New year, new blog...

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Well it’s still January - just - so we’ll risk it! We've had a lovely Christmas break, time taken to recharge and catch up with family and friends, but we also did lots of planning too!

We've kicked off the year with some more felt-making with Sarah Catchpole - making bowls and pods. Everyone had a great time and created some amazing pieces Sarah's back on 4th March with a wet felted landscape workshop.

Orange, teal and green felted bowl with an orange balloon former inside

Mauve, and green felted bowl with an orange balloon former inside

blurred out table full of craft tools, with a flat, felted bowl on the table, in focus, in progress

Our stained glass beginner weekends are fully-booked until April. We're thrilled that so many people want to come and learn about this ancient craft, although it is even more important to spread the knowledge and love as stained glass is now on the endangered list for heritage crafts. Keep your eye on our workshop page for future dates.

We also hope to plan a follow-on course too, where we can include kiln-fired paintwork and enamels so watch this space.

There are plenty of fused glass workshops on the website, some

favourites like flowers and garden

flowers, and some new bird sculptures have been popular - and brand new is our fun cactus-themed workshop - no painful prickles!

Sara Barker is back with us next month with her jewellery

enamelling and we're planning some exciting new ideas with her too - keep your eyes on social media!

Our wonderful Sign Writer, Wayne Tanswell is back with us in March - his full-day workshop is always popular: so informative and inspiring. If you've always wanted to get to grips with this wonderful craft, this is your sign.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun!)

Local artist, Debs Burrow has two new workshops coming up:

First up in March is a wonderful Meadow Hare Collage workshop where you can really let your creativity run wild and leave with unique piece of artwork;

Debs will be back in April with more inspiring work in her Paint and Collage Birds & Berries workshop.

Lino Print dates are on the website too - Helen Maxfield will be with us in April offering basic Lino printing as well as reduction Lino printing in October, and lino print Christmas Cards in November.

If clay is your thing, we’ve got you covered: Karl Greene is offering wheel-throwing lessons and practice sessions on a Monday. We've also started some Saturday workshops, each with a set theme. In these workshops, Karl will guide you through the processes to make mugs, bowls and closed forms so you can pick which one appeals to you - or do several to perfect your skill set. Take a look at our workshops page to see which ones suit you.

The Muddy Hag aka Jan, will be back with us too with some more hand building workshops.

We start off with the Highland Cows on February 8th.

So, what’s new?

Well, we've been working hard to get the a date in the diary with the wonderful Antonia Hockton, stone carver extraordinaire. We're very excited to say we have a date! Its 16th and 17th of May - a whole weekend where you'll get the opportunity to carve your very own alabaster wild boar or polar bear to take home. This incredible workshop will be limited to 6 places so don’t delay!

Love glass? Well so do we, and in our opinion there is always something new to learn too. So we are excited to be welcoming the extremely talented glass artist, Hassina Khan, who will be bringing copper foiling to our creative space. So, if you have some glass cutting skills from one of our fused glass workshops and want to try a different process, or even if you're an absolute beginner this will be a great opportunity to learn something new.

That’s a round up for now - we have lots more in the planning stages so 2026 is looking to be a busy one!

Hope to see you soon.

Danielle and Ian