This is the beginning of what I hope will be a growing list of links to websites and blogs that I enjoy. To be honest, at the moment I don’t follow a lot of embroidery or sewing blogs, mostly because there aren’t many who are concerned with the kind of work that I do.
However one that I do always look at is Cherri’s blog, at http://thecherritree.blogspot.co.uk. Cherri and I often work together on designs for her quilts, and in her blog she reports progress on her many projects
Another quilt blog that often comes up with good and original ideas is http://fastfridayquilts.blogspot.co.uk
But though there aren’t many embroidery or needlework blogs that interest me, there are a lot of art blogs out there that I drop in on occasionally. For example, there’s http://gollybard.blogspot.co.uk who has a nice feeling for birds and animals, and whose style is not unlike mine
Naive art isn’t to everybody’s taste, but it has a lot to offer anyone interested in design, and often has ideas directly applicable to textile art. One interesting naive artist is http://www.vanessa-cooper.co.uk/index.html
There’s also http://www.daphnestephenson.co.uk/index.html, another naive artist, but with quite a different style
And there’s http://www.ritchiecollins.com, a Scottish painter - and painter of Scottish subjects - whose style is deceptively naive. There’s actually quite a lot of sophistication in his work, and much of it would be beautifully suited to expression in textiles
Another well-known Scottish artist is Victoria Crowe. I like her work a lot, and again her ideas could so easily be expressed in textiles: http://www.victoriacrowe.com/index.html
If I ever run out of things to look at or think about, there is a never-ending stream of inspiration and new ideas in the stunning, eclectic selection at http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.co.uk I don’t like everything that he posts, but there are some wonderful things (listed in the archives) that I’ve never seen anywhere else
And of course I have to mention my mother’s website, maintained now by Gordon, her good friend and agent, at http://www.margohoff.com
OK, that will have to do for the moment. I will keep this section up to date as I discover new and inspiring blogs and websites