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

Painted Bondaweb ironed onto a turquoise background fabric, decorated with dried seeds and leaves, jewel dots and strips of the backing paper from the Bondaweb  The first day of this 3 day course was spent showing the students the basic layering techniques we were due to cover. Once the students have got to grips with the basics they can then start zapping and stitching or whatever they fancy. First of all we painted Bondaweb and Tyvek - The Bondaweb we started to work with today (as you will see) and the Tyvek will be played with tomorrow. While the Bondaweb was drying the students ironed some plain Bondaweb onto a piece of pre-coloured Vilene Spunbond CS500. A soldering iron was then used to cut out shapes which were the ironed onto a second piece of Spunbond. Here are some of their samples -         We then experimented with transfer printing onto white CS800 - the heaviest weight Spunbond. I have my heat press here so the students had the chance to try tr

Bridget had fun with black Hot Stuff sheet. Decorating it with heat transfer foils and then impressing with wooden printing blocks while hot We had a chance to play with various materials on the course - Hot Stuff sheet was one of them, another was Solufleece . Solufleece is a water soluble machine embroidery product that has another use. You can 'crash' it with steam.       Solufleece is layered with Bondaweb and a top fabric. The sample is then stitched in rows and then steamed - the sample then puckers up. The samples above show the technique using two layers of organza as the top fabric. Do any of you remember those swimming costumes made with shirring elastic we used to wear that used to go all baggy when they got wet - No!!! of course not - you are far too young!!! This technique reminds me of that wet soggy feeling!!!!!   Christine stitching into her decorated newspaper     Bridget had fun layering CS500 Vilene Spunbond, free machining the

    Layers of printed and painted Bondaweb and torn newspaper ironed onto heavy iron-on interfacing . I LOVE this piece by Christine Because my clever students produced so much excellent work I will make this a two part post. My course had been brought forward from July to January and consequently I only had four students on my course. This was a great opportunity to get a lot of work done and fun for me. I usually teach ten to fifteen students in a group which is fine - but you don't get much time with each student. This was a real treat. Coupled with the fact all the students had been on a previous course with me in October, they all knew the basics of Hot Textiles which meant we could cover a lot of ground quite fast.  Newspaper printed with a leaf block - strips of which were used to create the beautiful work at the top of this post   Painted Bondaweb also printed with the leaf block.The Bondaweb is then carefully lifted from