In-between other things, I have been working on new designs for next year's workshops and the first is this baby hare.
I am also holding my first local workshop, in Shrewsbury, at a fabulous venue, the Victorian home of Sarah, who runs Fern Dell bed and breakfast near Shrewsbury Abbey. We were hooked up by BBC radio Shropshire on the Jim Hawkins show, after he interviewed me one morning and I mentioned that I was looking for a suitable workshop place. Seconds later, Sarah had contacted me on Twitter and within 24 hours we had things pretty much sorted.
So baby hare will be tried for the first time next year on March 2nd, a Thursday. It's an all day workshop and Sarah will be providing a home cooked lunch and refreshments, all of which is included in the price. However, it has booked up pretty quickly and there are only three places left. If you'd like to see more details, you can find them on my workshop page - booking is directly through myself. And if you'd like to see the beautiful Fern Dell, the website is here and more lovely photos here in Sarah's Instagram feed.
For this weekend only I am having a mini Black Friday sale on these three large, hanging winter swans, reduced to £40 each plus postage. Each one took two days to needle felt and hangs on silver wire with suspended glass tear drop beads and a twist of silver gauze ribbon. They are the top featured items in my Etsy shop, or direct links are underneath each picture.
Tiny Polar Bear (sold)
I recently updated my website and for the first time (ever) catalogued all my designs by year and month. Nine years of almost non-stop needle felting. It took many days of hunting on various camera cards and through this blog and Flickr, but eventually I got there.
Looking through it was a bit of a wake up call and I was able to look at my work and realise not only that I've done a phenomenal amount of work, but also that I've not really moved on, stylistically. Although, to be fair, the last few years haven't exactly been the time for creative navel gazing.
I think it has a lot to do with the last few years of creating commercial patterns, which have to be easy to make, and doing so many workshops, ditto. So I've not really stretched myself.
I think making myriad cute toys has almost run it's course for me, after all, I've been doing them for nine years. So I've been finishing off several bits and pieces, including this set of tiny animals and bird dolls, which despite being small, take around six hours plus to make
As usual, I've bunged them on dear old Etsy. I'll be starting a shiny new website soon, for my new work.
I started a new and very 'grown up' line of work this summer, but it is under wraps until I have several pieces. Suffice to say, I am stretching myself at last.
While I'm cheerfully shoving things for sale under your noses, I may as well add that I've got some fabulous new workshops in the UK, for later in the year. I have two winter workshops in Hampstead, London at the Village Haberdashery - my first time in London! It's going to be the red eye train at crack of dawn for those two.
In other news, I've finally started painting properly again. But I'll spare you that for the time being.
