After seven or more years...

of attendance, it seems that I just can't keep away from Eastleigh College. So I signed up for the twice termly 'Contemporary Textiles Workshop', which I used to attend in the hiatus between C&G and the degree. Yesterday was the first meeting for this academic year.

I was not my usual cheerful smiling self, having been given a lovely cold by the VHC, or his sister, or his father, and that may be why, to begin with, I was a bit underwhelmed. Monoprints (never my favourite), emulsion paint, stick and ink drawing, waxing - a touch of déjà vu here. I'm never sure what to do with this sort of open-ended design session, but I decided to go with the weaving and do lots of cross-crossing lines - and in the end I enjoyed myself and made some little bits I quite like.

A string stamp dipped in wax, painted with Koh-i-Noor and ironed.

Wax,  scratched, Koh-i-Noored and ironed.

Emulsion paint monoprint on tissue with Quink on the back.

Emulsion paint and ink-drawn-with-a-stick lines.

You may notice a square theme here, although some pieces refused to comply.

Ink-drawn-with-a-stick, scraped with a credit card, then waxed, etc.

Labels, ink-with-a-sticked, cut up, stuck on calico and emulsioned. I like the look of the ink under emulsion, but the labels are reluctant to stay stuck.

In the afternoon, after one of those exercises I hate and so will say no more about, we used some of what we'd made to construct a 3D something no more than 6" wide. So I made a book. But I can't find it to photograph it, not that it was that wonderful.

However I am going to add stitch to some of the others, and make a book for them, perhaps with some Karen Ruane type design exploration work - which I think was the point of the exercise, although my head was so fugged up I may well be wrong.

Well, that's my excuse.

Tomorrow to fresh fields and pastures not so new - W. and I are going to drawing lessons at Walford Mill. Just hope I doesn't rain like it did today.