Easter Holidays

Lots of activity on the reserve this holiday! ( This scene of tranquillity is a “before” picture ).

The arty bits were held in the barn; which was NOT COLD and filled with the scent of blossom! Yippee.

There were workshops and the middle “ drop-in” event, which was another “spin into spring” day ( as last years was such a success ). Simple pompom creatures were made into bunnies and springy chicks.

There were demonstrations of knitting, crochet, and drop spindle spinning. Sadly I was so busy I didn’t get any pictures 😦 that day. If anyone did take pictures I’ll add some later. Between us we managed to teach the basics of spinning, knitting and crochet to quite a few people, including children; boys as well as girls.

We made all sorts of Easter bunny and chick things, in the workshop sessions.
There lots of bunny characters made from painted “dolly” pegs; some had chenille arms

and some had “crocheted chain” arms I made as we went along…

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment! But actually it was another way to demo some crochet to the uninitiated; and was an extra bit of fun. I think I will include this in my peg doll tutorial as it saves using pipe cleaners with little ones.

Just look at this funny, sweet couple!

We also created some Easter trees made with network wire and crepe paper – These are easy and very effective; if anyone wants a tutorial leave me a comment and I’ll send one. (The PDF is going to end up in the shop as well.)

Many of them had a sort of post psychedelic, magic roundaboutish, vibe!

Some had bunny visitors

and some had nests

and amazing illustrations of woodland dwellers added ( look at the base of this one carefully ! )

I loved this cheeky fox especially! He was peeping out from under a more natural tree. His creator was more of a wildlife purist than some of our younger craftspeople.

We also made felted eggs, from some wool of the Jacob sheep on site! The coloured wisps were extra bits- we didn’t dip dye the sheep!

These took longer than anticipated, and were very wet and messy, but everyone did have a go with a great deal of soapy relish.

Then there were baskets to take it all home in!

What sweet scenes on this one!

The owner managed to sort out these shapes out from a mixture of flowery ones left over from another event! Such a patience and a delicate touch.

Plus of course paper bunnies (morphed from the hares) and lots of marbled egg cards ! ( The marbling was also messy ! )

A lovely, sunny, good old fashioned day out.

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Happy New Year

Well I can’t believe another year has passed zip zap!

So many things not finished… sigh

hey, a new year.. so many things to start LOL

but for now Happy New Year and do look back at my last (first!) blog year if you like.

I’m not making resolutions but I am going to try to blog more frequently- or at least more regularly; the long gaps mean things get passed by as something else happens!

FOR EXAMPLE “here is one I prepared earlier” THAT NEVER GOT FINISHED AND POSTED UP. I would like to use it as it is a good way for me to remember a start of a project. ( so, sorry, but I’m going to inflict it on you too)!

This is the first publisher template I made for the matchbox accordion booklets. I’ve adapted it a few times now but at the time I felt very pleased with myself! It has made new ones much quicker.

It also shows me how much I can prevaricate and get sidetracked! ( cue; sidetrack)

My favourite author Terry Pratchett has a bit in one of his books where he describes ideas as sleeting through the universe- sometimes the best idea “hits” the wrong brain and is wasted; other times there is a lightbulb moment for some bright spark!

This idea so resonates with me; I often feel like I am standing ( or to be honest, more probably sitting) under a veritable rainstorm of ideas- sorting them out and getting a proper solid hit to work with has always been a problem. I like the metaphor of all the randomly crashing, sleeting, rain better than butterflies fluttering. It feels much more like what happens to me at times. It stops me actually finishing so many things- I prove concept and then get distracted by the next thing.

Of course sometimes I just can’t be inspired, or bothered, (impatient and lazy?) Know thyself! 🙂

Anyhow here is a sequence taken which to me shows how I work things out ; or how i should not to do it if i ever want to finish it!
!Idea! This well known rhyme “Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire your children are flown”.

Firstly a 3D paper house using my bag/box/house fold. I wanted it all as one piece but the flames are added separately on these rather scruffy tryouts. [idea 1]

Then messing about with a little paper doll [idea2]

Then I think it would go well in a matchbox (at this point I had done only the doll and beetles in them) so made a rough working out of layout of the text…

…and decided to try out Publisher.

Much gnashing of teeth ( Publisher was, is a learning curve all by myself!)
but started messing about with seductive clip art [ ideas3 and 4] Oooo, great fun.

Covered a matchbox with fortuitous tiny scrap from friend quilting leftovers and thought about maybe using my nice vintage ladybird or house buttons. [idea5]

Which led to the idea to use even- more- tiny scraps as individual ladybird children (as can’t bear to waste such an apt bounty) glued onto card with threads so they can dangle..! [no.6]

Then had idea to make mini fabric ladybird ( like Agatha beetles ).[idea7]
Tried it but at about an inch long a bit frustratingly fiddly- so not really happy with it and left that.

