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The Festival of Quilts - 2nd day

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The Old Brickworks by Mary McIntosh It is always very satisfying when you meet up with students who have been on a course with you and they tell you that something you taught them helped them with a project or a finished piece of work. Mary McIntosh was on a course with me at Art Van Go earlier in the year and I showed the group what I had been doing with newspaper. Mary in particular was very taken with what I showed the group and created some fabulous samples that were shown on a previous post on this blog. Mary came to see me on the stand today to say she had a finished her final piece for her City & Guilds and that she had used some newspaper in her final piece. Wow!!! what a beautiful piece of work - it is absolutely stunning. The work can be seen on Stand A48.     Detail of left hand panel   a page in Mary's sketchbook showing a faux chenille sample made with newspaper I spent the day decorating heavy iron-on interfacing with gilding flake and newspaper and then r

The Festival of Quilts - 1st day

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Here I am loving having my photo taken - not! We had a very busy first day - I haven't really had a chance to get out and have a look at any of the exhibits yet - I will try to get in early tomorrow and have a good look around and report back. . . .  Sarah's lovely daughter Fran is helping on the stand - she is great fun and has promised to help me with the mysteries of  Facebook.  Sarah is demonstrating her wonderful techniques with all things sparkly in the middle of the stand This was a piece of Bondaweb I had pre painted with Sarah's wonderful Colourful Thoughts paints and was about to cut it up into small pieces for some smaller samples but thought it was so beautiful I couldn't cut it - So I ironed it off onto a piece of black cotton. I will probably use it as a background for hand stitch.   I was working with old newspapers and painted Bondaweb today - I still can't decide if I prefer torn or cut edges . . . . . tomorrow I will be working Vilene

The Festival of Quilts 11 -14 August NEC Birmingham Stand E50

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The Craftynotions stand I am off to the NEC this morning with all my books to sell and all my demonstrating kit . . . .  I hope my poor old Volvo will move - the boxes of books are VERY heavy!! Sarah Lawrence of Craftynotions has very kindly extended her stand so I can sell my books and have a presence at the show. I couldn't afford my own stand this year. In return for this very generous gesture I will be demonstrating some of the techniques in my new book, including layering newspaper with painted Bondaweb, decorating boxes made from heavy iron-on interfacing and distressing Vilene Spunbond. (poor Vilene Spunbond).  painted Bondaweb decorated with heat transfer foil, skeleton leaves and glitter Signed copies book will be £18 (RRP 19.99) So - if you are coming to the show do come and say Hello!!!! It's always good to meet my readers and customers, email is a wonderful way of communication, but no substitute for the real thing!!!!! I am looking forward to seeing Viv and Ke

Dungeness

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  This is me with my wonderful sister - I am on the right! I have lost some weight - really - It was SO windy we could hardly stand up, we were hanging on to each other for dear life I got to Dungeness yesterday morning with my sister and parents. I managed to park them in the local cafe while I dashed about taking some very fast photos. It is an amazing place, very bleak but - fascinating! I want to go back and spend several days there. I am going to investigate renting somewhere near by for a weekend or more realistically - during the week. Remember you work most weekends Kim! I was attracted by this little hut on the beach - anyone who knows me knows I love rust - sad but true - I have thousands of images of rust in so very many forms.  I wonder what a certain structural engineer will think about my little hut? come on Kim - concentrate, you are back to work now! This is a short post as I must stop dreaming around and get ready for The Festival of Quilts and also ge

Great Dixter

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a section of one of the amazing borders at Great Dixter While we are staying in Winchelsea it seemed sensible to visit Great Dixter - the garden of Christopher Lloyd which is only 20 minutes away - it was fantastic- the planting is quite remarkable - so many layers of colour. www.greatdixter.co.uk    We only stayed for an hour as Mum couldn't cope with the steps and was a bit doddery but I saw enough to know I want go back - the gardens really are wonderful. Apart from the flower borders there is a sunken garden, exotic garden, topiary - you name it, it is there. Plus an part Lutyens house . . . .  x I have been meaning to post this all day but have been slightly distracted - by emails from a certain structural engineer - unfortunately he is working in Dubai for another month - sigh!!! That will make you smile Jill and Tallulah . . . .  x x x off to Dungeness tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to it.

aaarrgghHHH!!!!!!!

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the desired result  AARRGGHHHH!!!! I have a degree in 3D, excellent hand to eye co-ordination, I can assemble a flat pack chest of drawers in under an hour - but could I work out how to fold my new packaging for my books????? Oh it was SO frustrating - the packaging came with instructions and I couldn't make anything work - I had to ring the supplier in the end and the lovely man at the end of the phone explained it was quite normal, either you got it the first time or you didn't. Once he had talked me through the VERY simple folding process I was fine . . . . . if a little embarrassed. All you have to do is go from this -  to this -  to this!!! It was a salutary reminder that we all need different kinds of instruction depending on the kind of learner we are.  Visual learners learn through seeing Auditory learners learn through listening Tactile/Kinesthetic learners learn through doing, moving and touching I wonder which learning style is most common to those of you re

Layered Textiles has arrived!

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Hurrah! and lashings of ginger beer . . !  The books have just arrived - too late for today's post though .  All orders will be dispatched tomorrow, I have so many parcels to post I will have to make 3 trips to the Post Office, or there will be a riot!   AAHHH!!!! that is a sigh of relief! It is great to have all the boxes of books stacked safely by my front door ready to go to The Festival of Quilts next week.  I shall now go and continue packing up and labelling parcels - Yeehhaaaa!!!!!!! X