Lost in the Wood

The Dome, Edinburgh Season's Greetings! Last week I scampered up to Scotland for the long awaited Christmas holidays, the big city bright lights and possibilities made me a touch giddy with excitement. My first day in Edinburgh (my home city, much loved and often missed) was spent in fine style with a trip to the sumptuous surroundings of The Dome , a George Street institution. Nowhere seems to outdo their lavish festive decorations. Passing the Georgian columns thickly garlanded with lights, inside you encounter the heady punch of cinnamon, a spice merchants fantasy of sticks embedded in rich traditional garlands festooning the impressive interior. An icicled doorway opens out onto the main dining room and bar with its red glowing spectacle of tall Christmas tree underneath dazzling glass dome. It all feels decadently luxurious. Mum & I headed up stairs to the tearoom (think this is a Christmas tearoom only, not all year round) where I'd been assured a wonderful aftern...

Dancer My final craft fair of the season is coming up this weekend! I'll have a stall at the Plas Newydd Christmas Food & Craft fair on 30 Nov and 1 Dec.  Plas Newydd is a National Trust property and the impressive  'home of the Marquess of Anglesey, with spectacular views of Snowdonia'.  I'm told 'there will be over 50 stalls selling a wide variety of local produce and hand made crafts'. I've enjoyed a previous visit there where I sampled the tea room (of course), perused the large amount of 2nd hand books for sale in a series of meandering bookcases and looked appropriately excited by the bloody trousers & wooden leg from the Battle of Waterloo as well as the huge Whistler mural. Dancer (crochet reindeer head) will be coming with me on this final fling, come along to say hello, eat cake & take a turn (and work up an appetite/ burn off the cake) around the beautiful grounds. Up to Christmas, I'll still have work on sale at t...

The penultimate craft fair of my festive season is rearing up on it's little tinsel covered hind legs inciting all to attend, enjoy & shop at Parc Glynllifon this weekend. I'll be participating as well as lots of lovely local artists/ makers including some of my favourites: Dyfal Donc , Peris & Corr , Miss Marple Makes , Lora Wyn Jewellery, Angela Evans Jewellery and many more!

Renegade Craft Fair, Old Trueman Brewery, London Lost In The Wood stall, Renegade This time last weekend I was fully immersed in the Renegade Craft Fair experience. Surrounded by many, many wonderful stalls by fab contemporary makers and meeting more potential customers than I've ever seen at a fair, there was a very positive buzz in the spacious old brewery. I'd opted for a half stall as it was cheaper and meant less pressure on producing enough things to fill the space! Also, the thought of manouvering an even more massive & unwieldy suitcase of crochet treasures around London was fairly daunting. Running With Scissors I felt fortunate to be sharing a stall with the very lovely Sam from Running With Scissors who makes incredibly soft, gorgeous baby blankets and lots of things to make you smile. It's a shame I didn't get round to taking many photos as one with her & equally glamorous friend would have been great. At least I managed a pic of ...

MOSTYN Woolidermy Gang Phew! It's been a hectic and crazy-tinged three weeks and I'm feeling pretty relieved & pleased to have made it to the other side of four hefty deadlines!  Hence my (slightly misquoted) 'Half Man Half Biscuit' song lyric as the title. What woolly nonsense have you been up to I hear you ask? (just pretend you did). Well, work has been safely delivered to MOSTYN gallery shop (Llandudno), a bounty of woolidermy heads, crochet mince pies and clementines. I'm looking forwards to going to see them in-situ soon & admire their Christmas window display. Llandudno Alice Llandudno White Rabbit Also appealing is the mission to find the remaining carved wooden Alice in Wonderland figures that are dotted around nearby. I've already encountered scary Alice & dandy White Rabbit and I've been reliably informed that a loony Mad Hatter & Queen of Hearts lurk out there too. 'Winter Wonderland' Woolidermy Gang Nex...

Aargh, no time to write anything, just please note I'll be at Renegade Craft Fair in London this weekend! Much excitement & plenty of nerves eek!

