Alison Ellen and Ruth Taylor

Our 3-day open studio will be showing paintings and knitwear this year in a garden setting, with plants for sale (raising money for  charity).

We will be demonstrating some of our working methods, Ruth painting, and Alison dyeing wool, with a drop-in knitting workshop for anyone who wants to have a go.

Both Alison and Ruth originally trained in textiles at UCA Farnham. Alison has run her knitting business for many years with her own approach to designing through structure and using stitches for shaping. She enjoys the challenge of creating pieces that will suit different people and be a joy to wear, bearing in mind we are all different! She shares her ideas in the UK and abroad through exhibitions, lectures, teaching and her books (these will be for sale), encouraging people to experiment with knitting and have confidence in exploring and designing.

Ruth is a landscape painter working in oils. Influenced by her training in textiles, she is inspired as much by a love of colour and pattern as by the English countryside, coastline and the South Downs. Painting from memory rather than photographs, her atmospheric paintings full of colour capture the ever-changing seasons and the effect of the weather on the land.

She exhibits in galleries around the country.