Layered Vilene Spunbond applique cut with a soldering iron and ironed onto Pelmet Vilene light (black). This time last week I was being mobbed at the Exeter show - my goodness it was busy - at times it was like being at the NEC. It was great to see many of the ladies I had taught on my 'tour' in June in Devon and Cornwall. I had very little time to play on the stand but I did manage to get these samples done ready for Ally Pally next week. I love working with synthetics and a soldering iron - I love the 'oozzy' melting feeling you get as you cut. I was also visited by this lady who I met when I was teaching in Spain at the Castanea Studios. castanea-craft-courses.com She was doing a beading course with Jane Sadgrove who was teaching in the other studio. I have of course completely forgotten her name - but we all had such good fun at the studios.This lovely lady co-ordinated beautifully with the purple stands and carpet at the show. She always dyes...

 Two girls who are new to this malarky. I s p ent a fa b ulous day with a group of great ladies from the Andover area yesterday. We were play ing with painted Bondweb, Vilene S punbond and two weights of pelmet Vilene. We tried zapping the Spunbond with heat guns as well but I wanted to show you what the group got up to with the soldering irons. They created some brilliant samples. There is plenty of zapping the previous post. I use Margaret Beal's tried and tested way of working with ceramic flower pots for stands and wire wo ol in a c ardboard tubes to clean the tips. Bondaweb (unpainted) was ironed onto the back of three pieces of CS500 in three different colours. A fourth colour was ch osen for the background. A piece of black pelmet Vilene lite was then deco rated with painted Bondaweb , foils , glitter and gilding flake. Unp ainted Bondaweb was then iro ned on th e the back. It is important to lea ve the back ing paper on the B ondaweb. Y ou don't cut through ...

A small pile of dyed iron-on interfacings - the new Decovil and Decovil Light on some particularly gorgeous newspaper. You have it all planned - 4 days to prepare for a show with new samples and all the products dyed, cut and packed for 3 x workshops of 20 retailers - aaRGGHH!!! The exhaust fell off the car, loads of orders came in (I'm not complaining really) and piles of paperwork leapt out and needed doing  . . . . but I have finally knuckled down. Even my sofa is covered with dyed iron-on interfacing hopefully drying ready to use tomorrow, I just don't seem to have enough floor space.  I was hoping these books would be covered by now - tomorrow's blog . . . . . I am getting SOME samples done. This is a wooden box that has been dyed turquoise - (it just happens to match my hair). Painted Bondaweb was then ironed onto it and decorated with gilding flake. The box was then sealed with acrylic wax.  This is very subtle for me - Painted, the...

 Sequins on my cardi I am not very girly - I am and have had to be very practical most of my life - so I take great pleasure the odd times I am required to dress up and be sparkly - but then what do you wear?  I may have mentioned once or twice that I will be off to the Antipodes at the end of March. There will be several parties to attend and having gone through my very practical wardrobe I realised I needed a bit of glitz!!! So I have been sewing sequins and beads onto a back cardi that covers a multitude of sins and is very useful! (Being practical again) I am having trouble deciding when to stop, I suspect I may cover the entire cardi by the end of this week. A girl can't have enough sequins and I need to feel I am doing something useful when I watch Corrie and 'Stenders  One of the parties has an award for 'The Most Fabulous Wearing of False Eyelashes' so I popped into town last week and picked these up - what do you think? I thought I might add a ...