Painted Bondaweb decorated with sparkles and artichoke seeds. The last day of the 'tour' saw me teaching in Bideford. (well just outside). I didn't get a chance for a wander about and it looked like a great place to wander - I hope to get back there next year for a bit longer. The workshop was held in a modern hall with all a tutor could desire, plenty of power, plenty of light and loads of space - a great place for a party . . .  The workshop was On the Surface- Plus. The 'Plus' was the addition of Tyvek and Spunbond to the days events. It was more of a taster day and I think I tried to do too much with the group but they were very good and kept up.  The group working hard with the painted Bondaweb and Tyvek drying on the floor.      Getting to grips with painted Bondaweb and all the sparkles.  The usual On the Surface workshop concentrates on the wonderful Bondaweb and all you can do with it. Foiling, adding sequins, gilding flake . . . . I to

   Decorated black sew-in interfacing and coloured CS500 ironed onto Bondaweb then shapes were cut with a soldering iron. The shapes were then ironed onto another piece of CS500. Well that was a great weekend. The group produce d some fabulous samples. I'm go ing to split this post into 2 as there are too may images for one post. I will post the next part tomorrow.   The thing to remember with most of my workshops is that you don't create a finished piece of work. The idea i s for the students to experiment with whichever products we are working with to help them generate their own ideas. Designing through process is an impo rtant part of my teaching and indeed my own work.   Some scrummy experi ments with different weights of Tyvek.     After expe rimenting with the T yvek we went onto working with painted Bondaweb and dec orated the black p elmet Vilene light. This is a great weight to cut with a soldering iron. The idea wa

The fountain in the grounds with evening sunlight on the water. Denman College has very beautiful grounds. This is going to be a lengthy post, I don't have time to write two and split the images. You may remember my recent post about my lovely group at West Dean and my saying it is not often you get a group that gels so well and that you have a lot of fun with. Well I taught another such group this week. They were great fun and very naughty!!! There is something about the groups I teach at Denman College www.denman.org.uk   They all seem to get on with each other quickly. That means they relax more and then feel comfortable being naughty! We did have a lot of fun. The course was a three day 'New Layered Textiles' workshop and basically takes the students through the processes in my book Layered Textiles. The first thing we did was paint up all the products so we would be ready to get down to work with all the products ready to play with. As usual we started