Layered newspaper decorated with painted Bondaweb and then printed onto. I can finally let you all know that I will be teaching for Fibrearts Australia at Ballarat again next year. I had to wait until it was announced this week. The website is now live and enrolments have started - so for those of you who are interested - fibrearts.jigsy.com/fibre-arts-at-ballarat-2014 This five day workshop will combine all that I love - basic design, creating your own printing blocks and making gorgeous newspaper surfaces to print and stitch onto. It will be the last time I teach at Ballarat for a while as I will running the Vilene Workshop at Excel in London as part of Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch at that time of year in future. A journey of inspiration with Kim Thittichai A workshop of two halves – Suitable for any level of experience. The first half will involve creating your own inspirational journey. Painting an imaginary journey with various width paintbrushes,

   Two naughty girls drinking coffee and spreading glitter everywhere!! Not really, they were great fun . . . This is going to be a longish post so settle down and get comfy -  The show at Excel was brilliant, it was a new venue for Creative Stitches and we weren't sure if it would work - Boy did it! And how . . . .  A big thank you to all of you who came to the show and made it such a success.  I delivered a workshop every morning on making brooches with my newspaper method. These were very popular again and I am regularly being asked if I will be making a video on this technique - so a question to all of you. How do you prefer to view recorded workshops - on DVD or a pay to view video on line? If you have any strong ideas about this and have the time, could you email me at info@kimthittichai.com?   One of the decorated newspaper samples before they were cut into shapes with my big Shot Pro.    The supermarket opposite the hotel I stayed in had free mu

  Sue's heart shaped box - decorated newspaper ironed onto heavy pelmet Vilene plus/S133 which was then cut to a box shape by my Big Shot Pro die cutting machine. We had a fabulous three days at Art Van Go www.artvango.co.uk . The previous post shows the decorated papers and book covers that the group made and this one will show you some of the boxes and the faux chenille.  Ruth used a block printed paper for the top layer of her faux chenille and only cut through certain areas of her piece.    Debby layered her newspaper with polyester organza and then gave it a good 'rough up' to help the fibres of the organza come to the surface.   Bea started to work into the channels with stitch.     Mary added little metal charms.   All the boxes were cut using Sissix 12" box template dies and my Big Shot Pro die cutting machine . The product used to make the boxes is Heavy pelmet Vilene plus/S133. This is a very firm iron-on interfacing.

  Alpaca and silk tops with painted Bondaweb and layered newspaper ready to stitch.   I hope you all enjoyed the Jubilee celebrations and that those of you that were involved in street parties didn't get washed away . . It is wonderful to have a few days to just relax and let ideas arrive. When I was in Blenheim, New Zealand, for their Creative Fibre Festival I picked up some beautiful Alpaca and silk fibres and started to play with the fibres and painted Bondaweb unsupported - I don't mean me feeling lonely, I mean not on a background. Having started to stitch into the pieces I felt the need for some kind support but nothing too heavy that would detract from the beautiful fairy like qualities of the fibres . . . and low and behold I was asked to test a new self adhesive water-soluble product. It arrived this morning and is just the thing I needed and it washes away quickly with no residue - Fantastic. Once I get permission, I will let you all know the name of it.  

Beach beauties Well I have finished my first teaching session - a 2 day workshop for the Embroiderers Guild, Victoria - Geelong Branch. We had great fun and got a lot of work done. The group were very helpful and so organised - they were a joy to work with. Geelong is the second largest city in the state of Victoria after Melbourne and is an hours drive from Melbourne. These bollards are a feature of the Eastern beach and are quite wonderful. There are over 100 in several groups depicting various aspects of Geelong life and many local dignitaries. for more images go to bollards  All the yachts lined up at the yacht club    The beautiful old seafarers mission is now a restaurant   x We had a fast paced workshop, I wanted to makes sure I showed as many of my techniques as possible - I am not here often!!!! The ladies coped well - even when I announced we would have exercises after lunch - they were game bunch. We worked through Tyvek, painted Bondawe