Home made Victoria Sandwich - scrummy! Sometimes it's good to have a couple of hours off - I have had a very busy week packing and posting orders for www.nid-noi.com. I am halfway through a two week sale of Vilene Spunbond/Lutradur and I have almost sold out. I am slowly wading through all the orders and most of them should have been posted by Monday. This afternoon I drove over to the the Sussex Prairies garden just outside Brighton. What an amazing place.  www.sussexprairies.co.uk This is the second time I have visited. I am going once a month to meet my friend Anne Kelly who is artist in residence this year. It's great opportunity for us to have a catch up over a cup of tea and a piece of delicious homemade cake.   Anne sitting amongst the flowers, sketching. Anne has an exhibition of her work there and is also running various workshops. annekellytextiles.com Even on a dull afternoon that was threatening rain, the gardens were wonderful. The lay

  Various weights of Spunbond/Lutradur painted with very dilute acrylic paint. When dry, the Spunbond/Lutradur was ironed onto Bondaweb (leaving the backing paper on the Bondaweb). Shapes were then cut out with a soldering iron, lifted off the backing paper and ironed onto a background of painted Spunbond/Lutradur. I have been stocktaking this week for my end of year accounts and have realised there is no point hanging on to my supplies of the light and medium weight Spunbond/Lutradur till next March to sell at the Fashion, Embroidery and Stitch show. These weights have now been discontinued, which is a great shame. So -   For 2 weeks only - the prices will be reduced from   Light weight - CS500 - £5 - £3.50 Light weight crashed - £6 - £4   Medium weight CS700 - £7 - £4.50   This offer ends at midnight on the 18th July or until my stock runs out.   This is link to the Spunbond/Lutradur page .   http://www.nid-noi.com/product/L

   A section of the the Journeys from the Thursday/Friday group.  Well we have begun - and there are TWO courses running this year. One on Thursday and Friday and one on Saturday and Sunday. Experimental Textiles was originally taught as a four year course that I had to stop teaching after twelve years as it got - just tooo much!!! So I wrote the book of the course. After having sworn I would NEVER teach a long course again, I found I missed supporting students through a long course with an exhibition at the end. So . . as a happy medium - I now teach a nine weekend version of the course from June to March. This shorter version teaches VERY basic techniques and skills that we all need - but rarely spend the time on - unless we are 'encouraged' to!    Kate, Caroline and Marilyn  . . . . .     . .  and Suzie and Jane from the Thursday/Friday group.     Alison, Mary and Val . . .    . . and Melissa, Tricia and Rachael from the Saturday/

The view from the workshop door - one of my favourite views. West Dean College has got be one of the best places to teach in the U.K. The grounds are beautiful, the gardens are varied and colourful, the teaching areas are excellent and the food is - just fabulous!  East Sussex Embroiderers Guild hold their Summer School there every year. I was lucky to be asked to teach this year. Sophie Long was the other tutor. Her goldwork is very modern while still being traditional. We had great fun - we were a small group of six - I think I have taught all the other member of the Guild in this area of the country over the past ten years. I had been asked for a three dimensional slant on my newspaper based workshop - A New Starting Point. So I took my die cutting machine along to cut the boxes and brooch blanks. Some of the group painting up their papers and old books. The group brought in a great selection of foreign language newspapers, old atlases, technical and childrens