Stitchtopia Craft Holidays

Hazel Tindall was born and raised in Shetland, surrounded by knitters who depended on the craft to earn an income. Speed & efficiency were the key – something Hazel picked up from an early age and has carried through her career. In 2004, Hazel was recognised as the World’s Fastest Knitter, knitting an impressive 255 stitches in 3 minutes! Throughout her career, Hazel has designed countless patterns, contributed to various publications, recorded two instructional knitting DVD’s and knitted thousands of fair isle inspired knitting pieces. Her main ambition is to help fellow knitters produce high quality knits as efficiently as possible – a nostalgic goal inspired by her childhood.

Janice is an award-winning textile artist, teacher and author. Her most recent award being the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award in Quilting at The Festival of Quilts 2019. She has published two books and has been teaching Textiles for over 30 years. Janice’s work is informed by the natural world and traditional textile techniques from many countries including Japan and Africa and her work is exhibited frequently. She is currently researching natural dyes as part of her MA in Textiles. Janice has a particular interest in traditional Japanese textile techniques including Shibori which was the subject of one of her books. When she is not travelling, Janice likes to visit museums and art galleries, listen to music, photography and reading.

Jane Greenoff is a well-known cross stitch designer, a prolific author and founder of the Cross Stitch Guild. She lives in the Cotswolds where the beautiful local buildings provided inspiration for her earliest designs, which Jane stitched for her own pleasure.

Seeing there was a gap in the market for authentic English designs, Jane started marketing her first commercial kits and an internationally successful business was born. In addition to designing counted patterns, Jane has also collaborated with Ian Lawson-Smith to produce the highly acclaimed ’iStitch2’ cross stitch software. She is the author of twenty three books including ‘The Cross Stitcher’s Bible’, which was translated into ten languages including Chinese and Russian. In January 2017 Jane stepped down as Managing Director for the Cross Stitch Guild but continues as the Guild’s Design Director.

Julie Dubreux is a French knitwear designer and knitting instructor. Her enthusiastic love for the knitting community translates into colourful collaborations with indie dyers from all around the world.

Her designs have been published in Pom Pom Quarterly, Laine Magazine and Knit Now UK, as well as in books such as I Knit Paris, My Favourite Things and Homecoming.

Julie is a very out-going, dynamic instructor. Her experience as a high-school teacher allows her to manage groups of knitters with different levels of ability so that no one feels left out, and everyone gets to learn something new.

Trained as a constructed textile designer, Jane Crowfoot has worked within the hand knitting craft industry for the last 25 years and is recognised as one of the leading designers within her field, more recently acknowledged as one of the pioneers of the UK crochet revival. Jane is a designer and maker, author and tutor specialising in contemporary and innovative crochet designs for the home interior, drawing much of her inspiration from her love of art, textiles and travel. Jane focuses much of her design work on creating imaginative and motivational Crochet Along (CAL) projects, which give the home crafter the chance to distance learn many crochet techniques by working through one of her vibrant and appealing designs in bite size instalments. Jane lives and works in North London, UK.

Katrina í Geil is a textile and knitting designer of international standing who has given lectures and workshops worldwide. As a designer she combines knowledge from knit and design with personal styling to give the garment a more personal edge.

Her work focuses on reinventing the traditional Faroese craft and culture. Her two and a half days of knitting workshops will focus on projects working with traditional garment and patterns, yet using your senses and local inspiration to create a personal design under her guidance.

After qualifying with the world renowned Body Control Pilates Association in 2004, Rosalind Hoyes has been teaching Pilates in a vast range of environments worldwide, running her own studio for many years, and latterly teaching in the form of Holidays and Retreats as well as workshops.

Rosalind qualified as an NLP Practitioner in 2010 and, having studied at Bangor University Centre for Mindfulness, has developed an effective teaching technique which, whilst true to Joseph Pilates' Classic Mat series, incorporates her skills as a Mindfulness teacher to align and strengthen both body mind. 

Carolyn Forster is a quilt designer, teacher and author from Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Since self-publishing her first book ‘Quilting on the Go’ in 2007, Carolyn has written ten more patchwork and quilting books with Search Press in the UK and Landauer Publishing in the USA. She has been a regular project contributor for magazines in the UK, including Today's Quilter, as well as abroad.

