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A few days in Germany - part the second

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   A finished brooch. Decorated , layered newspaper ironed on to S133 (heavy iron-on interfacing) and cut with a die cutting machine. My first workshop at Nadelwelt was a newspaper based one - the idea was to make brooches and bags or boxes. The workshop was for four hour s . I had pre-painted Bondaweb and dyed up loads of newspaper as we wouldn't have time for the students to paint anything and have time for it to dry. As it happens it was VERY hot on the day - 28 degrees. So we could have painted Bondaweb, but there was no way of knowing that in advance.    There were nine stude nts in the group - the lady on the left looking into the room was my Quilt Angel, she translated and helped me during the workshop. S he was great fun - we had a really good time with her. So - you know the drill by now - we layered painted Bondaweb with newspaper, gilding flake and glitter. T he group also had a go with transfer foils. T here is somet hing about be ing giv

A few days in Germany - part the first

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 A fabulous and very fine cast iron decoration on a huge gate. I speak a very small amount of Fr e nch, but no German. This was of great concern to me as I didn't want to seem rude. So many Briti sh p eople assume that the rest of the world speak E ngli sh. I had hurriedly l earned the usual - please , thank you, g o od day . . . but still felt bad. After a brief flight I landed at Frankfurt airport and was met by a lovey tax i driver booked to take me to my hotel in Weinheim, who was very happy to practise his English on me . . . . After a couple of hours rest I was picked up by Per, my host f rom Freudenberg Vilene (Vliesoline in the rest of the wor ld). Per drove me into Weinhiem old town to show m e around. A lot of the arch i techture is quite G othic. There were lots of fabulous towers, you could imagine Rapun zel at the top of the tower, letting down her long hair . . . A lot of the buildings still have the original wooden decorations. Great for '

Andover Embroiderers Guild - 20th April

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 Two girls who are new to this malarky. I s p ent a fa b ulous day with a group of great ladies from the Andover area yesterday. We were play ing with painted Bondweb, Vilene S punbond and two weights of pelmet Vilene. We tried zapping the Spunbond with heat guns as well but I wanted to show you what the group got up to with the soldering irons. They created some brilliant samples. There is plenty of zapping the previous post. I use Margaret Beal's tried and tested way of working with ceramic flower pots for stands and wire wo ol in a c ardboard tubes to clean the tips. Bondaweb (unpainted) was ironed onto the back of three pieces of CS500 in three different colours. A fourth colour was ch osen for the background. A piece of black pelmet Vilene lite was then deco rated with painted Bondaweb , foils , glitter and gilding flake. Unp ainted Bondaweb was then iro ned on th e the back. It is important to lea ve the back ing paper on the B ondaweb. Y ou don't cut through

Zap! Pow! Slash! and Burn! Foredown Tower - part the third

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  Orange painted Vilene Spunbond CS800 (the heaviest) decorated with painted Bondaweb and synthetic fabrics.    Th e same sample zappe d with a heat gun to create some f abu lous lacy edges. We had great fun playing with all the products on this course, learning which would zap and which wou ld cut with a soldering iron. The heaviest weight Spunbond is great fun to 'cut' with the heat from a heat gun.    This sample shows the S p unb ond partly zapped before it is ripped apart. The idea is to almost cut through the fabric, just leaving a few strands, a kind of 'laddered' effect. Then you rip apart your work and the laddery bits seperate.    A blue sample which was then zapped . . . .     . . . and then ripped apart.       . . and another one . .     . . and another one . . (decorated with foiled Hot Spots!) This is Earth Jewel ls - one of my vessels. It is five foot tall and has a wooden base.  You can see the zapped e