I am a bit late posting this - time run away from me again (such a naughty boy!). The second layouts for the book arrived this week and needed to be checked which lost me 2 days, but it is looking good. It should all be finished and off to the printers in 2 weeks somewhere in the far east. The longest process in all this book writing malarkey is the journey from the printers to the U.K. by tanker. It takes 3 months!!!!!! We are hoping it will be out and ready for the Festival of Quilts in August.       the lovely ladies of the Wey Valley Workshop busily working away The Wey Valley Workshop are a group of ex City and Guilds students that meet up regularly for workshops and lectures. The group is well organised and seems to run like clock work. It was great fun working with them and everything ran smoothly. It was particularly good to see Liz Holford again. Liz was on my Experimental Textiles course for 3 years and I could always rely on her to help with any embroidery stitches I didn&

Alison helping Alyssa with the layout of her sample One of the great things about this course was the way the group all mucked in together sharing threads and materials and best of all - ideas. Keeping the balance between teaching processes and techniques and allowing the students to have time to develop their own ideas is always a hard one for me. I find it difficult to leave them alone! On longer courses it is very important for me to leave time for the students to be able to develop techniques and processes in their own way as much as possible. heat gunned dyed Vilene Spunbond CS500 and polyester organza Bondaweb was applied to the back of pre coloured Vilene Spunbond CS700 leaving the backing paper on the Bondaweb. This was then cut into delicate designs with a soldering iron. The designs were then lifted out and ironed onto a background of the heavier CS800 When using Bondaweb for applique on synthetic fabrics I find it best to leave the backing paper on the Bondaweb while you

It's 6am and dark outside. The words are flowing now and I have already eaten TWO  pain au chocolat. I am SO naughty. I seem to need lots of treats to keep me going, why is it only bad carbs will do when you are under pressure? I can be slim and gorgeous next week Ha Ha!! once the book has been delivered. So - this blog is supposed to be about promoting Hot Textiles - not books and snow.  The sample above shows dyed lightweight pelmet vilene (green) and Spunbond CS700 (brown) cut with a fine tip soldering iron and bonded onto Spunbond CS800 (blue). If you want to iron on your intricate cut outs, make sure you iron Bondaweb on the back of your products before you cut them. You can leave the backing paper on or take it off when you solder, it's a personal choice. Don't forget your baking parchment on top and underneath and of course, you need to be soldering onto a ceramic tile or similar. Right back to writing - keep calm and carry on . . . . . No Richard, I haven'

  do you dunk yours? The snow was washed away on Friday night by very heavy rain, it was a miracle. We went to bed with thick snow on the ground and woke up on Saturday morning to virtually no snow at all. We now have freezing fog, which is very beautiful in the garden decorating all the different textures with white lace - but deadly on the roads. The change in the weather was very timely for a busy Open House weekend. I was particularly pleased this weekend as I sold a large piece of work of my own for a change. It always does my confidence a power of good to sell something - it also helps my groaning bank balance!  . . of land, sea and sky '. . . of land, sea and sky' was created on two 'L' shaped canvases by layering hand dyed silk tops onto similarly dyed heavy pelmet Vilene plus and 'knocked back' with toning painted Bondaweb. The whole piece was then painted with acrylic wax to seal the surface. The piece can be hung as one solid work or slightly sepa