Wow! What an amazing group. I was booked to deliver a lecture on the Saturday afternoon and a workshop on the Sunday in the local Darby & Joan Hall in Cottingham. The hall was packed on Saturday with a vibrant group of ladies of all ages. The lecture was well received and I was fascinated to see how the group was run. I am used to travelling around the country to Guilds and private groups and it is always interesting to see how things are organised - or not! This has got to be the most organised, friendly and possibly largest group I have encountered.  The group was started in 1982 by a C and G embroidery group with some of the original member still attending  The group were about 30 strong and have grown to 136 members. The E.Y.E.S. group also have an 'Eyelets' group for 5-10 year olds and a 'Highlights' group for teenagers. It was an absolute joy to meet everyone. some of the group working away in the workshop The workshop was Hot Textiles and we had a larger

busy students creating fabulous samples Saturday 8th January saw me teaching a group of very capable ladies who were great fun from the Cotswold Embroiderers Guild. The Guild hold their workshops at the The Reddings Community Centre in Cheltenham. It has fantastic facilities with plenty of room, tables and SOCKETS! When working with a variety of heat tools it can be a real pain to have to keep unplugging an iron to use a heat gun. This centre was pure luxury. We were working with Vilene Spunbond and layering it with painted Bondaweb. It was a great day and we covered several tec hniques. It was great fun and as you can see from the samples the ladies worked hard. Vilene Spunbond CS 700 & 800 painted and dyed. Bondaweb ironed to the back and leaf shapes cut with a soldering iron and than ironed onto more CS 800. Detail Right side of sample - Vilene Spunbond CS 800 painted and dyed and then zapped with a heat gun, the 'crunchy' edges were then foiled with heat transfer f

  happy students in Sarah's VERY well equipped studio I was delighted when Sarah Lawrence of  Craftynotions invited me to teach 2 one day workshops at Craftynotions base camp in Newark, Nottingham. The first workshop was based on Vilene Spunbond and the second on Tyvek. The students were - Mary Kerr, Sheila Buchan, Jackie Litchfield, Cheryl Herod, Carol Devany, Janice Rose, Judith Gill, Margaret Williams, Linda Sottle, Anne Marsen, Jean Baker, Elaine Winterton and Brenda Wilkinson. Two of the ladies did both workshops and one of them came all the way from Edinburgh.   layers of Spunbond and polyester organza stitched together then zapped back with a heat gun The first day was devoted to colouring and distressing Spunbond. Sarah has developed a new range of absolutely fabulous paints and sprays that work particulalrly well on all Spunbonds and Tyvek. I have waited a long time to find the perfect paints, but I think I have found them. As some of you will know - when painting produ