The is 'Bet Noire' by Mary - just fabulous. This post is about the homework from the constructed textiles weekend of my Experimental Textiles course. The idea was to use either, knit, weave or felt to construct a three dimensional sample. I was so pleased with what they produced I thought the work deserved it's own post. Lovely felt bowls made in the washing machine around balls. Mary really enjoyed stitching into the felt . . .  . . .  and more of Mary's beautiful stitch . . .  Kat had fun working into her paper collage from the previous weekend. Barbara made the fabulous vessel - she has part felted it, then she will be stitching into it and felting it again. Val created some exquisite textures with stitch on this divine little bowl . .     . . . and more on this faerie like sample . .    This is one of Babara's woven samples . .   . . and some of her stunning felted knitting . .  Just gorgeo

 The lovely Laura Strutt polishing off 2 puddings - no not really - we shared.  I have found a fellow dessert lover!!! Whoopppee! The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace was amazing, very busy indeed. I have a new job - promoting Vilene products at various shows around the country. As you can imagine, it is a great hardship - not!!! I have been working with these fabulous products for many years as many of you will know. Laura Strutt and I will be doing all the Twisted Thread shows for the next few years and one or two others .Laura is a very clever girl and is into all manner of crafts as well as working on magazines and is the author of the Haynes Sewing Manual. We get on SOOOOO well together. Whilst the shows are hard work - great fun can also be had.  Laura showing how to use the Quickscreen Triangle by Vilene. The whole point of us having a stand at the shows is to help you all identify which Vilene products you may need for your area of crafting, emb

    Vilene Spunbond CS500 and polyester organza decorated with painted Bondaweb then zapped with a heat gun and ripped apart. Hot, New Jewelled Surfaces was the workshop and it was a local group for a change - Context. A great group of ladies - we had 14 for the workshop. The main idea of the workshop is to teach the safe use of heat tools. Irons, heat guns and soldering irons while having a thoroughly good time  The group getting down to work with the painted Bondaweb.     Busy girls and a very busy table . . .      Oh dear - there were some absolutely delicious cakes.MMmmmmm!! We were working with painted Bondaweb and Vilene Spunbond/Lutradur and of course all manner of sparkles. The group really enjoyed cutting out shapes with a soldering iron. This process is basically cutting shapes for bonded applique. In this case, as we are using synthetic fabrics, once the Bondaweb has been applied to the back of the fabric (leaving the backing paper on). shapes can v