An ever growing list of tutors and websites to help develop your textile knowledge and skills
Anne Brooke: Textile artist and workshop teacher from our 2022/23 curriculum, Anne offers a variety of workshops. Anne has now developed a tiered monthly membership system. Each involves annual projects with monthly increments. She runs regular Zoom stitch-alongs for those who enjoy a community feel. We very warmly recommend her wonderful classes!
Central Scotland School of Craft: Based in Dunblane and offering classes ranging from one day workshops to week-long courses, covering a variety of crafts.
Crewelwork. Concentrating on heritage needlework, this company offers kits, courses and up-market sewing retreats. Their designs are often based on items found in historic houses and castles.
Deborah Campbell: Inspired by Scottish coastal locations, Deborah uses Gelli Plate mono printing, layering and stitch to produce textile pieces evocative of place. She offers a variety of workshops in locations throughout Scotland. Her Gelli printing workshop with us in the 2022/23 curriculum was a big hit!
Emily Notman: Emily specialises in surface embroidery, mixed media and contemporary textiles. She teaches in person and offers occasional online workshops.
Fibre Arts Take Two: This Australian online learning company are dedicated to providing in-depth fibre and mixed media courses. The courses are expensive but the quality of the video lessons and learning resources are second to none. Tutors are international and all well known in their field. Enrollment for each masterclass only opens for a few weeks to enable the tutors to engage actively with the student cohort. Once purchased, the tutorials are permanently available in the student portal. If there is a particular tutor who appeals then the courses are to be recommended.
Gartmorehouse. Based in the Stirlingshire countryside, Gartmore offers a range of art, craft and activity residential retreats which are very reasonably priced.
Gillian Cooper: Gillian tutored City & Guilds courses in Patchwork and Quilting at both certificate and diploma levels. She is currently concentrating on her own work and shorter, in-person workshops in her home studio in Balfron.
Hand & Lock, one of the firms who worked on robes for the recent Coronation, have recently revamped their education department. They are now offering a wide range of short online courses in many specialist embroidery techniques – to be recommended.
Jenny Adin-Christie. Jenny is an RSN trained tutor who teaches specialist embroidery techniques. She has developed a range of intricately designed kits which are waiting-list only. Her online shop sells a range of custom-made slate frames and specialist embroidery materials.
Laura Kemshall is a mixed media artist who runs “Art Club” with her mother Linda. Their websites have a host of resources describing their interests and working process. Their free newsletter is always stimulating. The run a reasonably priced Substack offering also.
Mary Corbet offers a wide range of accessible tutorials for embroidery techniques. Her range of book reviews is also extensive.
Red Dress Embroidery This hub which details the development of the Red Dress community embroidery project and the calico “sister dresses” which have developed from it. Stitch Colour Cloth group is working on dress #10 in the series.
Royal School of Needlework (RSN): Offering courses, degrees, talks and more.
RSN Stitchbank: A conservation project hosted by RSN with the aim to preserve the art of hand embroidery and prevent old stitches from being forgotten. The resource is free to use and gives details of hundreds of embroidery stitches. In addition to the academic references it shows the steps in forming the stitch both as diagrams and as video clips. A fantastic reference resource to dip into.
Samantha Townsend is one of only a few tutors in Scotland to offer C&G tuition. She has taken over the teaching of C&G patchwork and quilting from Gillian Cooper from Autumn 2025, and will be using the model developed by Gillian.
Scottish Stitch and Textiles: The umbrella organisation of Scottish independent stitching groups and host of an annual summer school.
Sharon Boggon is probably best known for her “Take a stitch Tuesday” initiative. She has a contemporary stitch practice plus a wide range of resources to explore.
Stitchery Courses A directory of tutors from several textile branches.
Tartan Caledonia: A Perthshire weaving studio focused on tartan and tweed, also offering tuition.
TextileArtist: A community of textile and fibre artists. The website has a host of free resources including interesting interviews with a variety of fibre artists. A monthly membership, currently £27, gives access to fortnightly online tutorials with selected tutors plus access to the back-catalogue of lessons.
The Embroiderers’ Guild: A charity dedicated to educating people of all ages about embroidery and offering a range of short “Inspired to Create” courses.
The Quilters’ Guild: A national organisation with an emphasis on quilting in all of its forms. There are many active regional groups. With the growing popularity of mixed media techniques, the divide between quilting and stitch is increasingly blurred.