Carolyn's quilts are an eclectic mix of fabrics, a posh way to say she makes scrappy quilts, and they always have their roots from some point in the past, being inspired by quilt makers who have gone before us. Accessibility is Carolyn’s key philosophy with her teaching, demystifying techniques to allow every quilter to discover their own voice.

Teaching for Arena travel is a great opportunity to combine her love of travel and stitching and the projects for these trips will reflect and explore techniques from Quilting on the Go.

Emma Leith is a crochet designer, author and regular contributor to Simply Crochet Magazine (Immediate Media). Her work is a celebration of colour and an expression of her desire to create meaning and joy in all that she does. Inspired by Einsteins quote “Creativity is contagious pass it on” participants in her workshops feel treasured and valued by her happy demeanour and upbeat approach. Emma’s focus on the mindfulness aspect of working with yarn and colour gives an added dimension to her classes where participants enjoy a warm welcome, a space to breathe and a boost in confidence.

Internationally renowned for her yarn-bombing exploits Emma has worked on numerous large scale commissioned yarn installations and gives regular talks and presentations on this popular movement. She works closely with Rico Design Yarns, Deramores and Simply Crochet producing projects that keep crochet fresh and exciting as it continues to enjoy its resurgence in popularity.

Sasha Kagan is a well known knitwear designer who chose textiles as her medium of expression after completing a Master of Arts degree at the Royal College of Art. Her first publication "The Sasha Kagan Sweater Book" helped start the Knitwear Revolution in the 1980's and she has continued ever since to promote hand knitting as a textile art. She exhibits regularly at Made London, Wonderwool Wales, craft centers and The Knitting and Stitching shows. In 2000 she had an exhibition at The Victoria and Albert Museum which has helped to elevate the humble craft of hand knitting. Author of 7 design books, Sasha is an experienced workshop tutor and has taught extensively in the UK, USA, Australia and Japan. She has designed for Rowan Yarns since their first magazine, Vogue Knitting Magazine, Interweave Knits, The Knitter and Woman's Weekly. Sasha's passion for beautiful yarns and textiles leads her to teach knitters how to design for themselves so that they can enjoy the process as much as she does!

Karin Hellaby is an internationally known quilt teacher and author of 11 quilting books and numerous patterns. She is a regular teacher at the Houston International Quilt Show and has also been invited to teach at quilting symposiums in New Zealand, Dubai, Paducah and the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in Oregon.

Her teaching travels have taken her all over North America, the Middle East and several European countries. Her style is very much multi technique always finding ways to make patchwork simple, quick and fun to learn. Karin started Quilters Haven in 1993. It became one of the largest quilt shops in the UK and she sold it in 2016. This has given her more time to teach and travel, especially in SE Asia where two of her sons are based.

Janet Clare is an artist, textile designer, teacher, author, quilter and all-round creative thinker. She is inspired by words, sayings and lovely phrases that she comes across and also by children and the joy they find in the mundane.

Janet has created a range of quilt and stitchery patterns, written five books and designed eight fabric collections in collaboration with Moda. Her products retail in quilt shops across the UK and in her online ETSY store, as well as featuring on Create and Craft TV, where Janet presents a live show once a month. Her work features frequently in patchwork and quilting publications and as an experienced speaker and teacher, she regularly hosts talks and workshops at quilt shops, guilds and in her own studio focusing on the design process and the creative techniques she uses.

Anna is a crochet and knit designer, tutor and author of several crochet books. Her designs are regularly featured in craft magazines such as Inside Crochet and she also is a regular on Yarn Lane TV where she shares her designs and techniques. She works closely with West Yorkshire Spinners, LoveCrafts and other yarn brands. 

Anna attributes her love of knitting and crochet to her very talented mother whose stranded colourwork jumpers and hats were legendary. Even though she admits herself she really didn’t appreciate the skills in her childhood. 

She is an experienced tutor who started her knit and crochet career as a Rowan Design Consultant. She teaches regularly at John Lewis Partnership and independent yarns stores, and also virtually. Anna constantly explores new techniques and incorporates them in her classes. Confidence and skill-building is very important to her, she wants everyone who takes her class to learn something new and leave with feeling self-assured that they have unlocked their creative potential with new skills.

