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 Solufix

Hot Textiles has been translated into Spanish - Whoo hoo! The journey home from Glasgow on Monday was a bit scary - well the first bit of it was anyway . . . .The M74 was very, very, frightening. One minute there was a reasonable amount of snowfall - The next, there was a whiteout. The traffic ground to a halt and we sat around for a while, an hour or so and then we started to move, slowly. With the ever useful travel information on the radio we were informed of an accident that had closed the motorway several miles ahead. We eventually diverted off the Southbound M74 via Lesmahagow, to return to a much faster moving M74. On the Northbound M74 there was a horrible accident involving two lorries and several cars. The scene certainly made me drive much more sensibly than usual . I delayed my journey home to Brighton as I heard on the travel news that the M23 was blocked with poor drivers stuck in the snow, most of them all night! Luckily my best fri

 New samples by Margaret Beal. Well we have had two great days so far at the SECC in Glasgow and we expect to be even busier tomorrow. It is great catching up with friends and meeting all the interested visitors.  I haven't seen Margaret Beal for a while so it is good to catch up with her and hear about her new book that is out this year, which I totally forgot to ask the title of - Duh! Margaret on her stand. Helen McKenna has a very colourful stand full of recycled delights. Helen's new recycled felted dress full of strange and unusual delights . . . Pat Archibald had a beautiful stand full of beautiful quilts and sparkly delights. Caroline Earl is local girl and it is so good to her again. Val Hughes is here with her beautiful felted pieces and an amazing felted dress.   Wendy and Rob  Dolan are here too, I seem to Wendy at more shows around the country than at home and we live in the same town! We are both always travelling. W

Beach huts on Seaford beach front. I had a rare weekend off this weekend and spent a lot of it at my sisters in Seaford. We had a great time together with lots of food and drink and a good walk on Sunday morning in the freezing cold. These modern beach huts line a section of the front and are very cheerful. I have been trying out some techniques for my workshops at the NEC this month. I will posting more information next week. I want to show how versatile the Decovil 1 iron-on interfacing is and one way to work with it is to texture it. At the moment I am using 5" texture pockets which aren't really big enough. Sissix were bringing out 12" texture pockets but they still haven't materialised. If any of you know of any 12" pockets I would be grateful if you could let me know. I cut an 'envelope' style bag out of Decovil 1 with my Big Shot Pro die cutting machine.   I then foiled the sticky side with transfer foil.

  Transfer printed satin covered with hand knitted wire embellished with hand stitch - by Sally. It is sad when a long course comes to an end - it is also a time to celebrate all the hard work of the past year. Friendships have been made amongst the group that I hope will last for years to come.     Sally stitching in to the sample above.   We started off with eight students and lost two along the way through broken bones and pressure of work. I am hoping that Liz of the broken bones will be picking up the course again some time this year and hopefully Emma will feel more able to work with the group as they go forward into new ventures.     Claire and Shaun appear to be working hard but were definitley feeling slightly hysterical and mucking about. Claire blamed the caffeinated tea she drank at lunchtime for her extreme fit of the giggles. (Claire normally drinks decaffeinated). Heidi working hard on her wall piece.     Jo creates the most beau