I love collaboration; I find it exciting and engaging both creatively and practically. Sharing skills, knowledge and expertise is vital to creating a good outcome and I always find it pushes my own creative boundaries and helps me work better and learn all the time. Whether it is working with schools, community groups or other makers, I always find it invigorating coming up with new ideas to show them as well as seeing how they take my ideas and techniques into new an exciting directions.
The school workshop shown below covered 3D fabric manipulation and appliqué techniques, following the students’ own inspiration and research, including projects as varied as fungus & lichen, decayed building, peacock feathers and jellyfish.
The images below show a session I ran for GCSE students to create weather-inspired samples using shadow trapunto techniques.
I loved this school’s textile classroom with inspiration walls and a great display of dried fruit and vegetable skins.
Find out more about workshops for school groups here.
Ruth Singer 
Those lucky schoolkids – you certainly provided them with a very interesting workshop Ruth. and aren’t they fortunate to have a dedicated textile work room?! That must be rare. Gorgeous photos of interesting techniques.
Thanks Carol. I’ve been to a few schools with textile studios, very good to see!