Craft Fair at Letheringsett

Lest you think I have abandoned textiles entirely for a life of music and frivolity, here are a few photographs of some of the items I've been working on for the Craft Fair at Letheringsett this weekend.

First the details - Back to the Garden can be found very easily on the main road from Fakenham to Holt, and all the details are on the website above. Come along for a visit, have coffee, a snack or lunch - and there is also a food festival on at the same time as the craft fair.

As well as the bangles and pin-cushions, brooches and quilts, I have some new items, some of which I am rushing to finish!

                                    A woollen bag with felted wool appliqué decoration.

A new cushion using some of my dyed blanket. I made the buttons with felted wool and pelmet vilene.

                  A fourth "One Bird Upon a Hill" cushion, they are proving to be very popular!

                                           Folk art blooms and birds on this third cushion.

I made this little nursery cushion using reproduction "flour sack" fabrics, and the central panel contains a dozen genuine vintage Suffolk Puffs or "yo-yo's" as they are known in the States.

        And this is my latest Angel Panel, slightly smaller than the first one which has sold. I so enjoy         designing and stitching these panels - more in the pipe-line, but not in time for the craft fair!

It will be an early start on Saturday morning, though it is less than an hour's drive for me. I'm quite looking forward to it, and bless her cotton socks, Yvonne Autie rag-rug maker and silversmith extraordinaire, has volunteered to come and keep me company all day Saturday. I know several other friends have promised to pop up and see us, and I hope that my Norfolk blogging friends might be free to dash across-county and come and say hello. This is a new venue for North Norfolk Arts and Crafts, and I am very proud that Textile Treasury has been selected as one of the exhibitors, so do come along and help make it a success!

Open Studios 2014

Welcome to Open Studios 2014. I do hope some of you will be able to pop in and visit us and have a look at the lovely things we've made. I am very fortunate to have been invited by my Stitch and Bitch friend Yvonne Autie to share Open Studio space with her at her home this year. Yvonne has done Open Studios for ten years or so and therefore is an 'old hand' - it has been really great for me to have someone who knows the ropes to lead the way through the application process and setting up.

It is a someone symbiotic relationship for us this year - Yvonne happy to have someone sharing the space as she hasn't had chance to produce her usual amount of silver jewellery or rag rugs, and I am so relieved to have someone do the organising as I have been totally consumed with seeing mum through her hip replacement operation, subsequent re-hab, and sadly through the awful, sad, and exhausting process of moving her into a residential care home. There are many things I haven't finished because I just had to stop 'making' while all this happened, but we think we have a pretty good display, bearing in mind this is Yvonne's home, not a white, studio space!

If you are local and have an Open Studios brochure, we are in the West Norfolk section at number 18. The address is   Derwent House, 24 Church Street, North Creake, Fakenham. NR21 9AD . Do come and see us! I shall be there Wednesday afternoon 28th May   Sunday 1st June all day  and Sunday  8th June all day. We are open 10am until 5pm.

You will see my patchwork quilts - this is called Technicolour Compass and is completely machine stitched and quilted. Some of Yvonne's rug-hooked cushions on the chair.

                                   Some of my - mainly wool and felt - cushions.

                                                 My colour wash cot quilts and throws.

      More quilts - the Birds and Baskets and Sunflower Farm quilts at the back on the window seat.

                                               A couple of vintage linen hangings.

      Yvonne in an article about rug making. She is wearing one of her fabulous collaged waistcoats.

        And here you can see just some of the beautiful sterling silver jewellery Yvonne makes.

So there we have it, I do hope some of you will make it up to see us, and I hope to have the chance to get out and see some other Open Studios too. If any of you have found this blog hoping to see something of my textile jaunt from this  Saturday, it is coming! Photographs as well, but I needed to get this post completed first and life is a little  complicated at the moment!

Rag Rugs

Following swiftly on (for me!) from my Open Studios post, I thought I'd post some photos of my very small and select rag rug collection! Here you see my Primitive Vase rug, which I started years ago with Yvonne. I'd like to say I have finished it but to be honest it isn't bound, just sits on the floor in my sewing room. But I do love it, warts and all. I 'designed' it myself (ah you'd guessed that, hadn't you?) and it incorporates many of my quilting favourites - stripes, triangles, and naive flower pots.

On to something a little more professionally finished!

This is the lovely sunflower cushion I brought away from Sally-Ann's Open Studio on Thursday. It fits beautifully against a small quilt on my wicker chair in the living room. Love it!

Not quite in the same class - my unfinished Bird seat cushion.

Erm, yes, it is a bird, honest! I'm a bit cross with myself as I packed the wing and feet too tightly; the fabric is multi-coloured and I thought it might work but I think it perhaps doesn't. Oh dear. Perhaps I should get down to a spot of 'frogging', it's only going to bother me. (Frogging, so-called because the sound of swift un-picking is like 'ribbit ribbit') Yes, Lynne, come on, do it, you know it makes sense.

From the back, you can see the outlines a bit better this way round. Actually, now I come to think about it, this looks quite neat..............

             Close-up. No, that multi-coloured fabric doesn't work, does it? Out it comes. Sigh.

This is better! The tulip rug I purchased from Sally-Ann at Open Studios 2011. This sits on the floor before the kitchen sink, so it gets well worn; you can see it has faded a little, but it washes well - we just chuck it in the machine and out it comes sparkling clean and no unravelling.

