One of my favourite pieces of painted and distressed Tyvek - Ever!    Is it odd to have a favourite sample of Tyvek?   Tyvek is one of my favourite products. Having taught all my heat processes for so many years, I thought I had probably taught most of the people who were interested. Apparently not! My first book, Hot Textiles seems to be having a bit of a revival, and with that comes new interest. So, in response to all the emails and messages I have received asking how do I work with Tyvek - I have written 2 new workshops. How to enrol and all the details are at the end of this post.   All the samples in this blog post have been made by students on previous workshops with me. Some are from as back as the early 2000's. The first one will be Workshop 4 - Raising the Surface. You may have noticed that I LOVE working with painted Bondaweb. You can create some fantastic effects by adding transfer foil or gilding flake. But as you need to iron Bondaweb, your work is always flat. Adding

 Sample by Julia Zagar Well my first live Zoom didn't go too badly at all. I had 14 lovely ladies in the group who were great fun, and were patient while I learned how to 'pin'. There weren't too many hold ups and I think the flow was there. Zoom can never replace being the same room with your students, but it was a good second best as it was in real time. I have now discovered there is a 'spotlight' function that will help us all see one students work. Who thought we would all be learning all these new skills? A fabulous torn sample that works so well as the colour palette chosen is analogous/tones of one colour with silver highlights. It took a long time to set up for the workshop. Trying to think ahead. The students had a list of materials to paint and collect together before the workshop. The workshop was A New Starting Point, so we were working with painted Bondaweb, painted papers, gilding flake and transfer foils. The worst thing was not being there and b

  Block print flooded with a colour wash by Janet who is on The Journey workshop. Happy New Year!!!  Yes - I know its the end of March!! It's been a while. Most of you will know the feeling, when you are undecided - you do nothing!! Sometimes inspiration or a direction presents itself - sometimes you just have to wait . . .  I have been getting used to living in a remote area. It has been over 3 years now. Mostly it is wonderful, just occasionally when we are in the middle of a big storm, I lie in bed wondering if the roof is going to come off and question did I do the right thing? The resounding reply is always - Yes!  Any of you who follow me on social media will know how much I love living on the edge of the world. The West Coast of County Clare, and particularly Loop Head, has an 'other worldliness' about it. It is hard to explain, but hopefully is comes through when I post on Instagram and Facebook. This is the website for our little piece of wonderful. www.l

A splendid sample. It is amazing to think that last weekend I was teaching this workshop in Christchurch, New Zealand. I am now snuggled in at home, in front of the fire, with my dogs. Isn't life amazing? A New Starting Point is my favourite workshop. By layering up old newspapers, maps and book pages with painted and unpainted Bondaweb, you can create some fabulous effects. If you add a little gilding flake and transfer foil, you can create something rather special. Christchurch Quilters are a great grouo to work with, such fun. They are very experienced which made things very easy for me. We had 2 days of play with all manner of papers and sparkle. First we painted the Bondaweb, or Vliesofix as it is known in NZ and Australia.   Nicky and Catherine painting Bondaweb. Then we began the 'backgrounds and prettys'. This technique involves layering paper with Bondaweb and building, tearing and building new layers. It's great fun and you never quite know