My teaching table . . . Scrummy! A New Stating Point is now by far the most popular workshop I have ever developed. It is very satisfying when a workshop 'works' so well. I taught a 4 day version of this at The Bridge Community Education Centre in Brighton. A scant 15 minutes door to door - it is such a treat to teach so close to home. The Bridge is a great place to work and the food is fabulous. More of that later . . . A New Starting Point includes my 'Backgrounds and Prettys' tearing and layering technique and making newspaper faux chenille. Torn and layered book pages with painted Bondaweb and lots of gilding flake.  Painted Bondaweb ironed onto newspaper and then printed with a printing block. Simple and very beautiful. A torn and layered sample printed with a spiral printing block. Another torn and layered sample that has been printed. The print has been highlighted in selected areas to give definition. All the commerci

  Rachel's torn, printed and stitched papers I had a great weekend with my ExTex group. I had missed them. I am very much enjoying teaching an ongoing course again. To see the progression of each student is very exciting and rewarding. It reminds me why I trained to be a teacher. The fifth weekend of the course is a mixture of weave, knit and felt. It is always great fun teaching basic processes. When you work with basic, simple processes, your brain has a chance to get involved and excited -  making it's own connections between materials and techniques.  We started the weekend with looking at homework - the group had been asked to stitch into their torn and printed papers. There was some fabulous work.   A detail of Rachel's piece showing her beautiful stitch.       Val's collage . . .    . . . and a detail of some of her very sensitive stitch. Once we had discussed the homework we got on with feltmaking. We started with basic hand

    One of the samples from the first day.  I will write up this post in two parts as the group produced lots of gorgeousness.  Paper, Stitch, Print and Play is my newspaper and painted Bondaweb based workshop that also uses Solufleece and free machine embroidery to enhance your work with extra texture. A three day workshop is a great luxury - it enables a student to work through several processes and still have time to stitch. The group mastered the 'Pretty' and 'Background' technique quickly, which meant they produced some fabulous samples quite fast.      Who would have thought that old books and newspapers could produce such stunning work?    With only six in the group we had plenty of room to spread and makes lots of mess . . . Some of the first samples -                 Most of these samples have been decorated with the new Blingy Bitz. Little squares of flash and colour. Craftynotions  We also used gilding flake in various