Well, I did it!
My very first workshop – and I have survived to tell the tale.
It was for a wonderful group of very friendly ladies in South Wales called Fibrepaperarts. CarolT is a member of this group and if you take a look at her blog you will see some of the things we got up to.
This group made my first workshop a really good experience so I’m hoping there will be more to follow.

‘The book’
Carol McFee and I managed to get ‘the book’ finished by the deadline and off to Maggie, who is very pleased with it by all accounts. We are going to Micheal Wicks next Saturday for a photo shoot, then its off to the layout artist so everything seems to be on track for publication in April, along with another wonderful book by Maggie.
No doubt I will let you know when it hits the shelves. :)
Meanwhile, just to whet your appetite hopefully, here is a taster of some of my pieces you will find in the book. Enjoy!
And speaking of books, my blogging friend Shirley Sherris has her book out in August, and I can assure you it is going to be amazing. If you haven’t stumbled across Shirleys blog yet, then you really ought to .She's a lovely person and extremely talented. This is the fantastic cover of Shirleys new book which is available for pre-order on Amazon.And yet another great bit of book news is the lush CD ‘Lovely Lutradur’ by Marion Barnet and Dijanne Ceval will be available shortly in printed form. Marions blog has all the details and you can put your name down to be informed when it is published. Another one on the ‘must have’ list.

Now on to other things.
I thought I would share this ‘happy accident’ with you. It certainly wasn’t the look I was aiming for but I was quite taken with it nonetheless.
I painted a piece of Pelmet Vilene with Charcoal Procion Dye. I diluted the dye powder with warm water but didn’t add any of the normal additives you would use for cold water dyeing.
The Pelmet Vilene really drank the liquid up with the consequence that I put loads on and with the weather being the way it was it took a couple of days to dry.When it was dry I used a fusible webbing to adhere foil to the surface. For this piece I used a copper foil.This was then covered with dressmaking tissue paper sealed with Golden Polymer Medium. And as you can see, once dry the foil has been all but obliterated in parts.It was then painted over with a thin wash of Interference paints, and this is the result. (Not exactly the same piece as above but from the same batch)This weekend I thought I would use some different colour Procion Dyes to see what results I achieved. I used Indigo Blue, Terracota, Mustard and an Indigo Blue and Mustard mix.
Although the photograph makes this one look like a blue background it is actually a mustard colour with gold foil. The tissue paper has only just been added.And this is the same piece five minutes later. Already you can see how it is changing.This is how it looks once dry. The thicker band of foil is where I used a second layer of fusible webbing as the foil didn't totally adhere the first time. And these are a selection of some of the other pieces all with different colour foils. I haven’t added interference paints to these ones yet but I may do on some of them.I’ve cut and wrapped a few of the pieces into mega-beads, some of which will be used for a project I have in mind but haven’t had time to finish.It also involves this:Its a PVC pipe covered in Pelmet Vilene and painted with Goldens' Micaceous Iron Oxide which evidently will rust given time. It stands about 50 cms high and 10 cms diameter. Hopefully I will finish it for next weekend.

Its good to be back :)