Yes! it had to be done . . . it would be rude not to! I do love teaching at Denman College - not JUST for the food. Everyone is so well looked after and we always have great fun. I was back this time to teach 'Hot Textiles '- my basic safe use of heat tools workshop. The students were fabulous and every one got on well together. The Light Craft Room is my usual teaching studio, it is very light and airy with plenty of room for all our bags and boxes of STUFF! Painted Bondaweb with gold transfer foil, glitter and artichoke seeds. More painted Bondaweb gilding flake, dried flowers, artichoke heart seeds and glitter. A very simple but very beautiful sample of painted Bondaweb with a circle of gold transfer foil. 2 fab samples of Tyvek layered with polyester organza, machine stitched together and then zapped with a heat gun to reveal different colours. A bit like cheeky reverse applique! Heavy pelmet Vilene plus dyed with pr...

 Transfer printed Evolon decorated with strips of silver transfer foiled Hot Spots! ooohh!!!! It's been a busy week with lots of writing to do - and that means THINKING!!! oohhh! my brain hurts! I just have to finish writing a workshop on Hot Spots! for the German 'Professional Patchwork' magazine then I can start to get my kit ready for teaching at Denman College and Inkberrow Design Centre this week. There doesn't seem to have been enough hours or days in the past week. My house is still like a bomb site and the Open House is looming at the end of next month. I know it will get done - but when? I am only home for 5 days between now and the 20th November - can you feel the rising panic as I type? At least I will home enough to pack and post orders for   nid-noi.com which is getting busier . .  and busier. I shouldn't complain, I am very lucky to do what I do - it's just that there is so much of it at the moment! So - I will post from Denman...

  Newspaper block printed with Colourful Thoughts multi surface paints (bubblegum & copper) I had a day off yesterday - Shock! Horror!! I had chance to work on a large piece of newspaper faux chenille - Oh no!!! not newspaper AGAIN you cry!!! Colourful Thoughts multi surface paints are thick enough to print with and can be watered down to paint Bondaweb and Tyvek and they are gorgeous. craftynotions I have a deep box canvas 1m x .30cm I wanted to cover so layered up 7 - 9 layers of old dyed newspapers and backed it with some dyed craft/pelmet Vilene. My finished layers were large enough to cover the canvas and stick down around the edges. I have new wooden printing block I wanted to try out that Sarah Lawrence had given me at Festival of Quilts. I printed the top layer of newspaper, waited for it to dry then pinned all the layers together ready to stitch. I wanted to try stitching wider channel than I have been to see if I liked the effect. The channels are 2...

Today is my catch up day to finish off and write up my project for the next issue of Workshop on the Web (WOW) Maggie has been VERY patient waiting for me to finish. Another 2 hours and I will be done.  Then there is more writing (and thinking - Ouch!) to be done for Deena. Hello Deena! You will have your copy this afternoon. I will tell you all what it all about later on this month . Both ladies have been so patient with me this week - what with broken toes and dashing about with parents I have lost a lot of time this week. This is just a little temptation to show you what I am working on for WOW, you will have to wait till it is published on the web to find out what I am up to and how it is all put together . . . . . Back to work now - just wanted to say Hello! and have a good weekend.  x

Harriet and Jamie Malden - the real stars of my new DVD Well the filming of the new DVD took place in Amersham on the 13th. We had a great but very busy day. I had stayed overnight with Jamie on my way down from teaching in Redditch the day before so I was ready to rock and roll early. The filming took place at the Colouricious Studio. You may be familiar with my previous outings on the Talking Threads series of DVD's. Jamie has already produced several DVD's all of which can be found here -   http://www.colouricious.com/ I found it very difficult to sort out any kind of 'chapter' run. The film was to cover 10 uses of Bondaweb but so many of the proocesses cross over I couldn't get a clear idea of which order to show off this wonderful product. Luckily Jamie sorted out everything into a running order for me. Jamie makes a fabulous producer, she is very calming when you are feeling nervous and makes everything run smoothly. Her daughter, Harriet, w...

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 samp...

Following swiftly on from Shropshire the day before - I delivered a 2 day workshop - Extreme Surfaces for Stitch at InkBerrow Design Centre  We had great fun layering Vilene Spunbond backed with Bondaweb and stitched onto craft Vilene . I love teaching at this venue - the workshops are perfect for my classes. Layers of dyed Vilene Spunbond machine stitched onto dyed craft Vilene and then zapped back with a heat gun.   These beautiful samples were created by my youngest student ever - pre dyed Vilene Spunbond CS500 (yellow) had Bondaweb ironed onto the back and shapes were cut out with a soldering iron. The backing paper was then removed and the negative spaces (yellow) were then ironed onto the the black and blue backgrounds, more pre dyed CS500. Simple and exquisite! Pre dyed CS500 decorated with painted Bondaweb, sequins and glitter. This was then 'cut' into wavy strips and layered up to create a 'frothy' effect. T...