A great piece of newspaper faux chenille.  The next stop on the journey was Roseland Mews Studio in Liskeard. Set in lush green gardens, the studio is well equipped, light and has great ventilation. We had 13 in the group and boy did they work hard. A New Starting Point is my newspaper based workshop and I think you will agree, the group produced some fabulous samples. We started off painting up Bondaweb and newspapers then while that was drying the group machine stitched layers of unpainted newspaper together to create their first faux chenille sample. We would colour wash these samples later in the day. Then it was onto the 'pretties and bckground' tearing technique that I have developed with newspaper and painted Bondaweb. Having permission to play with all manner of sparkly delights tends to bring out the inner princess in most students as they fling glitter, gilding flake and dot jewels onto their work with abandon. The play element in any works

 Painted Bondaweb decorated with gilding flake, dried rose petals and dot jewels.  We had a fast moving workshop on the Hot Textiles taster day at Denman College. www.denman.org.uk The main workshop is next month. We worked through painting, decorating and foiling Bondaweb and zapping Vilene Spunbond and cutting it with a soldering iron. We also worked with Tyvek and Hot Spots!     The Textile Studio at Denman is light and airy and very well equipped.     Three of the group machine stitching the Vilene Spunbond layers together - ready to zap!      Painted Bondaweb decorated with dried rose petals, transfer foil and 'blingy bitz'.      Unpainted Bondaweb cut to shape and decorated with gold transfer foil.    Six different coloured layers of CS500 Vilene Spunbond, machine stitched together and then zapped with a heat gun.      Green, yellow and orange CS500 Vilene Spunbond machine stitched together and then zapped with a heat gun.   . .

  A riot of colour - very Bollywood - painted Bondaweb decorated with transfer foil, gilding flake and dot jewels. It's great to back at Foredown Tower, particularly when the weather is fine, if a bit windy . . . . the tower is high up on The Downs. We had the first day of a two day version of On the Surface - good fun was had by all. We have six students in the group and three are teachers on CPD (Continuous Professional Development). They were champing at the bit to get stuck in with all the glitter and sequins. All three teachers have big changes in their curriculum and they need some ideas for Art Textiles.  We started by painting Bondaweb and Tyvek and then had a play with Hot Spots and transfer foils while we waited for the Bondaweb and Tyvek to dry.      Painting Bondaweb. There was a great atmosphere today and a good deal of joking and general fun. I prefer to teach in this way - if students are relaxed they will retain more information. Here are tw