Lost in the Wood

Welcome in 2016 with a Crocheted Cocktail Happy New Year! Wishing you all a very happy, healthy and adventure-filled 2016. I'm most pleased that my first new make of 2016 is a crocheted cocktail, start as you mean to go on I say...!  I love the start of January with all it's forward looking optimism, the potential to get new things moving after Christmas, and the cheerfully naive hopes bound up with resolutions. It's a refreshing and invigorating time, ripe for planning and scheming. 2015 generally and especially the run up to Christmas seemed to hurtle past in a bit of a blur, with a sense of chasing deadlines which were either looming or whizzing past. This year, I'm aiming for a bit more control over everything and time to explore new ideas and work. Change is in the air: I move studios this month, I'm starting to work on new art pieces for open exhibitions and there's lots of plans buzzing around my head. Dishearteningly, I also have a riotous chaos o...

Me & New Friend Pavlov @ Hendrick's Emporium... Yes, it's that time of year again, when I've had such a lovely time in Festival-time Edinburgh that I can't help but go on about it a bit. I make few apologies for this however as it really is the best place to be in August (unless you hate crowds, comedy, all forms of theatre, poetry, books, pop up courtyard bars and vibrancy and random happenings). I'll try to keep it brief this year so you can make it through to the end. Firstly, cake . Here I excelled. This year I decided to prioritise catching up with friends over trying to see everything that had good reviews (a Herculean & very expensive task anyway). Some recommendations: C afe Angelina (London St) was visited twice, once for very fresh morning scones and spontaneous dressing up (we found a case of hats that whispered to us to try them on), then again for a delicious afternoon tea which was a thing of beauty and paid proper attention to the savou...

Surrounding myself with appropriate deckchairs @ Edinburgh Book Festival Life as a self-employed artist is an often precarious existence which constantly feels a bit hand-to-mouth on the financial front. However, what it lacks in stability is more than compensated for on the flexibility & freedom fronts. Seduced by the lure of freewheeling round Edinburgh at the height of festival time, I happily decamped to the Capital, clutching a (very long) shortlist of shows I wanted to see, mentally prepared for spontaneous adventures and with a slightly ridiculous amount of wool & felting supplies (intended for efficient between show crafting). Twenty days of stimulating sights was the intention and despite inevitable days when I just couldn't face the weekend crowds, worried about the impact on my credit card or was too jaded to bother seeing anything, it basically delivered. Shows: Of the 18 shows I managed to see these were the highlights: Underbelly, Richard herring,...