Tyvek layers zapped with a heat gun      If you love texture, colour and exploring new processes - you may be interested in this - I keep my newsletter and blog subscribers separate and you may have missed this important information, I didn't want you to miss out on this opportunity. The NEW Experimental Textiles Video Library & Membership will launch at The Festival of Quilts at the NEC, Birmingham in August 2023 for the full annual subscription price of €350. Subscribers to my newsletter will be offered a special one-off €100 early bird discount of €250 from May 4th to May 11th. The early bird members will be able to view the 12 videos as I upload them between now and August, which means they will have a 15 month subscription. 2 of the 12 workshop videos will be launched into the video library on May 4th. The rest will be uploaded regularly in the months up to August 2023. Early bird members will have access to each of the private groups (hosted on my website) for the works

A rather splendid sample of textured Tyvek. Happy Easter!! It's a wild and wet here in Ireland. A good day to catch up with my newsletter and this blog. I hope you are all enjoying a day with family or friends and eating way too much chocolate . .  My recent online Zoom workshop Tinkering with Tyvek yielded some fabulous work. I do have wonderful students. Just look at this Tyvek dress made by Arley Berryhill. Small scale Tyvek dress by Arley Berryhill Arley is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, has worked with me on a few workshops. He is a fantastic doll maker and costume designer and maker. Do look at his website - https://www.arleyberryhill.com/ It is not often I see anything resembling gold work on my workshops!! Arley created this great sample by stitching Tyvek to gold lamé and then texturing it with a heat gun. Beautiful faux gold work, just fabulous       I love the way Arley has added beads to accentuate the edge of the Tyvek shapes. This workshop was quite international with

Layers of Tyvek and polyester organza stitched together and zapped with a heat gun. *** A glorious weekend   Well, what a fabulous weekend. It has been warm in the sun. It is so good to feel the heat, even if it won't be long lived. We have to enjoy the sun when we can in Ireland!!! We have unsettled weather coming up. Over the past couple of days I have been catching up with admin as well as working in the garden. I thought a catch up on my live Zoom workshops might be helpful. We had great fun on The Journey in January and Creating Unique Printing Blocks in February. The Show and Tell 2 weeks after the workshop has proved very successful, students are pleased to have an opportunity to develop their work. There are still spaces on all workshops, so if you would like to learn a new technique, or remind yourself of the fun you can have with any of these workshops, just click the link on the workshop you fancy. This month is Tinkering with Tyvek. I do so love working with Tyvek, you

  Layers of Lutradur cut with a soldering iron by Joane from Montreal, Canada When you have taught for several, verging on many, years, you build a great collections of friends, as well as students. Some you see as regularly as time allows, others pop up now and again and the joy of seeing them is very special. I have had a few reunions in the past month on the workshops, making them extra special. This is an extra blog post as I wanted to showcase some of the amazing work created on the Zap Pow! Slash and 3D workshop. We worked with various weights of Lutradur using heat guns and soldering irons to create fabulous edges and shapes. A wonderful sample combining textured Lutradur and Tyvek decorated with painted melted glue by Frances in Montreal, Canada Pieces of zapped and soldered Lutradur and textured Tyvek   Squares of zapped Lutradur on a background of painted Bondaweb with wisps of wool tops. The long silver line is melted glue by Joane from Montreal, Canada Curved shapes cut out

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