No time to expand on this, it's a manic week ahead so just to let you know tomorrow I'll be at the Galeri in Caernarfon with the Crefft Cyfoes Caernarfon group at the first of my Christmas craft fairs (see 'News' on my website for the full list), more details soon! Lovely things to buy from great local makers. Now must dash off to manically crochet some reindeer heads and mince pies. Fa la la la la la...

'Love Crochet' magazine 'Love Crochet' Autumn 2013 There was thrilled excitement at Lost in the Wood cottage over the publication of my first piece of press publicity!!    'Love Crochet' magazine (Autumn 2013, issue 5) has a splendid article on craftidermy featuring some of my crochet bunny heads. I was really pleased that a lot of what I'd contributed did actually end up in the article, including the recommendations of other artists creating in other mediums such as Mister Finch's textile insects & Zoe Williams weird & wonderful needle felted creatures. It was a very small but interesting glimpse into how publications source stories and use the information provided. Hopefully it'll lead to more opportunities, especially since between us, me & my proud mother surely must have helped boost circulation of this issue! The rest of the magazine is very colourful and enjoyable too! Fittingly, this was Hector's (big grey bunn...

Evie, final week of Helfa Gelf  Ooh, there's a lot going on at the moment and maybe the blog is feeling a bit neglected, so it's time to lavish a little attention on it and do a round up of a few things. Firstly, a brief consideration of two things coming to an end. September's Helfa Gelf art trail was a brilliant experience for me as I got a lot more exposure (the good, socially acceptable kind) than I could have achieved on my own, I met a lot of lovely people and got to see their reactions to my work. Predominantly this was amusement (Evie, mounted heads, squirrel in milk jug etc), delight (crochet cakes & rack of toast) or being slightly disturbed (also Evie/ woolidermy heads). I've written before about how much I enjoyed being with the other artists in our temporary studios (see recent previous posts) so I will not retread this happy ground but it was very entertaining and enjoyable and I would definitely recommend the experience to other artists thinking...

Needle Felt Mini Workshop 17/09/13-hard at work Despite my previous blog's assurances that we're still halfway through Helfa Gelf, alas no longer, Evie (unnerving rabbit lady) & I have made it through to the other side of the month long art trail & are looking forwards to a Saturday at home catching up on tv, cakes & drinking (hopefully, wild times indeed). More on the Helfa Gelf experience soon but for today, as promised, here's a quick look at my recent needle felted workshop. A few months ago I joined a local knitting group ( Ein Clwb Gwau, every 2nd Tuesday evening @ The Heights pub, Llanberis) who do a good line in yarn bombing and are currently looking to tempt in new members by trying out different but related crafts. As I spend much of my time trying to convince people of my needle felting prowess, it fell to me to host a mini taster felty workshop. I was very lucky as it was an enthusiastic and it turned out, rather talented group of eight peopl...

Evie looking regal (back view) Weekends in North Wales are stuffed full of interesting arty things to see/ visit at the moment as the annual Helfa Gelf (art trail) is in full swing across 5 counties. So far, me & Evie (see pic) have enjoyed our first time involvement in it. We've been very lucky to be sharing a lovely light & airy studio with two other colourful artists in Y iard (the yard), an idyllic old courtyard of restored workshops at Parc Glynllifon (near Caernarfon). Many artists are opening up their actual studios/barns/workshops/ spare rooms for the public to potter in but others, like us in Unit 9, are renting space for the month. There's definitely some advantage to this, a cluster of artists are presumably more likely to be visited especially when there's a cafe selling huge slices of tasty cakes in the grounds, the Black Cat Cafe . I recommend the ridiculously gooey beetroot & chocolate brownie (just not for a first date, bit too messy/...

