One of the many beautiful views from Foredown Tower  So . . .  onto part 2.   A New Starting Point includes making faux chenille with newspaper. The group layered eight sheets of A4 newspaper with polyester organza. Using contrasting colours of paper and organza can create some very colourful samples. The layers of newspaper need to have some support otherwise your work will fall apart. Adding a sew-in interfacing such as classic pelmet Vilene (S80/239) or the 'pelmet Vilene light' to the back of your work - Vilene interfacings will re enforce your work. Once you have stacked your layers up you then machine stitch 'tramlines' across the whole sample, your 'channels' need to be at least 1/2 inch apart. If the 'channels' are too close together you wont be able get your scissors down the 'channels' to cut them.   Another tip when stitching newspaper faux chenille is to use a long stitch, the longest your machine will do - usually no

  Vicki's gorgeous sample. Torn layers of newspaper layered with painted Bondaweb and sparkly bits and then printed onto. After a fabulous weekend at Foredown Tower selling my jewellery it was a quick turn around to unload the car and re load ready to teach at West Dean College. This week it is Jewelled Surfaces for Decorative Textiles. This is a newspaper based course along with my favourites, gilding flake and printing. The idea is to create sumptuous surfaces with newspaper and then iron the papers onto iron-on interfacing to give support to make vessels, jewelry, boxes . . . We will see what is achieved by Thursday lunchtime. I love teaching at West Dean,  www.westdean.org.uk the grounds are stunning, everyone is very friendly and of course the food is fantastic.  The girls busily painting Bondaweb.    Colour washed newspaper.     Decorating the torn and layered newspaper samples.   A colourful torn and decorated area that has been printe

 Iron-on interfacing colourwashed blue. This was then foiled all over with silver transfer foil and printed onto with one of my favourite wooden printing blocks. This can be done with the heavy pelmet Vilene (S133) if you want to make a box, or the softer Decovil 1 or Decovil light to make book covers or bags - gorgeous. I sell all three - www.nid-noi.com   Painted Bondaweb layered with torn newspaper, dot jewels and glitter.  I have a few weeks of calm looming - to write the book and start a new body of work. I am also making up some layered newspaper samples to have laser cut to my own designs to start making my new range of brooches and earrings. I love it when there is room in your brain for ideas to start slinking in. This tends to need time and space - all of which I have for while. I have plenty of things to catch up with, but there should also be time for play.  As most of you will know I think it is vital for any artist to play with their materials - it can lead

 The ever popular newspaper faux chenille wrapped into a dinky little vessel. This is going to be rather a long post, I haven't been able to get internet access for a while so I am still catching up. Tomorrow is the last day of teaching in The Blue Mountains and I haven't finished raving about last week yet . . . . The course at Ballarat was 3d based, we used several different types of interfacing, both sew-in and iron-on. The classic pelmet Vilene sew-in interfacing was used as a support for the newspaper faux chenille. It helps stop you cutting right through the final layer.    This lovely sample of newspaper faux chenille just used black, white, red and silver and looked stunning    This rather fab piece of newspaper faux chenille was mounted on an old rusty dustbin lid that was found lurking around . . .  This was originally one piece of faux chenille that was cut into six and then turned to create the above    Catching the 'furrows'

A small pile of dyed iron-on interfacings - the new Decovil and Decovil Light on some particularly gorgeous newspaper. You have it all planned - 4 days to prepare for a show with new samples and all the products dyed, cut and packed for 3 x workshops of 20 retailers - aaRGGHH!!! The exhaust fell off the car, loads of orders came in (I'm not complaining really) and piles of paperwork leapt out and needed doing  . . . . but I have finally knuckled down. Even my sofa is covered with dyed iron-on interfacing hopefully drying ready to use tomorrow, I just don't seem to have enough floor space.  I was hoping these books would be covered by now - tomorrow's blog . . . . . I am getting SOME samples done. This is a wooden box that has been dyed turquoise - (it just happens to match my hair). Painted Bondaweb was then ironed onto it and decorated with gilding flake. The box was then sealed with acrylic wax.  This is very subtle for me - Painted, then