Talks for textile, patchwork and quilting groups
Or for anyone interested in textiles and design

I travel to groups around the UK, including:

• Patchwork and quilting groups
• Embroidery Guilds
• Textile art groups
• Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers
• Area and regional days
• Special events

All of my talks are "hands-on". You'll actually get to handle my quilts, as well as many interesting and unique textiles that I've have collected on my African travels.

At all of my talks, I'll bring along some of my African fabrics and beads for sale.

A Textile Journey

The creative process is often likened to a journey.

My journey began when I first went to Africa in 1984 and I'm still travelling the buses and back roads as I research and document Africa's colourful and varied textile traditions.

In this talk, we'll focus on a fabric that has become a defining metaphor of African design, fashion and expression: Africa wax print.

African fabric meets Britain's textile and industrial heritage in a splash of colour and design.

Oh, and a few quilts as well!

African Blues

Indigo truly is 'the king of colours'. And nowhere more so than in Africa.

Mixing a bit of history with a bit of alchemy, then adding a dash of design, we'll discover the beauty, excitement and significance of this unique dye.

We'll focus on Adire and Dogon resist dyeing, Mossi cloth from Mali, Daboya strip woven cloth and costume from Ghana, and factory-produced blue print shwe shwe fabric from South Africa.

Ashanti Inspirations

Many of my quilts have been influenced by the textiles of West Africa.

Hand-woven Kente cloth and hand-stamped Adinkra cloth are just two of the textiles we'll examine and discuss.

We'll look at how these traditional cloths are made, as well as the background and meaning of their designs.

And you'll see in a selection of my quilts how these traditional African designs can inspire your creative work.

Big Is Beautiful

African Costume and Clothing

In Africa, the bigger the occasion, the more important it is to show off.

And what better way to display your status, importance and wealth than by what you wear?

Grand flowing boubous, enormous embroidered trousers and Bolgatanga underwear are just a few of the items from my collection that you can admire and handle.

Plus, we'll need a model or two!

Under African Skies

Focusing on cloths from my collection, we'll look at West Africa's long tradition of hand-dyeing fabrics.

We'll examine indigo from Guinea, Mali and Kano; resist dyed Adire; Kola and indigo from The Gambia and batiks from Ghana.

Then we'll leap forward to see contemporary dyers building on the past to create new techniques and designs.

And, we'll see how I've used these fabrics in my quilts.