Technology helps business attract top textile artist

Securing funding to buy state-ofthe-art technology has helped a Newburgh-based business attract a leading textile artist to its workshop programme.

Thanks to help from Business Gateway Fife, Big Cat Textiles successfully applied for a Create in Fife grant to buy a heat transfer machine, which uses heat to bind fabrics and give them structure.

With the machine, the only one of its kind in the region, now in place, the award-winning artist Caroline Bartlett has agreed to host a workshop in July expected to attract textile enthusiasts from across the world.

Caroline, whose work has been exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum and across the globe, joins an illustrious array of textile artists already signed up to lead seminars in Big Cat Textiles’ base on Clinton Street this year.

Alison Mountain, of Big Cat Textiles, said: “Being able to add Caroline to our 2017 programme is fantastic news.

“She’d spoken to us about the machine, its many uses, and how it was fundamental to her work, but we didn’t have the money to buy our own one outright.

“Because Business Gateway Fife had helped us secure funding a few years back to buy sewing machines, which was a real boost, we went back to see if there was any further assistance available.

“Our adviser supported us through the application process and we’ve been able to buy a machine, something we would not have been able to do otherwise. This will allow our students to learn from Caroline whilst giving them access to technology they’d normally only be able to try out in London.”

Having just been accepted on to the Digital Boost programme, which is delivered by Business Gateway, Big Cat Textiles now hope to use the specialist online support to cement their global reputation further.

Having initially launched the Hat in the Cat in 2008, Alison, a trained fine artist, and her business partner, textile artist, costume designer, and milliner Jeanette Sendler, set up Big Cat Textiles three years later.

Launching the sister business allowed the duo to meet demand from students and hobbyists looking to expand textile skills. In its first year the studio ran two workshops; this year it will host 16 including a Millinery Spring School and Creative Pattern Cutting and Sewing seminar.

Caroline Bartlett is in residence at Big Cat Textiles from Monday July 10 to Friday July 14. For more information on her workshop, Marking Cloth: Print and Manipulation, visit Big Cat Textiles at textilecentre.co.uk.

Picture: Steve MacDougall. Alison Mountain at the Hat in the Cat shop at 2 Main Street, Perth.