The Freudenberg Vilene Stand The Freudenberg Vilene Boys I was demonstrating on the Freudenberg Vilene Stand at the trade show and running their retailer workshops everyday. I love working at this show as there is always calm atmosphere compared to the very busy consumer shows that I demonstrate at. It is all very sociable and professional. Having to work with 3 lovely boys is no hardship either. It was great to catch up with the Freudenberg Vilene team, particularly Gemma who will be also be helping me on my stand at Fashion and Embroidery in March when I will be running the Vilene Workshop. More of that when I come back from Glasgow. The workshops were short teaching sessions once a day for 20 people lasting 45 minutes. They are quite a tight turn around. This year I was showing how to use heavy iron-on interfacing with a Big Shot Pro die cutting machine and then everyone had a chance to decorate the boxes by ironing on sequins, glitter and foil. The iron-on interfacings have a g

This is me on my stand looking very studious - a nice tidy stand - NOT!!! The Creative Stitches Show at Brighton Centre was last week-end and it was VERY busy. It was great to catch up with ex students and friends I haven't seen for a while. It was also wonderful to be able to dash home every night - all the other shows  I do are at least 50 miles from Brighton.  The Brighton show is one of the smallest shows that ICHF (International Craft and Hobby Fairs) offers as The Brighton Centre is a very small venue. It is not large enough to fit all the exhibitions in that larger venues can hold so it was a taster of what is to come at Glasgow SECCC 3 - 6 March and the very exciting Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch at the NEC, Birmingham 24 -27 March. I will post more about this show next month. On of the exhibits at Brighton Centre was 'The Undoing of the Corset', a fascinating insight of what used to 'lie beneath'!!!!! This exhibit will travelling with all the ICHF shows

A small postscript after the Wey Valley Workshop post. While I was setting up the lecture and workshop that Friday, Mary Gray showed me a sample of her final project for the HE Diploma in Stitched Textiles at Windsor . She had used plastic carrier bags and machine stitch to create a remarkable piece of work. I was so impressed I asked her to send me an image so I could show all of you how amazing it is. Any of you who have read Hot Textiles will know of my love of melting plastics.    Mary's statement follows - TRANSIENCE  My work concerns the depiction of fragmented and distorted imagery on the multifaceted surface of moving water. The challenge has been to capture the complexity of the fractured reflection, created by a swimmer breaking through the surface of the water and the refracted images that the moving water makes of the swimmer. Mary Gray I hope you think it is as amazing as I do . . . . . . . . x  

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&

Alison helping Alyssa with the layout of her sample One of the great things about this course was the way the group all mucked in together sharing threads and materials and best of all - ideas. Keeping the balance between teaching processes and techniques and allowing the students to have time to develop their own ideas is always a hard one for me. I find it difficult to leave them alone! On longer courses it is very important for me to leave time for the students to be able to develop techniques and processes in their own way as much as possible. heat gunned dyed Vilene Spunbond CS500 and polyester organza Bondaweb was applied to the back of pre coloured Vilene Spunbond CS700 leaving the backing paper on the Bondaweb. This was then cut into delicate designs with a soldering iron. The designs were then lifted out and ironed onto a background of the heavier CS800 When using Bondaweb for applique on synthetic fabrics I find it best to leave the backing paper on the Bondaweb while you

the wonderful main workshop at West Dean The full title of the course was Hot Textiles - exploring layers, colour and stitch. The main products we used were newspaper (as seen in the previous post) painted Bondaweb, Tyvek, polyester organza and Vilene Spunbond. Today I will show you the samples of the beautiful work the group did with painted Bondaweb, I usually try to keep the number of images down to 8 per post but as I have so many images of the gorgeous work from this course I hope you will forgive this extended post. Bondaweb is such a versatile product, on this course we used it unpainted and ironed onto the back of Vilene Spunbond and polyester organza to create stunning applique which I will post tomorrow. This post is about painted Bondaweb.   using painted Bondaweb as a background to iron on polyester organza delicately cut out with a soldering iron   a combination process using Vilene Spunbond applied with unpainted Bondaweb cut with a soldering iron and also ironed onto p

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