Painted and foiled Bondaweb with painted, textured and foiled Tyvek The final day at West Dean was a day of layering and stitch, a great treat. Having the extra day made such a difference, to the work and to the group. All the students bar one were beginners in the Hot Textiles field and they all produced some brilliant work. We worked through all the basic Hot Textiles processes as you will see in the previous posts. The students were left with various piles of heat treated fabrics which I asked them to create some kind of composition - here are the resulting samples -   Layers of transfer printed CS800 Vilene Spunbond zapped with a heat gun and decorated with frayed organza and embossing powder.   Transfer printed CS800 Vilene Spunbond zapped with a heat gun decorated with a Tyvek motif.      Polyester organza decorated with painted Bondaweb, zapped with a heat gun and decorated with textured Tyvek  Painted Bondaweb decorated with hea

  3 A4 sheets of painted Tyvek layered with polyester organza. this was then machine stitched together and then zapped with a heat gun to reveal different layers of colour and to create texture. The second day of a three day course - we have covered most of the basic techniques now and the students will be combining their own layers and stitching into them tomorrow.  There are seven in the group and it is another good group - textile ladies do seem to be good fun in general. I rarely get someone who moans. These are two Bondaweb pieces that I missed yesterday We worked with Tyvek for most of the day, starting with 'kissing, stroking and caressing' single sheets and moving on to layering Tyvek with polyester organza and zapping back. I don't know if you can have too much of a good thing but here are all the layered samples - front and back - Maggie's front and back Jean's front and back   Janet's front and back

 Bondaweb painted with diluted Colourful Thoughts paint and then printed with the same paints at full strength. Never say never!  I have always said I will never sell paints or dyes - just products that will do something with heat. However - due to the encouraging growth in sales of my Play packs, particularly the Hot Spots! I am now gong to incorporate Colourful Thoughts Paints, Gilding Flake and Jewel Dots in two new Play packs that I will launch mid January ready for the new Creative Stitches Show at Bluewater at the beginning of February.   These multi surface paints are the best I have found for painting all my products but particularly for Bondaweb and Tyvek where you need to dilute the paint but you still need some colour. They have a high metallic content which is great as many of you know I like a bit of sparkle . . . Which  brings me to the Gilding Flake and Jewel Dots -  I just LOVE this stuff is makes my happiness complete when I am layering with

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

One of the many great things about doing shows is meeting new people. Chris Gray from Mabon Arts had a stand across the aisle from us at FOQ and her stand was a joy to behold. Beautiful hand dyed silk threads and kits to play with. Chris was fascinated by my painted Bondaweb and asked to have a corner off one of my pre-painted sheets to decorate a sample she was working on. This is it in progress. Chris produces very sensitive work, very delicate - Yes! I CAN appreciate this - don't be shocked. The next day Chris gave me a bag full of divine threads by way of thanks, what a lovely thought. I was very tempted by all kinds of packs of dyed tissue and colour themed threads. Have a look at her blog and see what she has to offer, lovely stuff. Her new website will be 'up' at the end of this month. mabon-arts.blogspot.com x I am off to one of my favourite places to teach today - Art Van Go www.artvango.co.uk I am teaching a 3 day summer school based around my workshop Hot Ne

75gm (heavy) Tyvek ironed lightly between baking parchment I am off to Emsworth later today to deliver a lecture this evening and two one day workshops - Tinkering with Tyvek. I had been booked for just one workshop but the waiting list was so long we had enough for another day. I am excited about spending two days playing with Tyvek. I have taught so many 'Hot Textiles' based workshop recently it will be a welcome change.  layered decreasing shapes of 75gm Tyvek (Heavy) stitched in the middle and gentle heated 75 gm Tyvek (heavy) layered with polyester organza, machine stitched together then zapped with a heat gun to reveal different layers of colour I will update the blog with all our exploits at the end of the week, I shall be a bit tight for time as I drive to France the day after I get back from Emsworth to see my friends Sue and John to sort out our teaching programme next year. I'm looking forward to driving down to the Charente Maritime district where they live,

  one of the original 10 black dresses made form black bin liners  I received an email this week from Sarah Patterson saying how useful she had found my book Hot Textiles.  When you write a book you never know how it will be received or if anyone will even read it, so it is always very satisfying when you hear your book has been useful. Sarah teaches A/S A/2 and GCSE Textiles at Portsmouth College , she likes to teach students a range of techniques such as Photoshop, printing, embroidery etc. This year her A/2 group were inspired for the final exam by the little black dress and this coincided with a local exhibition at Portsmouth Museum based on the LBD. The task Sarah had set her students was to create a dress using non conventional materials such as bin liners, condoms (not used!) tampons (again not used!) in fact anything that could be coloured or turned black. The students went to the exhibition and collected great ideas and inspiration for shapes and cuts. When the students r