Needle Felted Bee Swarm Major excitement in the Lost in the Wood camp last week when my first proper exhibition piece was accepted in The Willow Gallery's 'Natural Selection' exhibition which opened on Saturday! There's some small changes and a few more bees have been added round the base but essentially it looks like this. Each bee was sculpted from merino tops fleece by hand using a barbed felting needle which is an enjoyable but fairly slow process, then they were layered up to create a busy swarm effect. I gave up trying to count the number of  bees that went into this piece. Trying to count them once I'd already fixed quite a few on was in hindsight a bit tricksy, it's over 100 at least. The dome is a piece of old lab equipment while the base is bespoke, made by a fantastic local wood artist John Roberts of Ogwen Art and Craft . In case you're wondering why the bees are unconventionally colourful, here's the artist statement that accompanies the...

Evie starring in 'The Last Days of Summer' A bitesize blog today! Helfa Gelfa has begun in style, Evie has had her makeover & is now looking pretty ravishing / sinister (depending who you ask, apparently there's shades of The Wicker Man about her) at the centre of a strange tea party. Entitled 'The Last Days of Summer', it's a mysterious picnic with a hint of things unravelling. Evie with her crochet rabbit's head (a more ambitious version of my mounted bunny heads), somehow looks both imperious & slightly wanton and exudes a definite nymphish air. She's a work in progress & will by the end of the month be (hopefully) festooned with flowers, vines, creatures & ivy.  I feel very fortunate to be sharing a lovely light & airy studio (reminiscent of a lofty garret) with two other colourful artists, painter Alison Englefield (the photos of her work give the flavour but don't do the wonderful multi layered, intricate ...

Royal Mile Performers Clearly I've been having too much fun & so have been neglecting the weekly blogging. Preparations are in full swing (hint-this is code for frantically working to get it all ready) for Helfa Gelf which starts on Friday, that's THIS FRIDAY! Before immersing myself fully in this though, I just wanted to do a brief round up of the rest of the Edinburgh jaunt. In a programme heavily weighted towards Richard Herring (probably my favourite ever comedian, consistently funny, innovative & hard working), I went to another of his podcast recordings. This one featured Bridget Christie (who the next day deservedly won best show in the Fosters Comedy Award- the renamed Perrier for anyone in their 30s or older), Ed Byrne & a 5 min comic poem by another favourite Luke Wright. Also saw RH's solo stand up show, 'We're All Going to Die' which was enjoyable but not quite as brilliant as previous stand out shows like 'The Headmaster...

The Stand Comedy Club Newly escaped from the office job (forever, hurrah!), I  immediately set off for my native city, Edinburgh, to enjoy some festival fun with family & friends. This year I've taken a slower approach, moseying up to the action/madness in gentle fashion with a cake stop with friends to ease me in (not as used to crowds these days, Caernarfon generally doesn't do frenzy despite the many summer visitors!). Who better to sample a new (well, to us) cafe with but a lady who is very well informed about good cake, Kate from Cake Poppins Cake Poppins We tried out Love Crumbs at the West Port (the old town haunt of the notorious murderers Burke & Hare, now remodelled & amusingly referred to as 'the pubic triangle' due to its lap dancing/strip bars. The bars however, nestle amongst independent shops and cafes, the College of Art & a Catholic church with a beautiful starry ceiling so it's not as insalubrious as it sounds!). Love Crumbs...

Poison & Crochet Leeches Jars Thought it was time for a more crochet centred post as I seem to have been distracted my lovely summer events and activities recently (I'm not sorry). This morning I was inspired by this story on BBC Wales www.bbc.co.uk/Medicinal leech farming making a comeback in Wales Istanbul Leeches Apparently,"leech-farming is back in Wales... the 60,000 leeches a year they provide for hospitals throughout Europe make Swansea's Biopharm the biggest suppliers of leeches in the UK." Long associated with quack medicine, they actually introduce a powerful anticoagulant chemical into blood making them "perfect for microsurgery, particularly when severed fingers or toes have been reattached".  So far, my only sighting of real leeches was an odd spin on the imagined old glass bottled leeches (previously available in all good old apothecaries). I spotted a large plastic drum (a recycled water cooler I suspected) of leeches for hi...