Hi I’m Sam, a fashion and textiles teacher, quilter, embroider, fabric and thread enthusiast! I’ve been into textiles for over 20 years having studied a degree in textiles at West Surrey College of Art and Design (now UCA) in the 1990’s. I’ve explored a range of textile techniques and processes since my degree, firstly hand embroidery, progressing to machine embroidery and then into patchwork and quilting. I had my first patchwork class with Carolyn Forster at The Quilt Room, Dorking and from there I was hooked.
I’ve been quilting for about six years and there are two sides to my quilting, my “switch off” sewing and my art quilts. I was lucky enough in 2014 to be able to study on the Wet n Wild course, with Claire Benn and Jo Lovelock, at Committed to Cloth. I had been trying to get on the course for ten years – working hours just didn’t fit in with their timetable, every time I managed to change my teaching timetable there either wasn’t a space for me or they had changed the day they were running it on! One Friday, just as I was leaving work, an email pinged through from Claire saying she had decided to run one last course from the current venue ……at a weekend! I didn’t need to think twice, without consulting my diary (or my husband!), I immediately replied yes please and the rest is history. I have now been working out of the studio for the last four years and from the first weekend it has been like a light bulb moment every time I go there.
I’ve learnt lots about print techniques and am now at a stage where I’m trying to develop my work to exhibit it, I never thought I’d be saying that. Last year saw me for the first time enter a quilt into Festival of Quilts, quite a nerve racking experience and I was also asked to work in the Textile Studio, demonstrating some of the techniques I’d learnt. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Festival, I’m already working on something that may be exhibited there this year and I’m proud to say I’ve also been invited back to do some more demo’s – no pressure!
Aside from the art quilts I also attend a quilt class at Southill Park in Bracknell – well it gets me out of bed on a Monday morning – that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! Here I have made friends with a lovely group of ladies who have become very special quilting buddies, some of them joined me at Festival last year and we had a fantastic few days away indulging in all things quilting. We all like different things and it was great meeting up in an evening showing what each of us had bought or discussing what had inspired us that day, I’m looking forward to round two this August. On a Monday I do my “switch off” sewing, I don’t have much time for any kind of sewing but in an evening it’s nice to be able to pick something up that I can do whilst watching the tv and winding down from a busy day in the studio with my lovely students.
Well I think I’m at the end of my first blog post, in future posts I’m hoping to show you a range of things that I’m up to both in my quilting and in my teaching. Thanks for reading, if you have any questions you want me to answer or would like to make any comments please do, I look forward to hearing from you.
Hi Sam, great to see you on here.
Hi Carol thankyou hope you’re well x
You are definitely a blogger Sam, and a good one.
Thanks Lyn I’ve got a lot to learn but am loving writing