       Here you can see Sally-Ann's clever use of colour mixing for a variegated effect. Love it!

And to finish up another peek at my Primitive Vase, laid flat on the garden table. You can see the colours a little more clearly. I'm still quite chuffed with this, I must say.

Thanks to Yvonne, I hope to be tootling along to a rag rug group later this year, so perhaps some of the undoubted expertise might rub off on me while I'm there! I live in hope! Happy Weekends to you.

Open Studios Private View

This is my friend Yvonne Autie, also a member of Stitch& Bitch. Silversmith, rag-rug maker and superb machine-embroiderer, Yvonne gave a Private View evening last night to commence Norfolk Open Studios. I went along to pour drinks, offer nibbles (not of me!!) and chat to the folks who came to visit, despite the funny weather. The above photo is taken from a magazine article about her work.

                        Some of Yvonne's brilliant silver jewellery, love these rings!

                                           Bookmarks, fabric brooches and fabric postcards.

             
                                                         Bags made from rag-rugging

                                  Yvonne's wonderful and intricate articulated silver brooches

                                    Close up of a couple of rings. I have one each of these.

                              Close up of a quilted wall panel depicting wonderful geckos.

                                                          Close up of two large rag-rug panels.

There were so many more photographs I should have taken, but the visitors started to arrive, I out my camera down, and didn't get chance to pick it up again! We had a steady stream and I met some very interesting and entertaining people, it was actually great fun. Then to cap it all, we went for a meal at the local pub. A super evening and great to see that good crafts are still attracting viewers and buyers.

Yvonne is now open for Open Studios. If you are in and around Norfolk for the next two weeks, do get yourself a brochure and plan yourself a few visits to the various artists studios; it's great fun and you never know - you may find JUST the piece you were looking for!

Open Studios Two

I've been abroad with my camera again!

                                                                 Thank you Cathy.

 I have been awarded a Sunshine Blog Award by Cathy, from Potter Jotter, who really appreciated seeing my poorly toe in glorious technicolour! I now have to 'do my bit' which comprises telling you things you didn't know about me....hmmm not sure about that!!! And then nominating five other blogs which have brought sunshine into my life.

Well now. Here goes.

1) Despite now loving to stitch, as a schoolgirl I HATED anything to do with needlework. I was the Worst Girl in the Class, I really was, from the huckaback running stitch sampler we did in primary, then the shoe bag, to the apron and skirt in High School. I used to deliberately 'lose' my sewing on many occasions. 

2) I was a Girl Guide and loved it. When we came to live in Norfolk I was roped in to help with a local Brownie Pack and subsequently Guides, eventually I started the 4th Reffley Guide Company, which is still going strong, run by the daughter of a great Guiding friend of mine who reached much loftier heights than I ever did! Great fun, great memories!

3)As well as needlework, I was very very bad at maths, French, and Latin at school.Oh, and physics.

4) I was pretty good at English, Spanish, art and hockey. All other things were in between!

5) I hate getting started on housework. Especially ironing. (Unless it's quilting fabric!)


6) I have been known to appear in public dressed as a French Tart, with my face blacked up.This is often accompanied by dancing and folk music and visits to pubs.


There, I think that is more than enough! Now to whittle down my favourite logs to just five...oh dear that's a bit hard.So very difficult to whittle it down.


Claire at mynorfolklife
Gill at  dosierosie
Victoria at  tangledsweetpea
Annie at  knitsofacto
Elizabeth at welshhillsagain

There are so many more I love to read but had to pick just five, for their writing and colourful posts. I hope the links work, but you can find them in my blogroll if not.

Right, so, I have been off to visit another Open Studio, that of another Stitchin' Bitcher...oh dear that sounds awful, doesn't it? She's really not! A few clues:

                                Perhaps this will give the game away?

                                          You've seen this before....in preparation.

                                                               sign up for a great course!

Of course, it's Yvonne, you guessed when you saw Arfa, didn't you? And don't just take my word for it how talented this woman is.......her work has been included in several publications, including this one:

Not only does Yvonne make and teach rag rugs, she is also a silver smith, and makes silver rings and brooches, and bracelets and necklaces with semi-precious stones.

                                                  Love these articulated avian brooches.

Yvonne 'does' Open Studios each year, and also exhibits with West Norfolk Artists annually. Oh, and she quilts. In fact, Yvonne is an unofficial member of the 'slow cloth' sisterhood. I know for a fact she has a quilt she has been working on for over ten years...........I think she took one of my workshops to get on with it. Hmmmmm! Soon to be appearing on her own blog/website. I'll keep you posted.

Now, come on. Enough is enough. Drought? Ok, we needed the rain. But it is like bloomin' Siberia out there! I went out to do a 'from the back door' shot and was nearly blown off my feet. The plants are horizontal.

                          Sorry, could hardly get them to keep still long enough for a shot!

                                   And look, how long do you think these will survive?

My poor giant poppies, just two of them brave enough - or foolish enough - to unfurl themselves in this wind. They appear upright, but you can see from the foliage, and the sage flowers behind how the wind is tossing them about.

                 Rosemary, lovage, mint and some yet-to-blossom flowers, all windswept.

I'm now off to meditate on the wonders of nature  - not. Then a warming cuppa, I think. I hope you are all finding ways of warming and cheering yourselves up in this unseasonal weather. And you lot in warmer climes....THIS is why the British talk about the weather so much, we have so much of it to talk about! Bye for now.