book cover created by melting plastic shopping bags together between baking parchment   Wow!!! What wonderful weather! I hope most of you in the U.K have managed to get out in the sun - if only for a few minutes. It is not until it gets quite warm that you realise just how dark and cold it has been. From my window I can see the early sun on the white blossom of the Hawthorn tree at the bottom of the garden against the bright pale blue sky - beautiful. One of my jobs to catch up with this week is to write a few workshops for the VERY patient Kathy Troup of Stitch magazine, Kathy has only been waiting for 2 years. While going through my images to decide which ones to use I came across some I had put somewhere very safe - and then couldn't find them!!!!!  Early this year Laura Manning sent me these fabulous images of book covers and small bags created using melted plastic bags. I met Laura at the Design and Technology show last November and she told me that she had been running

One full body massage and a long sleep later . . . Oh I am getting too old to do these shows for much longer! One of the wonderful things about Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch is that further education and higher education colleges are invited to have stands to show off the students fascinating work across the field of textiles. In these days of swingeing cuts and uncertainty in education it was good to see such positive energy, technical skill and fantastic ideas. The colleges also have the opportunity to show work in the amazing fashion shows put on by the indefatigable Brenda Killigrew of Inkberrow Design Centre. www.inkberrowdesigncentre.co.uk There were so many remarkable outfits to show this year that Brenda had to put on 2 different fashion shows which were rotated throughout the day. This was an amazing feat as Brenda and all the models and helpers had only hours to prepare.   the garments from Longslade on the cat walk As some of you may know I occasionally work with Fr

Well it's nearly here, the biggest show of the year for me - Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch/Sewing for Pleasure/Hobbycrafts. 3 shows in 1 - you will need 2 days to get around it! I will be part of Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch along with many fantastic textiles artists and tutors and some superb exhibitions. The fashion shows will be even more exciting this year with some stunning work from students across the country - you won't believe your eyes! I will be on stand L18 opposite FibreFusion and hope to be on my stand for most of the day demonstrating and showing you how to heat and colour metal with a heat gun and layer it up with Vilene Spunbond. I am also organising the Vilene Workshop on stand Y02. I am very pleased to have some of the top textile tutors offering free short workshops everyday of the show.   my new heat gun is powerful enough to colour metal- FANTASTIC!    I will have plenty of the 7 colour packs of Vilene Spunbond CS500  last year I ran out of S

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

What a sexy little beast!!!  The heat guns have arrived and I am SO excited. This one is definitely worth the wait. 10 degrees hotter than my previous one so it is 360 watts - not only that, but it is 2 speed so you can use one speed for fine fabrics and for embossing and the higher speed for distressing the heavy Vilene Spunbond CS800, acetate satin and Kunin felt. Only distress synthetic fabrics - if you are not sure - do a test and if anything smells strongly - stop! Just to remind you all - when using a heat gun, always work on baking parchment/paper or a heat proof surface and make sure the room you are working in is well ventilated. Never paint products you are going to distress with oil based products as they will give off fumes when heated. I would avoid aerosol based sprays as well. Basically just be careful and use your common sense. If the product you are heating starts to turn brown - STOP - it means there is a natural fabric in the product and will not melt. In extreme c

one of my groups of keen students trying some new techniques Well here we are, another week on and I am sitting in my room in the Travelodge after a hearty breakfast about to pack up the car and start the long drive home back to Brighton. I have had a great if very busy and tiring time in Glasgow. The show was very busy and it was great to catch up with friends and customers up here.  Wendy and Rob Dolan were also with the show and we went out on the town on Friday night. We went to Ashton Lane in Glasgow - first of all we saw The Kings Speech at The Grosvenor Cinema, this is a refurbished Victorian cinema furnished with large leather seats with places to hold your drinks and food. You can buy a bottle of wine to take in with and a plate of Italian meats and olives if you fancy, or fresh popcorn or . . . .  you get the idea. After the film we manged to stagger 3 doors along to The Ubiquitous Chip, an amazing restaurant serving traditional Scottish fayre with a very modern twist. We a

  Various  weights of Vilene Spunbond cut with a soldering iron and bonded onto CS800  Glasgow here I come!!! I will be leaving tomorrow to start the long drive up to Creative Stitches at the SECC in Glasgow. www.ichf.co.uk It is a 4 day show from the 3rd - 6th March. I will be on stand no ZG01 and will be running 4 x 30 minute workshops a day on the stand. Tickets are on a first come, first served basis. The workshops are for 6 people at a time. Scrumptious Spunbond  30 minute Workshops Everyday - Book places with Kim 10.30, 11.30, 12.30 & 2.30    Come and discover the versatility of Vilene Spunbond CS 500, CS800 and Bondaweb, learn how to colour and distress these wonderful products. Experiment with different weights of Vilene Spunbond and heat tools to layer up a fascinating sample to take with you.  Layers of CS500 colours zapped with a heat gun to create a fantastic texture to stitch I love the journey up North and look forward to the views through Dumfries and Gallow

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&

Hello again and welcome to my new followers. I seem to be having trouble getting on with things this week. I had 2 more very hectic but enjoyable days teaching at Harrow Way Community School in Andover (see Thursday January 6th) on Monday and Tuesday and spent most of yesterday in a daze and recovering. Am I getting too old for all this dashing about? Consequently I am behind with paperwork and updating this blog. However - here I am now!   West Dean College This will be a 3 part post on the tales of my course at glorious West Dean College last week We had a fantastic time with the students producing work of a very high standard. To do the work justice I will separate it into sections. We will start with using old painted and dyed newspapers. The students enrolled on the course were - Mike Wallace, Janette Lazell, Linda Beadle, Rose Chapman, Alison Davis, Alyssa Bacon and Avril O'Brien. One of the luxuries of teaching at West Dean is the small group sizes, each student