A splendid sparkly sample. So - that's The NEC done and dusted, at least until August anyway. The Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch Show was great fun and was very busy. I have various roles at the show, it is my busiest show of the year. One of my roles is to run the Vilene Workshop. 5 x 45 minute workshops a day with 5 different tutors. This year it was Lynda Monk, me, Fran Holmes, Tina Francis and Jayne Routley. One of my workshops getting under way. The workshops are free and are always popular. I will be running similar workshops at Excel from Friday - www.fashionembroidery.co.uk/london/workshops. I will also be giving a lecture every day. These are some of the samples the ladies produced in 45 minutes. Lots of sparkle and twinkle on painted Bondaweb. My workshop is 'Sparkle and Twinkle' , using all manner of sparkle and transfer foils on painted Bondaweb. This process makes fabulous surfaces for stitch. The other tutors had sta

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

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