Printed and painted Bondaweb lifted off the backing paper, torn and ironed into place onto a canvas decorated with more painted Bondaweb an old newspapers.  I have had a few days to play - a rare treat. I have been making samples for the new show at Excel next week and for my upcoming workshop at West Dean College. Solufleece and the new self adhesive Solufix are very popular at the moment. I thought you might like to know about printing onto Solufleece. Teaching across the country as I do it is very apparent that many of you are not confident in your drawing skills. A way around this is to use printing blocks, your own or commercial designs. As Solufleece is water soluble you would think that printing onto it with (wet) paint would make it dissolve - not if you stretch it first.  A selection of wooden blocks from Art Van Go www.artvango.co.uk    Boxes of blocks in many designs as well as single designs are available from Colouricious www.col...

Slip covers for the books that were pictured on the blog yesterday.  Decovil - new iron-on interfacing, dyed and then decorated with layers of newspaper, painted Bondaweb and gilding flake. First I was girly - and now I am being dainty - very unusual for me. I have managed to finish 2 book covers and make some more jewellery. I seem to have sold most of my first batch. The cover on the left is finished with acrylic wax and the one on the right was covered with a sheet of Lamifix gloss, hence it is shiny and wipe able. Lamifix also comes in a matt finish if you don't want your work looking tooooo shiny. Here is the dainty part - I have been drilling my jewellery pieces to make them into longer earrings with the tiniest drill bit. I have now managed to get it down to a fine art AND remember to breathe.    Layered newspaper and painted Bondaweb ironed onto Heavy Pelmet Vilene Plus  www.nid-noi.com then cut to shape on a die cutting machine. ...

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, the...

    Layers of printed and painted Bondaweb and torn newspaper ironed onto heavy iron-on interfacing . I LOVE this piece by Christine Because my clever students produced so much excellent work I will make this a two part post. My course had been brought forward from July to January and consequently I only had four students on my course. This was a great opportunity to get a lot of work done and fun for me. I usually teach ten to fifteen students in a group which is fine - but you don't get much time with each student. This was a real treat. Coupled with the fact all the students had been on a previous course with me in October, they all knew the basics of Hot Textiles which meant we could cover a lot of ground quite fast.  Newspaper printed with a leaf block - strips of which were used to create the beautiful work at the top of this post   Painted Bondaweb also printed with the leaf block.The Bondaweb is then careful...