Made 08

Flushed with the success of putting my text and photos together I am now reporting on Made 08. This is our local craft fair beautifully organised by Sarah Young and John Tutton and I can say that confidently as I had a stand last year and it was a pleasure to take part as well as lucrative. Not being able to summon up the energy to do it this time round I nonetheless enjoyed the P.V last night and it was great to take in the variety of work at a leisurely pace with a glass of wine . Cardigan had a great stand with framed knitted bugs and these lovely scarves.
Selvedge also had a  stand jam packed with goodies such as this beautifully subtle coloured scarfe by Sophie Digard. The label was hanging down on this photo by the way, I only had the ONE glass of wine !
Moving on to the aforementioned Sarah Young whose work I love ( see my links. )

I must confess I didn't manage to leave the building without parting with some money and one purchase was made on one of the gorgeously soft cashmere scarves by Asta Barrington, just loved the edging and colourways.

Also had to buy a necklace from this stand , A. Keles. They are a supplier of lacework products made in Turkey and these very fine pieces are made by knotting a high quality thread with a small needle - sorry this photo is on it's side ...perhaps I did have more than I thought.

Lesley Stricklands jewellery stood out for me too in it's almost Scandinavian simplicity - muted colours and beautiful finish.

So all in all a stimulating evening that makes me want to get back to creating with a new vigour today.

PS Do check out Anna Tilson's vintage crockery mosaic work too, it's quirky and feminine.

Hanging Fairies

Hoorah !  I think I have cracked the niggling problem of my text and photos stacking up and not being able to alternate the words and the  images. This is thanks to the lovely Andy Talbot my IT man ( find him on chocolateapple.co.uk ) he can fix any problem and does great web designs too. So he cast his eye over this sticky situation the other day and suggested I composed my post in 'compose' as oppose to 'Edit Html', and to upload all my images first and then jiggle the text around them - which is what I am doing now for anybody else on Blogger who also has this issue.

And so here are a couple of my hanging fairies to go on the tree - they had their first outing at Jo Sweeting's Open House last week end . Sorry no photos on this as I had a camera problem too but will report on the Dragonfly Open House that I have mentioned before which opens on the 6th, 7th, 13th and 14th of December. Anyway am about to press the ' publish post' button so fingers crossed !

Fairy Boxes

My fairy boxes are 4.5cms sq and have a tiny scroll with a fairy name inside the lid of the box. They are £8 each. I do love seeing just how small I can make these !

The Making of Mermaids

I use the tiniest sequins I can find for my mermaid brooches and they like the fairy pins are also lacquered for long wearability.

Mermaid

Just for a change here's another mythical creature. My mermaid brooches come in a 6cm wide treasure chest complete with a sea shell and are £15.

Fairy Pin

These fairy pins are 9cms long and the fairy is lacquered so that no fraying happens in the wearing of it. She is £12.

Fairies in Waiting

Mo other frustration with this blog is that I can't seem to find a a way of interspersing my text and photos ( the text stacks up on itself and so do the photos. ) The only way round it is to keep publishing a new post - anybody out there who can help ?!
Anyway back to the fairies - all are waiting for the Christmas rush although I do love the feeling of having them horded away in their tissue paper and it's always hard to let them go when the time comes to unwrap them. I have selection of colours on everything if anyone wants to do an early bit of Christmas shopping ! These ones are 7cms high and are £5 each.

Autumn colours

Autumn colours

Haven't posted for a while as I've had my head down working towards Christmas Open Houses, only to find that there are still six weeks to go until I show in the Dragonfly House, www.48dr.co.uk which is my main venue - have I peaked too early I ask myself ?! Angie and Marc Bonnel open their lovely house for two week ends in December and four in May as part of the Brighton festival and we grateful artists display our work and we get to talk to the people buying our work which is a nice change from showing ones work in shops or galleries.We artists also get to catch up with each other which is also a plus after working away in a garret for months !

Indian Summer Gardens

Have just got back from a week in Cornwall. We had the best kind of weather and did all the usual Tate, Barbara Hepworth Garden and cliff walking without the throngs, it being slightly out of season. We also visited some lovely gardens and I took lots of photos of textures, flowers and foliage for my fairy garden embroideries. I know I should be thinking along the lines of Christmas but my head is too full of lush greenery at the moment !

