Ruth Black Textile Artist

08/01/2026

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our dear Ruth. After a recent cancer diagnosis she passed away peacefully at the Highland Hospice. Ruth was an incredibly creative, talented, and kind woman who will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

BLACK
Ruth Catherine (nee Morrison), aged 71, R.I.P. died peacefully on the Feast of St Stephen 2025 in the Highland Hospice. Beloved wife of the Reverend Len Black, loving mother to George, Simon and Mary, grandmother to Rachel, Lauren and Sammy and dear friend to many. Funeral Mass on Monday 12th January at 12 noon in St Mary's R.C. Church, Huntly Street, Inverness; thereafter to Kilvean Cemetery. Wear bright colours. Family flowers only, but donations to the Highland Hospice at the Mass or through John Fraser & Son.
(Shared at her family's request)

12/07/2025

For the last few weeks I have been doing some work upstairs in our house, the aim being to give myself a better space in which to work at home and to give our guests a nicer room to sleep in when they come to visit. I still have curtains to make for the guest room, but my new space is now finished (apart from some sorting out of accumulated junk) and I was able to put it to the test today.
A major purchase for this has been a height adjustable desk. In the past if I brought home my inkle loom to do some weaving I had to work in poor light in our dining room at a height that put strain on my back. Today was so much better. I had designed the table top to make sure I could clamp on the inkle loom - both for the warping and the weaving. I also have space at the side to clamp my thread guide that allows me to reel off from many cones of thread at a time.
Click on each photo for an explanation of what I am doing.

21/06/2025

It's a long time since I posted here. I have been too busy being creative to take time to communicate😏.
Much of my time is spent doing embroidery, in particular I have been busy with ecclesiastical work, but some of these projects allow me to do a bit of "playing" in the form of silk painting and weaving. Here's some photos.
I have also run some felt making classes and included are some pictures of what my students made.
Click on each picture for more information.

11/06/2024

It's supposed to be summer, but I think I have made a good call with my choice of colours for the next piece of weaving. It certainly feels more like autumn and when I have been cycling back and forth to the workshop this last few days, I have definitely needed my gloves and a headband to keep my ears from falling off.
I now have the loom all threaded up with the new warp, ready to tie in tomorrow morning, then I can start the fun part and actually make some cloth.

09/05/2024

I was doing some silk painting today - two very different styles, for different projects, using different silks.
The first one was on habatoi silk. I was creating a mass of pink flowers with green leaves that will be used as appliqué fabric in a Celtic knotwork design. When I embroider it, I will be incorporating the Ghana rose into the design which I will make into a priest's stole.
The second one was on Shantung silk and my aim here was to create a background that gives the impression of a grassy foreground with a greyish sea and sky that gently pales into the original ivory. This too is for a priest's stole but it is the main fabric rather than the appliqué. It will be embroidered with a Celtic cross and images of rosebay willowherb and long seeded grasses in the foreground.

20/04/2024

A lovely lady from Wales came to spend the last day of her holiday making a felt picture which would remind her of the Highlands.
It took 6 hours of laying out the fibres, rubbing them with soapy water, cutting them to shape and then positioning everything and adding detail. She left very happy with her picture of Carrol Rock near Brora, viewed from across the loch, with gorse in full bloom in the foreground.

29/09/2023

A bit of a departure from normal work this week.....
A few months ago I was asked by a tour company if I could provide a weaving class for a group of 5 Americans (3 sisters with two of their adult daughters) who would be visiting in September.
Normally I would only teach weaving as one-to-one as I don't have duplicate looms - and certainly not five the same. However I offered to give them an introduction to weaving and got 5 different looms set up for when they arrived on Wednesday. We had a game of musical looms, with each person moving round to the next station after 20 minutes or so. As you can see from the results, some methods grew very much faster than others.
From left to right in the second picture - rigid heddle, 4-shaft table loom, inkle-woven band, tablet-woven band and tapestry weaving.
They now have a bit of understanding about hte work involved in weaving - A good time was had by all!

23/03/2023

A successful feltmaking workshop today. This lady had been given a voucher for one of my classes by her daughter as a birthday present just before the pandemic. Since then she has had knee surgery, so this was the first opportunity to do the class. She made a lovely pair of felt slippers - but I did the massaging of the felt around her feet as her knees don't bend enough for her to do that herself. They may look to be a different size - but they fit her feet perfectly.

15/03/2023

This will be a great event for anyone interested in Celtic Art. Open to all.

A Date for your Diary - The Saint Patrick Centre is delighted to be hosting the 2nd International Day of Celtic Art Conference from 8-11th June 2023. 16 speakers who are both artists and scholars in a variety of media from visual design and textile to metalwork, woodwork and ceramics will be coming to Downpatrick from destinations around the world including the USA, Canada, Scotland, Isle of Man and Ireland. The Conference will be open to all and will include exhibitions of Celtic Art, technical demonstrations and workshops as well as a Conference Dinner/Show and excursion. For tickets and more information on what each day includes please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2nd-international-day-of-celtic-art-conference-tickets-569770467807

10/03/2023

I really like it when the project I am working on matches the colours of the season.
This week is springtime and the daffodils are in bloom, so working on something that was green and gold was perfect.
It is a set of vestments that will very shortly be heading to Northern Ireland.