Getting ready

We’re working in the studio this week getting ready for thread - a festival of textiles at Farnham Maltings on Saturday 30th June and of course The Festival of Quilts later on in August . We have stands at both shows so that’s a lot of fabric

and thread we need to print and dye!

We don't just dye pot-luck but have several different themes, so when you visit our stand you can buy a range of fabrics and threads which complement each other beautifully. So where do we find our inspiration for colour? A lot of our colour inspiration comes from the world around us; nature provides us with the most amazing colour palettes so I thought this week I would share a few of the flowers and plants which have been inspiring us recently.

If you follow us on Instagram  or Facebook you’ll have seen our recent posts of the beautiful display of bluebells which greets us as we come up the drive.

On my allotment the vegetable beds aren’t looking their best just yet, but there was a magnificent display of daffodils earlier this spring. Just wait until the sweet peas, rainbow chard and globe artichokes get going - it will be a veritable feast for the eyes never mind the stomach!

And in my garden the tulips have finally burst into all their glory. When I set out my garden a couple of years ago I deliberately painted my garden shed a very dark inky blue to act as a foil to the ever changing pots of colour. I think it works very well, don't you?

It’s a very busy time of the year for us as we get ready for the show but I always try to make time to enjoy going out and working in my garden or on my allotment. Not only do the flowers and plants provide plenty of inspiration for my textile work but being outside tidying the borders, weeding the vegetable rows and harvest the crops as they ripen helps calm and soothe. These days I can even find joy in mowing the lawn !

So if you come to visit our stand at the various shows over the summer take a look at the fabric and threads and see if you can guess which plants and flowers have inspired us!

Hazel & Terry