Pretty Maids

Thought that these ladies would be a good thing to follow my new felt fairies. They preside in my china cupboard and were once handles on brushes for crumbs ( see picture taken from a great book called'Working Women' A photographic collection of women with a purpose. By Jessica Strang ) I don't know if it's still in print - the tea cosies picture is also from it.

A Closer Look

Thought you may like a closer look at them. The ribbon round their waists ensures they can be tied to a tree ( yes, Christmas is coming ! ) or onto any other posing place. I shall be putting them into my etsy shop soon along with some mermaid brooches.

Felt Fairies

After three engineers and much telephoning and stamping of feet we are still having trouble with our broadband. I'm taking this opportunity whilst it IS working to put up some new fairies I've been working on. I feel they are distant relations to these felt and cloth dolls I have stashed in a shoe box ( until I can find a dust free zone for them and all the other bric-a -brac I can't bear to dust any longer ! )

My dollies are made of felt and muslin, tulle, silk fiber ( the hair ) and assorted embellishments. My plan was to make them very minimal and plain but I guess this is as minimal as I can be !

Beijing Dreams

In all my excitement of starting up my blog I nearly forgot to mention that I have some work in a lovely exhibition called Beijing Dreams at the Scunthorpe Visual Arts Centre Oriental figures have always had a way of finding themselves in my work - I've always loved Eastern influences in pattern and design and was lucky enough to go to Japan in the '80's to demonstrate my work in a large department store . On the journey there we were forced to land in Beijing due to a typhoon in Tokyo and were treated to a whirlwind tour of the city and dinner courtesy of the air line ( Pakistan ) I'm not sure one would get the same treatment nowadays !

Following some images that are in the show are some other items of Eastern promise that are dotted around the studio.

These Oriental Poppy fairies are made with red Habitai silk and black netting.

A hanging Geisha encased in cellophane. I've mad a lot of these and found men's neckties to be the perfect source of
small pattern that quite often can pass as kimono material !

The Willow pattern china that belonged to my Grandmother always fascinated me - all the little people crossing the bridges, fishing and sailing ... what a lovely starting point for an embroidery and a chance to wallow in blue !

These braids are perfect for when I need some small scale pattern for the Geisha's obi.
I haven't had a chance to use the the figurative one yet but feel it's got that Eastern touch.

My Japanese paper drawers hide a stash of sea-shells.

This pink Chinamen box holds all my scrap watercolour paper( not sure what I'm saving it for though ! )

Stripy Fairies

Well after an exhausting 48 hours I've finally got my shop up ( but I hesitate to say running !) and I'm pleased to announce that these are the first fairies to sit on its shelves. I am however wondering if I am the only blogging wimp who has found it so tiring to get this whole venture off the ground ? I have scoured other people's blogs - gone to their first postings and yet I see no whinging about the brain power involved in it all! Not that I want to put anybody else out there off from going for it themselves - it's all totally do-able if you plod through each and every step ... I'm probably just impatient and would rather be spending the time making things, however now I'm virtually there I'm looking forward to enjoying the benefits of this vast community. Many thanks for comments from Fred, Gabriela, Cavania and Posy - so nice to know that someone is listening and viewing !

More Stripy Fairies

New look

I hope I haven't surprised too many of you with this new green look to my blog ! I have just been setting up my etsy shop and Brian convinced me that this was the way to go with my banner on both sites, so no more messing around now, the die is cast . Hope to have the link to etsy up early next week and some stripy fairies will be my first batch of merchandise !

Fern Fairy

This fairy escaped the post below but here she is making a late entrance ( or is she early ? I'm still getting used to organising the backward sequence of blogging ! )

sunny spots

Sorry this water colour isn't of seasonal flowers but it's the sunniest one I could find! These sunny spots were taken yesterday and I couldn't waste them ... it has been a much more productive day in the studio today due to the rainy morning. I've been making a set of stripy skirted fairies which I shall post up when the wings are sewn on. To paint or to sew has always been my dilemma ; I'm in a sewing mode at the moment which means I don't get to listen to Radio 4 as much as I would like due to my rattling sewing machine ... painting is much more peaceful but then I miss the fun factor of easy colour choices that come easily with using fabrics ... painting is testing , never theraputic, yet I love it too... oh decisions, decisions !