Beautiful repeat shapes - individual baked cheesecakes with honey sauce!!!! I am back teaching at Denman College  having a great time with a fabulous group, they are very funny and VERY naughty at times - perfect!  Denman is a beautiful place at which to teach, stunning grounds with beautiful flower borders and an amazing collection of mature specimen trees. The food is also very good . . . .   We can be healthy if we want to - with fruit salad . . . . . but if there is lemon and lime posset - no competition! The textiles studio is very spacious with plenty of power. A great place in which to play. I am very lucky to teach here. Guess who has the most messy table? The girls working hard. Torn painted Bondaweb decorated with foils, sequins and threads. Torn painted Bondaweb decorated with flower petals. A simple, but very pleasing composition.  . . . . and of course - we are using newspaper - well it is a Layered Textiles course. 

Medium sized Hot Spots! cut to shape, ironed onto black cotton and decorated with sequins, glitter and foil. This is just a quick catch up post. I have been home for a whole week - didn't get quite as much done as I wanted - The bindweed is still evident in the garden but my deck is looking very pretty. August seems to be a purple month in my garden. The Buddleias have actually come into flower at last. Everything is so slow to flower as there has been so little sunshine. My Pelargoniums (Geraniums in old language) are also just coming into flower. I have been having fun playing with Hot Spots! for an article in Stitch magazine. It is so good to have a reason to get the glitter and foils out. Playtime is now over - it is the end of a week that should have seen a sparkling clean house, Huh!!! no chance, I have been playing on Facebook and catching up with friends in the Antipodes. I always swore I would never go on Facebook but it is SO useful for keeping up with friends and

One of my small hand stitched samples - viscose satin, silk and scrim. OOhhh!!! What a week we had - pure colour and enjoyment. 'The puzzle of colour' was the one week workshop delivered by Ruth Issett. The other workshops were 'Tales of the unexpected' with Kay Greenlees and 'Magic in the making' with Mary Sleigh. The TSG  textilestudygroup.co.uk summer school is a 5 day residential at Harper Adams University in Newport, Shropshire. One of the joys of these summer schools is that there is no washing up, cooking or phone calls. Just the opportunity to work uninterrupted - FANTASTIC.  Ruth in action doing 'one to ones' with each member of the group. Any one who has read any of my books or who knows me professionally will know that Ruth is one of the guiding lights in my 'career' and that I think she is a Superstar! So I jump at any chance to work with her. You can never learn or know enough about colour. Our week was base

Mary's beautiful composition of painted Bondaweb, newspaper, foils, gilding flake and jewel dots - and seaweed! Every now and then in your teaching life you come across a 'super' group. 'Super' in the the way they work together, share their materials and experience and of course they produce some fabulous work. It is particularly unusual to find this on a three day course - it is something I would associate with much longer course. Nine students who have never met before with the widest divide of experience and age from 17 to much older, experience ranged from very little through City and guilds up to degrees and a PHD in textiles based subjects. "Where sheep may safely graze . . "  The view outside the workshop door - sigh . . . it is so beautiful. Of course, being at West Dean College  www.westdean.org.uk helped, what with stunning surroundings, space to work and wonderful food it would be difficult to find anywhere else more suited t

One of Emma's resist prints The second day was to be spent looking at colour and how other artists use it. The group attacked their colour wheels with gusto and managed to complete their tints and tones charts with good humour. It can be very trying to have to spend a good hour or so on very controlled colour mixing but it is very important for students to know how to mix colour. Whilst most of us use colour instinctively - colour wheels are very useful when a project you are working on just isn't working colour wise and you need to work out why . . . . The tints, tones and shades chart and a colour wheel. I won't bore you all with images of all the colour exercises we did - here are some more of Saturdays resist printing samples - As we had the dye/colourwash out, some of the student s continued their experiments with wax crayons and dye/colourwash and then taking away or discharging the colour with Milton sterilising liquid.