Scrumptious Spunbond - Winchester Guild Workshop - May 10th

Painted Bondaweb ironed onto a cream background fabric and decorated with gilding flake, sequins and foil.

My first job back in this lovely green and very wet country was an afternoon lecture and workshop hosted by the Winchester Branch of the Embroiderers Guild. What an organised and helpful branch they are. There was definitely the buzz of a vibrant and focused group, they made me feel very energised. Does that make sense? My lecture went well - it was my first time talking about my 'Textile Travels' and it seemed to be well received.

I stayed that night with Susan Chapman, www.susanchapman.com Susan lives close to where I would be teaching the next day so it all worked out very well. We had a great evening catching up with most of what we had been up to since we had seen other last at Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch at the NEC in March. We both had so much to talk about - the main source of conversation was Susan's new house - FABULOUS. I'm only a little bit jealous of what will be her studio space.

Vilene Spunbond CS500 backed with Bondaweb then cut with a soldering iron 

My workshop the next day was Scrumptious Spunbond. The idea of this workshop is to use painted Bondaweb to decorate Vilene Spunbond and the zap this with a heat gun to create beautiful encrusted textures. We also ironed Bondaweb onto pre-dyed Vilene Spunbond CS500 (the finest weight) and cut shapes from this with a soldering iron. This is basically applique, just using a soldering iron to cut the shapes instead of scissors. When using a soldering iron you can cut more intricate shapes and patterns.


The room was smaller than I would have liked and only had two sockets which was a bit of a worry as I had 15 students!!! We were very careful when we turned the irons on. One by one - luckily the circuit didn't flip out so we had a great day of experimentation. This group were hard workers and produced some fab samples.

 Painted Bondaweb ironed onto a striped fabric and decorated with slashes of heat transfer foil and gilding flake.

 Painted Bondaweb ironed onto black cotton and decorated with gilding flake, gold glitter and gold jewel dots.

 Vilene Spunbond CS800 (the heaviest one) decorated with painted Bondaweb, glitter and sequins and then zapped with a heat gun to create holes and gorgeous crusty bits!

 We also decorated various weights of Vilene Spunbond with transfer printing.






Vilene Spunbond CS500 backed with Bondaweb then cut with a soldering iron 
and ironed onto a background of CS500 making a very light but strong surface 
on which to stitch. Because these surfaces are translucent they would make fabulous window blinds or lampshades.

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I am now preparing to teach my new version of Experimental Textiles at Inkberrow Design Centre in Redditch. experimentaltextiles.com It is very exciting for me, I have missed the regular contact you have with students on a longer course. Whilst it is great fun teaching one and two day workshops I miss having something to get my teeth into - so watch out my newbies . . . 
The first weekend will be design based - just what everyone avoids but what we all need - at regular intervals throughout our creative lives.
I will report back on our first weekend on Tuesday.

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Speaking of design - I am teaching a three day course at Art Van Go next week. .artvango.co.uk/workshops  Design, Inspiration and Interpretation. We have enough students to run the course but could do with a few more. This workshop is a simple way of generating original designs and helping you realise that 'design' isn't so scary after all . . . of course, all the biscuits and chocolates that are served at Art Van Go during the workshop help considerably.

I think that is enough for now, it's 10.45 pm, time for bed. 
night night!

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