One of the lovely models showing off my gecko t. shirts. Craft, Hobby and Stitch International is a trade show. As I work with Vilene as a consultant, I work at this show and run their retailer workshops. This is a very sedate style of show compared to the consumer shows that I do.  Vilene have decided to bring Hot Spots into their main retailer range - as you may know, I have been selling Hot Spots on  www.nid-noi.com for several years. I sell them by the metre, Vilene will be selling them in pack of 5 x A4 sheets. Hot Spots are a bit like a spotty Bondaweb but with a heavier backing paper. Because the backing paper is heavier, the Hot Spots can be cut with hole punches, die cutting machines and laser cutters . .  as well as scissors! I was asked to decorate T.shirts for everyone on the trade stand this year, so I asked my friend Claire from lasercutsussex.co.uk to help. Claire's knowledge of laser cutting is amazing. You may remember that she cuts my j...

  A very colourful and musical sample of faux chenille. Isn't it amazing when something you have been planning for for a couple of years finally arrives? And then all of a sudden - it's over!!! It's my second to last night in The Antipodes. I am at my motel in Wanaka having had a lovely, lazy day mooching around. The most important part of the day was packing a parcel and sending it back home full of clothes . . .  My suitcase is a tad over weight, not unlike my good self!! I arrived in Wanaka last Sunday having been given a lift from one of the students that had enrolled on my course. We had a very beautiful drive up from Dunedin. . . and then it was straight into setting my room to teach on Monday.    More faux chenille samples. The five day workshop I was due to teach was A New Starting Point. My newspaper based course. It is very odd teaching without a Volvo estate full of my kit. I have to rely on my students bringing everything in - and the odd i...

  My dear friend Brenda and I at the Mexican party on Saturday night -  (They are stick on moustaches - not our own!!!) After a wonderful week being a student at the TSG (Textile Study Group textilestudygroup.co.uk) summer school in Newport, Shropshire - I drove down to Redditch ready to for the weekend.  It was the third weekend of my Experimental Textiles course at The Old Needle Works. The plan was to look at positive and negative space and to paint colour wheels.  After having a look at all the homework the girls had done in the previous month we got straight into decorating white cartridge with wax crayons. This is a wonderful 'play school' type of activity where you don't have to think too much. It is a great way to ease into the weekend.     We were going to colour wash these masterpieces with procion dye powder and water on Sunday. The wax resists the dye. Then it was onto the main event of the weekend - Colour Theory!!!! ...

Chocolate wrappers free machine stitches with the help of Solufix and Solufleece. Oh how I suffer for my art!!! I love the bright, shiny colours of chocolate wrappers and enjoy using them as flashes of colour in my work. When ironed lightly between baking parchment they texture like Tyvek but remain soft enough to stitch into. They do ping about a bit if you try to free machine them but with the new Solufix I have no more trouble with them. Solufix is a self adhesive water soluble fabric on a strong backing paper that is removed to reveal the sticky side of the Solufix. Because the backing paper is so firm it means you can run it through an ink jet printer, print your design, remove the backing paper and then lay threads around your design and free machine to your hearts content. You may need to cover your threads with a layer of Solufleece if any of the glue is exposed. The glue will not affect your machine needle.    I stuck all my chocolate wrapper strips to the...