October Speaker

Our Speaker for October is Pat Ashton Smith.  Her talk is entitled "In Search of a Voice".

Pat lives on top of a hill in the beautiful Allendale Valley in Northumberland, UK with her two daughters and their  animals.  Originally trained as a lawyer, she discovered the wonderful world of textile art when her children were young and went on to study embroidery, quilting and textiles gaining her City & Guilds Diploma and qualifying as an Adult Tutor.

She has nearly 20 years experience of teaching and lecturing to a wide variety of groups including delivering City & Guilds Creative Embroidery.  She loves to introduce  her learners to  new and traditional techniques and to see  their excitement  and enjoyment at what they create.   She likes to challenge her students to design their own work but she is also happy to provide patterns for those less confident.

She does most of her creative work at home in a lovely sunny conservatory with fabulous views across the valley to a soundtrack of lapwings and curlews.  Consequently much of her work is inspired by the local landscape and wildlife.

She is a member of the Embroiderers’ Guild, the Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles and North-East exhibiting group Twyne.   She frequently travels around the country to give talks and workshops to a variety of groups and enjoys sharing her work and techniques with other stitchers.  She also offers group  workshops  in Catton Village Hall and one to one tuition in her conservatory studio.

Examples of her work.

Our speaker at the September meeting was Amanda from Monkey Buttons.  Many of us will have enjoyed using her patterns in the past.  She gave us an insight into the additional features within her patterns and told us how her colour palette has changed from taupe to bright colours with the arrival of her grandchildren.