Sallieann Harrison is a popular designer and regular presenter of patchwork and quilting for TV’s Sewing Street. Her passion for sewing led her into the world of American patchwork and quilting in early 2000 whilst living in the USA. Since then Sallieann has gone on to complete an honors degree in education and has been teaching and working in the education sector both as a patchwork tutor and as an education compliance officer for Ofsted. Her love of sewing and depth of knowledge has led her to both exhibit and demonstrate at the Houston International Show and teach residential courses for the Women’s Institute College Denman. Her inspiring fun sewing creations (that are not always limited to quilts) can often be found in popular sewing magazines.

Pat is a UK textile artist and tutor based in Edinburgh. Her fascination for fabric began in her childhood when she discovered her grandmother’s scrap bag bursting at the seams with exotic fabrics and by the age of 11, she had created her first piece of patchwork. Throughout her creative career, Pat has exhibited her work worldwide, won some wonderful awards and even established Scotland’s first dedicated patchwork and quilting shop.

Pat loves to travel both around her home country as well as further afield. As her own horizons grow literally, then so too do the experiences that she can then express in her quilt making. She feels that each collection of quilts has its own unique identity and captures the essence of her view of the country or city.

Coming from a family whose women are talented knitters, Kathleen began knitting at a young age. Her speciality lies in knitting fine lace shawls, the first of which she knitted some forty years ago. She has won many prizes exhibiting at the Annual Royal Highland Show, including the prestigious Championship Award for the best craft item in show, which she has won five times! Her shawls have sold all over the world, including a commissioned shawl for the arrival of Prince William and Kate's first born Prince George, and a commissioned stole for the widow of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein.

Queen of Redwork Mandy Shaw, is an experienced designer and well-known personality within the craft community. Her vintage designs are instantly recognisable and often feature her trademark red and white stitching or charming applique details. Throughout her career, Mandy has contributed to a number of publications and is the author of a number of handmade crafting books which share her quirky crafting style.

Mandy is also the owner of Dandelion Designs, a well-established family run company and is a regular on Create and Craft TV showing her gorgeous patterns & kits for handmade and machine craft projects. She has also appeared on Kirstie Allsopp’s Homemade Home.

Based on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, Lucy shares her passion for crochet, colour and yarn on her blog, Attic24 http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/ . Winner of Favourite Crochet blog and Favourite Crochet Designer in the British Knitting Awards 2016, Lucy celebrated 10 years of her blog in March 2018. Lucy loves to inspire creativity in others and is best known for her blankets, in nature-inspired colour palettes, which she designs, makes and shares the patterns for on her blog.

Frederica is a knitting and crochet designer who has been working in the industry for nearly 20 years.

A self-professed sock-knitting addict, it was working as one of Rowan Yarns’ regional workshop tutors that she created the designs for Dorling Kindersley’s series of books. Having grown up with the ability to knit backwards, she loves opening minds to new techniques. After spending three years as a designer and technical editor on the Woman’s Weekly Magazine team before co-founding Love To Knit and Crochet magazine, Frederica created an online knitting shop which later became The Knitting Network.

She regularly creates new patterns and writes and films tutorials for various magazines and books including Prima magazine. Her specialism is in 3-dimensional knit and crochet design with her favourites being socks and toys.

Charlotte is an all-round crafter who loves dressmaking, quilting, and knitting. She was taught to sew as a small child by her mum, grandma and schoolteachers, and now loves to pass her knowledge on to others. Charlotte was the winner of BBC’s Great British Sewing Bee 2016, and lives in London with her husband, kids, pets and sewing machines.

Hélène Magnússon is a French-Icelandic designer with a degree in fashion design. She believes the best way to preserve traditions is to keep using them, giving them new life. A former lawyer, shepherdess and mountain guide, she established her knitting design studio in 2010 and gained international recognition with her distinctive style inspired by tradition, with a modern twist.

She is the author of numerous books on Icelandic knitting and her patterns are published in magazines, books, on Ravelry and on her website, where she also sells a large selection of Icelandic yarns and kits.

 In the hope that it would help revive some of the old knitting traditions, she created her own line of soft and fine Icelandic yarns (Love Story, Gilitrutt and Katla).

She shares her passion for the rich Icelandic knitting heritage on the hiking and knitting tours she organizes and guides all year round in Iceland. She lives in Reykjavík with her family.