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Susan (Pletsch) Foster
Susan has been travelling for over thirty years and has spent her entire career living out of a suitcase. Foster is the perfect person to give advice on travel clothes and packing; she has packed and unpacked over 4,000 times! Initially (Pletsch) Foster travelled as a teacher in the sewing industry and co-founded Palmer/Pletsch Associates, a leading publisher of sewing books, DVD’s and sewing workshops. She criss-crossed the U.S.A. and Canada presenting sewing seminars and refining her travel and packing skills. Foster later married a man involved in international trade. Her travels then took her on a global marathon as she accompanied him on business trips around the world. Years of travel and research led to the publication of ‘Smart Packing for Today’s Traveler’. Susan contributes sound advice this issue as we Travel the Silk Road with the Australian Sewing Guild. |
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Ruth OsborneDesigner Ruth Osborne, draws from nature for the creative designs for her Wearable Art Garments. Many of the gowns she creates relate to the beautiful colours of the Great Barrier Reef, or the Exotic Rainforests of the Tropical North where she lives and works in Sarina, Far North QLD. Her gowns are usually made from natural fabrics, silk and wool. These are hand dyed, machine embroidered and heavily beaded. Ruth has won many awards over the years, including The Supreme Award from The Australian Wool Fashion Awards and the Award of Outstanding Excellence from the Hunter Valley Harvest National Fashion Awards. Her work has been exhibited nationally and overseas. Ruth has articles published regularly in Australian sewing. |
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Ken Smith, B.A.One of Australia’s leading textile artists, Ken was featured in Kristen Dibbs’s 1998 book “Machine Embroidery: Inspirations from Australian Artists”. As a freelance tutor of Creative Machine Embroidery and Silk Painting, he has taught for government-funded and private arts organizations, for businesses and for private bodies. He is in wide demand as a tutor in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. Queensland-born and educated, Ken trained as a secondary school teacher, obtaining a Teaching Diploma and a B.A. degree. His major was French Language and Literature. After twenty-five years’ teaching experience, twenty-two of them in England, he resigned and returned to Australia to pursue his interest in textile art. Ken has been, and continues to be, a collector: antiques (boxes, glass, ivory, buttons and buckles, lace (hand-made), linen, needlework tools and accessories, woodworking tools, feather trims, leather and skins, costume, sentimental jewellery) and books on crafts (including those which he never intends to practise), art, and social history. He loves theatre, gardening, reading, and cryptic crosswords. He enjoys cooking – principally because he enjoys eating. However, his exercise of his principal artistic passion, FME (Free Machine Embroidery), means that he has little time or energy to indulge in the others. FME-deprivation tends to lead swiftly to unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. These include severe fidgeting and thumb-twiddling (no, seriously) – or FME-ing in the sleep, which is repetitive, exhausting, and, unfortunately, not often productive. He has recently moved to rural Tasmania. WEBSITE: www.bennett-smith.com |
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