Scrumptious Spunbond - Newbury Embroiderers Guild - Saturday 28th February


 The beginning of the day.

Early Saturday morning saw me driving to Newbury for a one day workshop that had been postponed due to family illness. As you may know, I have stopped taking bookings for one day workshops. I am just too old now for all the loading and unloading involved.
The workshop was Scrumptious Spunbond (Lutradur). The car was loaded with all kind of goodies - Yes! I know, I don't do myself any favours. 

 There was plenty of help on hand to unload the car, with my poor old knee I need all the help I can get at the moment. 
It always amazes that from an empty room we can create a space in which to play. It was a great hall, with plenty of sockets, always important with my workshops.

Painting up the Bondaweb and the Spunbond.

We got straight down to painting the Bondaweb and Spunbond as we needed it dry for after lunch. 
The mornings activity was to try cutting out shapes from the sadly discontinued CS500 in colours with a soldering iron. Bondaweb was ironed onto 3 sheets of different coloured CS500. The backing paper is left on the Bondaweb. 
The students then cut out shapes and then placed them on a background in a contrasting colour. The CS500 is very fine and cuts very quickly with the soldering iron. You can obviously use scissor to cut your shapes, but using a soldering iron enables you to create more intricate shapes. It also slows the whole group down as they enjoy the relaxing 'oozy' feeling as the soldering iron cut through the synthetic fabric.
Very quiet students as they concentrate on what they are doing.

I use Margaret Beal's sytem of using an upturned terracotta flower as a stand and wire wool in a cardboard tube to clean the soldering irons. This is a link to Margaret's website. www.fusingfabric.co.uk
Deep in concentration.
A great sight to see - students quietly working away with all that opportunity to play drying on the floor.

 Once the shapes are cut out they can be lifted off the backing paper and layered onto a back ground and ironed in place, taking care to use baking parchment between the iron and your work. It is very important to make sure the Bondaweb side of the shape is facing down onto the background!!!

 As you can see - the group had fun with this technique.

FAB work.


After lunch we ironed painted Bondaweb onto the heavier CS800 Spunbond (Lutradur). This quality of Spunbond is still in production - phew! The idea was to zap the work with a heat gun but most of the group were so pleased with their samples they didn't want to zap them.


Here are a few of the Painted Bondweb samples. The Bondaweb is decorated with sequins, fabric snips and transfer foil. Probably a bit of glitter too.


Great colours.
Some of the students were very experimental. 
 
 
These layers were cut with a soldering iron from the heavier CS800 Spunbond.


2 layers of decorated and zapped CS800. Great textures. When this product is zapped and layered it is great for 3D projects.


As we were working with synthetics I thought it would be good for the group to try transfer printing with pre printed papers. They got some great effects with low wattage irons - took a bit of perseverance, but they got there.


Really bright colours achieved by ironing off paper bags.
The group having a good look at the work created on the day.

A table full of fabulousness.

The Newbury Guild is very friendly and well organised. Do have a look at their website. I had a great day - thank you very much ladies.
X X X

I have had a busy few days starting to get ready for Fashion,Embroidery and Stitch at the NEC - 19th - 22nd of March, then the same show at Excel the following weekend. I have been decorating T Shirts with Hot Spots and transfer foil for Jayne and I to wear and for the models in the fashion show.
I have decided to sell packs of pre cut geckos so you can decorate your own T shirts. They will be on the website this time next week.

Transfer foiled Hot Spots.

We will have geckos on the front of the T shirts and HOT SPOTS on the back. We should twinkle nicely.


 If you want to learn more about Hot Spots - have a look at this video - www.nid-noi.com/product

x x x x

I have a very exciting 4 days coming up and also a bit of a sad time. It is the last session for my ExTex 3 groups (ExTex is our abbreviation of Experimental Textiles). I am VERY excited about seeing all their work and choosing what we will put into their end of year show at Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch. 
BUT - it is the last time they will all be together as a group, it will be sad to say goodbye to them. 
I will be seeing some them when they return for EXTeXtra - 5 weekends with me mentoring them, later in the year. And of course most of them will be at the show stewarding their 2 stands. 

I must go and load the car now - I am driving up to Redditch tonight. Pray the Gods of the M25 and M40 are good to me . . . 

x x x

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