A stunning piece of work combining Tyvek with decorated and painted Bondaweb. Denman College is the home of the W.I. The main building is Georgian and is set in beautiful grounds with many specimen trees. I always have great fun there - you seem to get a different type of student, I can't quite put my finger on it, but they are usually up for anything. You no longer need to be a member of the W.I.to enrol on courses so do have a look and see if anything takes your fancy - www.denman.org.uk The workshop I was delivering was On the Surface - my basic Bondaweb course with a bit of Tyvek thrown in for good measure. As the courses I teach at Denman are residential the students can work in the evenings which means we can get a bit more done. Usually stitch - a very important part of my teaching.    The group working in The Ferris Room - there were 10 in all. The maximum, such a treat to have low numbers. As the jam festival was on while I was there we weren't

Claire's wonderful zingy ginger cookies.  The weekend was fast and furious and started on Friday night with The Old Needle Works Christmas/New Year party. It was great to see everyone again - it had been quite a while since we had all been together. There was lots of excited chat and of course fabulous food created by The Crafty Cafe. Our wonderful leader - my dear friend Brenda Killigrew.     The wonderful Linda Lavin who does her best to keep the office (and Brenda) under control.     The seemingly inexhaustible Sharon of The Crafty Cafe,     . . .  and the lovely Joan who does more than anyone realises for everyone else - she is a STAR!!!  The party finished at a reasonably sensible time as we all had a busy weekend ahead with several classes due in. The Old Needle Works like many thousands of businesses was flooded not once but twice - the second time just after the the floors had been made good from the first flood. This has been

Bonded layers of Vilene Spunbond CS500 It is SO good to be home - the washing machine is going full pelt, I have so much sorting out to do and the cleaning . . . I left the house in a bit of a mess and surprise surprise - the fairies haven't been in - so will have to attack the cobwebs too - but I am home, for at least a week. Big sigh - wonderful! Domestic goddess? Possibly not! The second 2 day workshop at Inkberrow Design Centre was Hot Textiles. This is a more basic workshop to teach the safe creative use of irons, heat guns and soldering irons. It was great to have 2 days to spend extolling the wonders of Vilene Spunbond, Bondaweb and Tyvek.         Some of the excellent decorated painted Bondaweb samples. The Bondaweb has been decorated with (from the top) transfer foils and Tyvek, threads, glitter and gilding flake, sequins, gilding flake and transfer foil, skeleton leaves. To create these layered applique Vilene Spunbond samples - pre dyed