Alison brought in a very delicious rhubarb and ginger cake.  We didn't have a knife to cut the cake, so we used my 24"steel ruler - well, you do have to be adaptable!!  ExTeXtra is a group of 8 students from past Experimental Textiles courses, affectionately known as ExTex. We are now running ExTex4 and I am currently sorting the dates for ExTex5 which will start June 2016. The name ExTeXtra will probably change as the group work together and start to book their own exhibitions. This newly formed group will have have 4 more weekends together at The Old Needle Works in the IDC studios between now and March 2016. The group are learning to negotiate between themselves and me to decide what we will be doing, discussing and working on during this time. I am now mentoring this group and guiding them as well as teaching any techniques, skills they think they need.  Playing with white cartridge paper and staples, having a look at 3D. It had been decided thr

 A close up one of the newspaper faux chenille samples. I have just returned from a very busy and fun weekend with the East Kent Embroiderers Guild - Wow!!! what a fabulous group of ladies. I delivered a lecture on Saturday afternoon to a full hall. I was made very welcome and it was great to see some old friends from when I taught a longer workshop for the Wye ladies a few years ago. It is always good to catch up with people you have had fun with.  This is a large Guild, very organised and I said, great fun - they are so friendly. If you live in the Kent area and are tempted to join - this is their website. Do have a look - www.eastkentembroiderers.org.uk you don't need to be an experienced embroiderer - just have an interest in stitch and textiles in general - you will be made very welcome. I taught a one day version of A New Starting Point. (I am no longer taking bookings for one day workshops, all that driving, loading and unloading for just one day wears me out,

A gorgeous sample that has plenty of foil and gilding flake - scrummy. Well I'm home . . . and just about awake. I feel as though I have been away for 3 years, it was a fantastic break, but now there is a lot to catch up on. nid-noi.com has been busy while I was away with sales of the new KK glue going well.  Some of the colour washed papers drying on the floor. So . . . . .  Back to Wanaka. I had the most fantastic week with this group, they worked really hard and played very nicely together, sharing materials and tools. This always helps a group to 'gel' faster.   As the group produced so much brilliant work I have had to split what they got up to into 3 posts. This post is about the tearing and layering of paper with painted Bondaweb. We were using old books as well as newspaper. There was a bit of resistance to tearing up books by a couple of students - but once they saw we were using old books and atlases that were falling apart, they felt a l