I also made up some individual booklets for my cousins’ children, with their names in the text and the – second verse ( more clip art fun and games)[no 8]

Abandoned whole boxful to do other rhymes.!!!

I did actually finish baa baa black sheep ( but there is a similar abandoned boxful of other ideas for that too!).

Hmm.

But today I feel like doing the ladybird one again- can’t find the energy to start anything completely new- even if it is New Years day!

Watch this space- I may actually finish one.

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Some Sales …

The shops have been busier lately – which is good…

Some pegbags and earbud cosies have sold. Bizarrely two things, almost at the same time on the same day to different ‘Suzanne’s – how weird! Especially as I was just off to visit a Suzanne too…

Curiouser and curiouser as Alice said.
Maybe there is a Suzanne asteroid whizzing over in transit to my second house… or something.

I also sold the Baa Baa Black Sheep matchbox accordion. I was very pleased, but a bit sad about that too.

It is all such a nice feeling when a bit of my ‘art’ stuff sells. However I have only made that one, sometimes I make two or three variations of an idea, and I now realise I didn’t actually show it to anyone here; oh well at least I have some pictures…

And the lady who bought it liked it…

Maybe I will get some time this week to finish some more matchboxes. Alice, Mary and the Ladybirds are all languishing together in one of my work boxes. Note, that was ‘one of my work boxes’. I am not telling you how many more than one I have; but the house is a veritable hub of UFOs and WIPs (unfinished-objects and work-in-progress, to those unfamiliar with these modern knitting abbreviations).

I almost forgot; I sold another Punch and Judy matchbox…

…and one of my Art Activity PDFs to a great fan of mine.

One of the really nice things about selling online is that you get to make contact with so many nice people.

So I am having a little celebration of my own…
But first I am off to help make a Tinkerbell outfit! As you do…

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Three Bags Full

Just catching up after the “Lamb Jars”, [ note to self; have to get on top of this blogging stuff].

Preparing artwork for the spinning event leaked over into the creative project I was working on at the time (and still am, mixed with new stuff 🙂 )

Nursery Rhyme Matchboxes.

Little accordions of nursery rhymes with extra bits!
Here is the baa-baa-black-sheep one.

I found a watercolour illustration in a vintage farmyard book. I loved the row of different breeds and just thought it would work so well as an image on the accordion book.

So I redrew a similar “usual suspects” line-up in ink, to go underneath the text, and just tinted it a bit with pencils.
The original thought was to pop in a mini plush lamb so I did still want to put some needle work into it. (I will still do one with the lambkin sometime, ‘cause he’s cute.)

I used some of the wool we had for spinning at the event to fill three bags and make a thread, and a ball of wool. The ball of wool has cocktail sticks and fimo “needles” in it. I accidentally slightly overcooked them – oops, but now I like it because they look more like bamboo ones.

It is probably a bit much to stuff in a matchbox; but it does fit, just, and opens out nicely- so I am pleased with it.
I made a group of matchboxes in scenic colours with my hand dyed scraps of cotton, so I’ve some more for variations when I get around to it.

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Spin-into-spring in Tring:

( it feels like I should write “Tra la la” after that !)

We had beautiful day for a great event with beautiful weather, loosely woven (sorry) around Sheep, Wool and Spinning.
There was a spinning wheel to have a go on, drop spindles to try and of course sheep.
Meanwhile, in the barn we made woolly cords using lucets, with my nifty idea of using clothes pegs. (click here for free pdf tutorial folks)

Baa Baa Black Sheep Star Books

and lambs on a spring (get it?) on a jam jar.

Because.
I thought winding wool around little card sheep would be cute, and we gave them the working name of “woolly winders” (we love a bit of alliteration in our titles).
Then after using it for a bit, and some slips and giggles later, we quickly decided we needed a name change as that tongue twister might not be the best name… hang on for this…

Then we needed some weight on the base.
Stones? Lids.!..
No! Whole jam jars!
Well mainly because I had the jars, and yes I really did have enough
(70+ !) lovely retro Bon Maman jars stashed, to do this activity.
Not to mention lovely versatile stripped network wire.
I told you I needed to de-stash my “useful stuff”.
Now maybe you believe me. lol
[I have also disposed of my, much smaller, collection of pickle jars for someone actually pickling, so that was quite a good week’s result de-clutter wise.]

Hence lamb jars- see what we did there (don’t groan)!

We do get into the zone a bit with planning these events.

The “Lamb Jars” went down a storm; with lots of boin-gy lambs on their “grass” filled jars.

Some were slightly more woolly than others,

and some were a rather surprising pink, snaffled from the “decorate spring branches” table!

Some were collected later…

Perfect end to a perfect day.

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