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

One of Val's samples from the 'Backgrounds and Pretties' technique. Session 8 of Experimental Textiles is a student choice. The groups negotiate with me what they would like to do - I become their resource.  Half of the Thursday/Friday group wanted to catch up with workbooks and the other half wanted to try my 'backgrounds and pretties' technique. The Saturday/Sunday group just wanted do the 'backgrounds and pretties'. But first it was time to look at the homework - this takes longer every session. It is a great opportunity for the groups to discuss the work with each other. We had a great laugh when Kate brought in 'It'. We have christened it 'It' as we already have a 'Thing' by Rachael. 'It' by Kate. 'It' started life as a weaving supported on chicken wire that became rounded at Kate worked on it. She decided to make the piece totally enclosed and started to stitch into 'It'. 'It&

 One of the lovely models showing off my gecko t. shirts. Craft, Hobby and Stitch International is a trade show. As I work with Vilene as a consultant, I work at this show and run their retailer workshops. This is a very sedate style of show compared to the consumer shows that I do.  Vilene have decided to bring Hot Spots into their main retailer range - as you may know, I have been selling Hot Spots on  www.nid-noi.com for several years. I sell them by the metre, Vilene will be selling them in pack of 5 x A4 sheets. Hot Spots are a bit like a spotty Bondaweb but with a heavier backing paper. Because the backing paper is heavier, the Hot Spots can be cut with hole punches, die cutting machines and laser cutters . .  as well as scissors! I was asked to decorate T.shirts for everyone on the trade stand this year, so I asked my friend Claire from lasercutsussex.co.uk to help. Claire's knowledge of laser cutting is amazing. You may remember that she cuts my jewellery for me