The 6th weekend of my ExTex course experimentaltextiles.com was dedicated to colouring both natural and synthetic fabrics and threads. I think it is important to be able dye your own fabrics if at all possible, it is one thing that can help make your work different. Saturday saw us dyeing natural fabrics in plastic bags with procion dyes. This is such an easy process for smallish amounts of fabric and it is always interesting to see which type of fabric comes out darkest and brightest. We were dyeing cotton, viscose and silk.   Some of the 'stashes'   As Shaun travels up from Plymouth and stays in a hotel Saturday night she wasn't able to take her dyeing home to rinse out like everyone else -so she did it Sunday morning - and for a change it wasn't raining so she could dry them in the sun.     Heidi started to layer up some of her dyed fabrics and tried a little hand stitch - very sensitive, quit lovely. After mixing up the dyes and

75gm (heavy) Tyvek ironed lightly between baking parchment I am off to Emsworth later today to deliver a lecture this evening and two one day workshops - Tinkering with Tyvek. I had been booked for just one workshop but the waiting list was so long we had enough for another day. I am excited about spending two days playing with Tyvek. I have taught so many 'Hot Textiles' based workshop recently it will be a welcome change.  layered decreasing shapes of 75gm Tyvek (Heavy) stitched in the middle and gentle heated 75 gm Tyvek (heavy) layered with polyester organza, machine stitched together then zapped with a heat gun to reveal different layers of colour I will update the blog with all our exploits at the end of the week, I shall be a bit tight for time as I drive to France the day after I get back from Emsworth to see my friends Sue and John to sort out our teaching programme next year. I'm looking forward to driving down to the Charente Maritime district where they live,

  book cover created by melting plastic shopping bags together between baking parchment   Wow!!! What wonderful weather! I hope most of you in the U.K have managed to get out in the sun - if only for a few minutes. It is not until it gets quite warm that you realise just how dark and cold it has been. From my window I can see the early sun on the white blossom of the Hawthorn tree at the bottom of the garden against the bright pale blue sky - beautiful. One of my jobs to catch up with this week is to write a few workshops for the VERY patient Kathy Troup of Stitch magazine, Kathy has only been waiting for 2 years. While going through my images to decide which ones to use I came across some I had put somewhere very safe - and then couldn't find them!!!!!  Early this year Laura Manning sent me these fabulous images of book covers and small bags created using melted plastic bags. I met Laura at the Design and Technology show last November and she told me that she had been running

We will all, no doubt, succumb to the call of chocolate and other delicious naughtiness over the next few days. My favourite treats at the moment are Magnums minis, I can hear them calling me from the back of the supermarket as soon as I walk through the doors . In all my years of researching packaging for heat distressing the wrapping on these ice creams is the best so far. I just love the golden and brown tones that all merge together. If you buy mini ice creams you don't feel SO bad. The boxes are wrapped in a large sheet of gorgeous brown wrapping and then each ice cream is individually wrapped in more beautiful wrapping. Fantastic! I am sure that most of you reading this will already be aware of these delights but just in case they have passed you by, I thought it my duty to share this with you. Most food packaging can be textured with an iron just as you would Tyvek (see page 70, Hot Textiles). Place your packaging in between two sheets of baking parchment and iron LIGHTLY

It's 6am and dark outside. The words are flowing now and I have already eaten TWO  pain au chocolat. I am SO naughty. I seem to need lots of treats to keep me going, why is it only bad carbs will do when you are under pressure? I can be slim and gorgeous next week Ha Ha!! once the book has been delivered. So - this blog is supposed to be about promoting Hot Textiles - not books and snow.  The sample above shows dyed lightweight pelmet vilene (green) and Spunbond CS700 (brown) cut with a fine tip soldering iron and bonded onto Spunbond CS800 (blue). If you want to iron on your intricate cut outs, make sure you iron Bondaweb on the back of your products before you cut them. You can leave the backing paper on or take it off when you solder, it's a personal choice. Don't forget your baking parchment on top and underneath and of course, you need to be soldering onto a ceramic tile or similar. Right back to writing - keep calm and carry on . . . . . No Richard, I haven'