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The Experimental Textiles End of Year Show at the Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch Show 2015

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Mary Smith's interpretation of her journey in colour and in fabric. So - here we are the NEC for Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch. It is my biggest show of the year. It is a very exciting show, so much to see and do. This is a quick post just to talk about my Experimental Textiles students end of year show. There are 2 stands at the show. Having sorted most of the work on the students last session in the IDC studios at The Old Needleworks, I knew roughly what I wanted to hang on each stand. Arriving and seeing an empty stand can be daunting, you just have to keep going till you finish.  Starting to set up the stand.  Starting to realise just how much work we have to choose from.  . . . And then, as if by magic (several hours later) - you have a finished stand.    A selection of the work created on the course including some crazy 3D pieces and all the workbooks.  The workbooks are always the most popular part of the stand.   Some of the

Experimental Textiles - the last session! 5th - 8th March

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Work in progress from Kate. Well - that's the third year of Experimental Textiles (the 9 month version) finished. The next round runs from June 2015 - March 2016. I love teaching the course in the IDC studios at The Old Needleworks in Redditch. It is a great venue, in the centre of the country and just off several major routes. There are several hotels close by for those of you that need to stay over.  The one thing I don't enjoy at the end of the course - is the students leaving. However - there will now be a way of progressing on from Experimental Textiles, a student can be invited to join ExTeXtra. This will be run as an exhibiting group with me as a mentor. It will be run as a 5 weekend course running from July 2015 - March 2016. It is my hope it will continue after March next year - but we will have to see what happens, this is all very new.    I am showing you details of the work in progress, I don't want to show the work or there will be no surprises w

Scrumptious Spunbond - Newbury Embroiderers Guild - Saturday 28th February

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  The beginning of the day. Early Saturday morning saw me driving to Newbury for a one day workshop that had been postponed due to family illness. As you may know, I have stopped taking bookings for one day workshops. I am just too old now for all the loading and unloading involved. The workshop was Scrumptious Spunbond (Lutradur). The car was loaded with all kind of goodies - Yes! I know, I don't do myself any favours.  There was plenty of help on hand to unload the car, with my poor old knee I need all the help I can get at the moment.  It always amazes that from an empty room we can create a space in which to play. It was a great hall, with plenty of sockets, always important with my workshops. Painting up the Bondaweb and the Spunbond. We got straight down to painting the Bondaweb and Spunbond as we needed it dry for after lunch.  The mornings activity was to try cutting out shapes from the sadly discontinued CS500 in colours with a soldering iron. Bondaweb wa