two spaces left so book now to avoid disappointment! We're offering 10% off if you sign up by March 10th! Fiona Rutherford (31 Aug - 6 Sep) 15% OFF! Tapestry weaving has a rich historical tradition of storytelling. It is a craft that takes time and Fiona's workshop with us, Tapestry Weaving, is about learning, playing, and exploring your creativity at your own pace. Over the course of the five day workshop participants will be helped to discover their own personal tapestry "story", returning home with a little woven magic with a taste of France. You will be using lightweight wood frame looms and a vibrant range of Fiona’s Swedish cotton and linen yarns to weave beautiful colours and shapes on a small scale. Whether you are new to tapestry weaving or you want to take time to expand your ideas and weaving technique further in a creative environment, Fiona will guide you through the steps of how to create a tapestry, mounted and ready to take home. Sign up with a friend and you both get 15% OFF! Åsa Tricosa (30th April - 1st May 2016) 15% OFF! Swedish born Asa Soderman is widely celebrated as a problem-solving knitter and designer, and over this 2 day Masterclass (her first for us and this part of France), she will be demonstrating how to tailor beautifully crafted, top-down garments using the ziggurat technique, with special attention to all those details that make for an expertly finished garment. Participants will consider intricately constructed pockets, advanced hems with unusual pickup techniques, stitch patterns and quirky design details.  They will be guided through the process of incorporating bust darts, waist and sleeve shapings as well as  the clever use of colour - in fact, the weekend will be packed with inspirational knitting techniques. Book by 10th March and get 15% OFF

... feeling like February......

February has arrived and for most of us it has brought with it wet weather, grey skies and a bracing wind after what had been a mild warm winter so far.

On the positive side, the time indoors will be spent productively dealing with those overdue sewing tasks, whilst making an early start on the spring cleaning chores before our workshop season arrives with Åsa Tricosa's Weekend Knitting Masterclass at the end of April. Something really exciting to look forward to (Åsa's workshop, not the chores, that is).....

 

Asa Södeman is never one to sit back on her laurels; she's off to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March where you will find her hosting a couple of three-hour demonstrations:  one on Collars and Cuffs, and the other on the Marlisle technique, a new system of creating decorative texture and colour shifts in handknitted fabric with a particular focus on seamless knitting in the round.  Her workshop here will concentrate on tailoring beautifully crafted, top-down garments, with special attention to all those details that make for an expertly finished, knitted garment.  As a moderately competent knitter myself, I'm looking forward to learning those professional touches Åsa is celebrated for, as well as assimilating some of her wonderful Scandinavian colour sense. 

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Edinburgh seems to be the place to be at the moment for anyone into textiles, yarns, and all things  in-between. Fiona Rutherford, who will be leading her first workshop, Tapestry Weaving, with us in September this year, is starting her year with an exhibition of new tapestries at CONVERGE 2016 Visual Arts Scotland, 29th January - 20th February,  "I'm delighted that my triptych, "Familiar Rhythms", has been selected for this exciting mix of fine and applied art and design showing at the RSA galleries". She'll also be showing a selection of her tapestries under the theme "Fragments" at the Knitting & Stitching Show, Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, from 28th April to 1st May, when she herself will be available to talk to.  Well worth a visit!

During Fiona's workshop here, participants will be using lightwieght wood frame looms and a vibrant range of her personal Swedish cotton and linen yarns to weave colour and shape. Whether you are new to tapestry weaving or you want to take time to expand your ideas and weaving technique further in a creative environment, Fiona will guide you through the steps of how to create a small tapestry mounted and ready for you to take home.

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If, however, your neck of the woods happens to be Stateside, and Vermont at that, you might like to take the opportunity to view the work of innovative and talented "stitch artist", Emily Barletta whose work will be on view at the exhibition, Intimacy and Materiality,at the Helen Day Arts Centre in Stowe.  

We still have a few places remaining on Julie Arkell's Workshop here: Birds on a Table at the beginning of June. Julie's events here are always a joy, and participants this year will be encouraged to bring nature books they love, a favourite shell, dried flowers or any other nature find, all of which will be used to populate their unique nature table.  As usual, our regular workshop leader and firm favourite,Julie, will be sharing some her celebrated paper maché, knitting, stitching and collating techniques.

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We know that Julie would just love the fabrics of Kekfesto Cotton, a small UK importing company run by the aficionado, Gilly Thomson, which sells dozens of Hungarian, indigo printed, patterned fabrics. Reminiscent of Dutch Delft, but also remarkably similar to traditional hand-printed textiles of Japan, these textiles originally came from India, delivered as presents to the French court in the C17th and immediately became fashionable among ladies and nobles .  By the turn of the C18th more than a hundred workshops were operating in Hungary with printing technology and patterns that were top secret within each particular guild.  Today only eight workshops remain, and whilst still producing  the traditional patterns they also experiment with modern ones.  Luckily for us, Gilly stocks most of them.   

   

Enjoy a fabric-full February!

Katie

..... 12 things we've loved in 2015......

Twelve things we've loved this year and that you might enjoy...... The rediscovery of Sarah Moon, fashion and commercial photographer and film-maker since 1968, known for her dreamlike images and her representation of femininity as free from time and context. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton. Seventeenth-century Amsterdam comes alive in this meticulously researched, enchantingly told tale    Claire Wellesley Smiths' divinely uplifting blog.  So thrilled she will be joining us next year to lead  one of our new Weekend Workshops Love the music of Blue Rose Code; Edinburgh-born songwriter Ross Wilson. At the edge of contemporary alt-folk, Wilson's music evokes a meeting of Van Morrison and a young John Martyn, both shipwrecked with a bunch of Motown records. We've long been smitten with the bijou, extravagantly expensive London clothes shop, Egg.  Finally it has developed a website with an on-line shop - a bit clunky, all things considered, but gorgeous photography and edible garments.   Yes, yes, yes you can buy yarn from almost anyone, anywhere these days, but Wool Inspires, a mail-order company based in Luxembourg, is our latest flame.  The latest Otto Lenghi cookbook Nopi, named after his restaurant in Soho, London.  What's not to love about these sometimes challenging, but always delicious, Middle Eastern recipes.

A film documentary about the life and work of Sebastiāo Salgado, who has spent forty years photographing  deprived societies in hidden corners of the world.  Directed by Wim Wenders, the film is unforgettably beautiful.... and with an inspirational message.

Introduced to us by a former participant, we're just bowled over by the boundless enthusiasm and creativity of Åsa Sōderman of Åsa Tricosa (her Knitting Masterclass weekend at Les Soeurs Anglaises is at the end of April - can't wait!) New York based Emily Barletta, whose embroideries on paper are compositionally simple but conceptually complex and beautiful, straddling the two worlds of art and craft. Our continuing admiration for the dedicated work of the charity Women for Women International, which supports marginalized women in sometimes desperate situations, in countries affected by war and conflict, including North Iraq,  and offers life-changing skills to move from crisis and poverty to stability and economic self-sufficiency. We believe women are the answer and are currently funding a W4W project in the Sudan. The curiously fab, mini animations of cartoonist, Moose Allain (And I've snuck in my personal 13th:  Susu and Carol without whom Les Soeurs Anglaises would just be work and not the joy that it always is.) And a huge thank you, of course, to all our workshop leaders who have been endlessly enthusiastic, and our past participants for your continued loyalty, your many kind words and most of all for allowing Les Soeurs Anglaises to thrive in these strange and difficult times.  Without you we would not exist, and if we didn't exist what on earth would we do! Best wishes for 2016 and we hope to welcome many of you (back) here next year! Katie  Susu Carol xxx