The 6th weekend of my ExTex course experimentaltextiles.com was dedicated to colouring both natural and synthetic fabrics and threads. I think it is important to be able dye your own fabrics if at all possible, it is one thing that can help make your work different. Saturday saw us dyeing natural fabrics in plastic bags with procion dyes. This is such an easy process for smallish amounts of fabric and it is always interesting to see which type of fabric comes out darkest and brightest. We were dyeing cotton, viscose and silk.   Some of the 'stashes'   As Shaun travels up from Plymouth and stays in a hotel Saturday night she wasn't able to take her dyeing home to rinse out like everyone else -so she did it Sunday morning - and for a change it wasn't raining so she could dry them in the sun.     Heidi started to layer up some of her dyed fabrics and tried a little hand stitch - very sensitive, quit lovely. After mixing up the dyes and

 One of Lana's colourful papers which she then started to cut and collage.  Art Van Go have a great studio/workshop space at the back of their well equipped shop. They have everything a girl could desire. Having made the printing blocks the students started to print with them on A1 sheets of white cartridge, working out their patterns and repeats. We used acrylic paint to print with. Once the A1 sheets were printed up and dry we colour washed them with a dilution of procion dye powder and water. You can see how beautifully the different coloured dyes bleed and mix together on the page. Once dry the acrylic paint resists the dye.   Lana started to build up layers by cutting up one sheet to apply or collage onto another sheet.   One of Lana's layered pieces which she later went onto stitch.     Another one of Lana's printed sheets .   This is one of Kate's overprinted sheets, it looks quite 3D if you slightly offset your over print. We all thou

A beautiful sample of Vilene Spunbond CS500 that has been backed with Bondaweb and then cut with a soldering iron. The cut shapes are then ironed onto more Vilene Spunbond. It is Wednesday - halfway through my week at Ballarat. There are 16 tutors teaching groups of students all over Ballarat Grammar School. We all are having a great time and working hard. We have an afternoon off today so i am catching up on the blog and then I will have a snooze - I need to re-charge my batteries - I am still not quite right - the drugs help a lot though!  my girls painting acres of Bondaweb I have a FABULOUS group of students, they are very patient with this strange women from the U.K. who shouts orders at them - they are starting to get used to me . . . . The ladies are working very hard and are excited about working with products that are new to them such as Decovil, Tyvek and Spunbond.   The girls working in the textiles studio   Just Bondaweb, painted and then iro

 Layers of newspaper and polyester organza stitched together and slashed and distressed to create faux chenille. One of the things we did on the first day of this course was to paint newspaper with procion dye. Normally I would use the newspaper that I have used over and over again when protecting my work surface. If you can build up the colour over time you get a wonderfully random effect of splodges of paint and dye. We didn't have that luxury of time so just had to make do with one coat of dye. Several layers of newspaper and polyester organza machine (we used 8 of each) stitched together in 'tram lines' the width of your machine foot or slightly wider. You then cut through the top layers but NOT the bottom layer. I add a piece of dyed craft/pelmet Vilene as the bottom layer before I stitch all the layers together. This reinforces your work as newspaper is very fragile. The craft/pelmet Vilene also make your work firm enough for book covers or vessels.

  this stunning Houseleek/Sempervivum graces the front terrace of the villa Because of worries about the threatened Spanish air traffic control strike and illness we were a small and exclusive group. This meant we could get through a lot more work, it was a great luxury. It is unlikely to ever happen again so we all made the most of it. The timetable was -  Monday am - Market Monday pm - Studio Tuesday - Studio Wednesday - Studio Thursday am - Studio Thursday pm - Tapas lunch in Murcia than a guided tour and shopping! Friday - Final day in studio and 'show and tell'. Working in the studio during the week - As with all of my workshops we had to paint all the products before we could use them. Of course being in Spain that was no hardship, everything dried in record time. We painted up the Bondaweb and Tyvek with Colourful Thoughts paints from Cratynotions www.craftynotions.com These are high metallic paints that stay really bright even when you need to water them down to pai