I’ve done it again….too engrossed in “doing stuff”to remember to log my recent activities so here we go with a catch up of my creative adventures in the Scottish Highlands, early June.

I had booked a place on Jan Kilpatrick’s textile workshop, A Sea of Stitches, which would take place in her studio in Elphin.  I took a leisurely drive up, stopping the first night near Loch Lomond and the second in Drumnadrochit on the banks of Loch Ness.

On the third day I reached my base for the five day workshop, the Eileen Donan guest house in Ullapool.  The B&B was lovely and the town itself turned out to be very unspoilt, quiet and peaceful.  For the first two days I was there it was also very grey, wet and chilly but that did nothing to dampen our spirits.

The following day at 10am I met Jan and the 6 other participants in a park down by the beach.  After introductions and a brief overview of the workshop Jan sent us off to make personal records of the images, colours, textures and patterns from Ullapool’s beach and harbour and from the open and sweeping pebble beach at neighbouring Ardmair.

After about an hour of beach combing in torrential rain we moved up to Ardmair Beach, still pouring with rain, where Jan greeted us dispensing much appreciated flasks of hot drinks and home-made cake from the boot of her car.  I had to stick to using my camera as, by this time, my hands were so cold I couldn’t grip to use my pencil!

The rest of the week just flew by.  Each day we began a new piece of work, inspired by our research on day one, using a different method of mark making on fabric.    This included painting, dyeing, burning, hand and machine stitching.

By the end of the five days we had all amassed 100’s of photographs, a stack of small coloured fabrics and a head full of ideas for future projects.

All in all it was a very inspiring week with spectacular scenery and excellent company.