Lost in the Wood

Needle Felted Anatomical Heart Brooches   Needle Felted Love Rats Love may very well be in the air, and all around etc but for me this February is mostly about the radishes (amongst other crochet foods). More on this in a while. Santes Dwynwn (25th January) suddenly loomed out of nowhere this year, despite all of my well formed making plans, and had to be written off as a not-at-all-grabbed opportunity. I felt only marginally better prepared for Valentines Day. There were quite a few 'Things I Could Have Made More Of But Ran Out Of Time'. Not to worry, let's celebrate things I did manage: a few anatomical heart brooches (in 2 sizes) and three 'love rats'  which all scurried off to Mostyn gallery shop (Llandudno, North Wales). 'Not Holding Together', detail Sticking with the cardiac theme, I've been working on a new needle felted anatomical heart piece in an artier vein (pun intended). Here's a little peak of 'Not Holding To...

Wolf Woolidermy Head A Walk In Wolf Wood book One of my very favourite childhood books was 'A Walk in Wolf Wood' by Mary Stewart. It's packed full of magical adventure, time travel to a medieval world, not too annoying brother & sister protagonists, werewolves, a perilous quest, dark witchy woods and evil sorcery. Enchantingly, it was read aloud by a lovely auntie who injected her voice with the appropriate drama (a splendid skill not everyone possesses I've since discovered). Why ramble on about this you may well wonder? Well, fond thoughts of this book were prompted by the recent request to make a woolidermy wolf head as my part in a happy art exchange (I got a fab graphite drawing). I have a long held fascination with the Grimm tales, in particular Red Riding Hood, which you'll see reflected in my business name & logo but it's this book that really drew me in first. Rather sadly I didn't need to dig out or dust off the book for this phot...

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...

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...

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...