A lovely little bowl that is a work in progress . . . .  I had forgotten how much I enjoy incorporating metal into textiles - so much so I will be teaching a new four day Metal Works? workshop at The Old Needle Works next Easter. Of course it helps to have students that have enquiring minds and enjoy experimenting. We worked with metal shims, knitted copper and metal mesh, mostly copper and brass. We tried embossing and punching out shapes as well as heat distressing to change the colour. We used a heat gun for this. My heat guns are 350 watt and are hot enough to colour copper. Anyone who has been on any of my workshops will know that I don't advocate using a naked flame.  I have had a selection of alcohol inks in a box for a about three years waiting for 'when I have a minute'!!! This was a great chance to use them to colour the metals. I also demonstrated transferring transfer painted papers on to the metal but that really needs to be saved til our next session...

As most of you will have noted - I have a dreadful life travelling miles to teach and torture unsuspecting students the joys of using heat to distress all manner of wonderful materials. Monday night saw me deliver a lecture, on time I am happy to say, for the Bourne Quilters. www.bournequilters.org.uk They are a large group with a dynamic mix of ladies and are very organised. It is always intersting when visiting groups to see how they are run. I was bit concerend that my samples and talk might be a bit 'out there' for quilters - not a bit of it!!!! They were all really interested, asking lots of questions, always a good sign.  I was put up by Lis and Steve Dawson while I teaching the workshops. I do so wish I could have stayed longer, I had such a good time with them, they are great fun - I was very well looked after. my students having to tuck into Magnums so we could melt the wrappers, the things we do for our art!!!!!!   The following two days were spent playing with Tyv...

75gm (heavy) Tyvek ironed lightly between baking parchment I am off to Emsworth later today to deliver a lecture this evening and two one day workshops - Tinkering with Tyvek. I had been booked for just one workshop but the waiting list was so long we had enough for another day. I am excited about spending two days playing with Tyvek. I have taught so many 'Hot Textiles' based workshop recently it will be a welcome change.  layered decreasing shapes of 75gm Tyvek (Heavy) stitched in the middle and gentle heated 75 gm Tyvek (heavy) layered with polyester organza, machine stitched together then zapped with a heat gun to reveal different layers of colour I will update the blog with all our exploits at the end of the week, I shall be a bit tight for time as I drive to France the day after I get back from Emsworth to see my friends Sue and John to sort out our teaching programme next year. I'm looking forward to driving down to the Charente Maritime district where they live,...

  one of the original 10 black dresses made form black bin liners  I received an email this week from Sarah Patterson saying how useful she had found my book Hot Textiles.  When you write a book you never know how it will be received or if anyone will even read it, so it is always very satisfying when you hear your book has been useful. Sarah teaches A/S A/2 and GCSE Textiles at Portsmouth College , she likes to teach students a range of techniques such as Photoshop, printing, embroidery etc. This year her A/2 group were inspired for the final exam by the little black dress and this coincided with a local exhibition at Portsmouth Museum based on the LBD. The task Sarah had set her students was to create a dress using non conventional materials such as bin liners, condoms (not used!) tampons (again not used!) in fact anything that could be coloured or turned black. The students went to the exhibition and collected great ideas and inspiration for shapes and cuts. When ...