Tattykeel DesignStudio

Kathleen Ward makes hand-painted silk scarves, designer handbags and textile art from her studio at Tattykeel House, two miles south of Omagh. She works across four disciplines, hand-rolling and painting silk scarves, cutting and stitching leather handbags, producing textile art panels and fine art pieces, using locally sourced materials where she can. The studio is open to visitors by appointment rather than passing trade, reflecting the one-woman scale of the operation, and pieces are also sold online with worldwide delivery. Ward has exhibited her work locally, including a retrospective at Strule Arts Centre in Omagh covering her development as a maker. Each scarf and handbag is cut and finished by hand rather than produced from a template, so no two pieces are quite identical, and turnaround on commissioned work depends on her current workload.