Spheres!

Two of the completed spheres

Later this month a torch connected with certain happenings in the capital is passing through Carlisle (not once but twice!) I've managed to get myself entangled, sorry involved, with three different groups taking part in the celebrations. On the day I'll be involved with a street theatre performance with Prism Arts, I'm making a banner with Rockcliffe C of E Primary School (more on both of these in other posts coming soon!) and the other group is my 'day job' The Heathlands Project. For the parade we're putting up a marquee so my colleague Helen Tuck and I have been busy making a covering and decorations for the marquee. I thought instead of Olympic rings I would make spheres using fabric so that if it rains they can just get wet and drip dry afterwards. They will also be re-usable for other events. They're really simple to make, just circles of fabric and a bit of stitching. Stiffer fabrics work better and it takes quite a bit of fabric so I've been scrabbling around trying to find as many pieces as possible in all the relevant colours!

Thinner fabrics bunch up

Stiffer fabrics hold their shape better

Detail

Detail

View from above

Melty Lace Flowers

Crocheted Plastic Flower Decoration

As some of you may know I love to knit and I love to melt stuff. I have also been known to combine these two interests to create pieces such as The Lace Space which I am currently doing some more work on. The basic process involves cutting plastic bags into strips, knitting or crocheting them and then melting them, this creates quite a rigid piece of fabric which is, of course, waterproof. On a smaller scale my friend and colleague Helen T and I along with help from Susan have been crocheting a flower garden using the same technique. We intend this to be a beautiful outside 'curtain garden.' We also thought that these pieces would make beautiful hanging decorations, either inside or outside. This pair of flowers was made using a discarded plastic poncho and a sandwich bag. I made the pattern up as I went along!

Big flower

Little Flower

Little flower detail

Large flower detail

Bird Decorations

Hand-made felt birds

I run an art group called Create It! for Eden Mencap Society every other Monday evening and recently we've been making bird decorations. Last session we did some design work and then some felt making and yesterday we began using that felt to make the decorations. The blue bird was done by a guy who'd never done any stitching before, he quickly picked it up and did a great job. I love the colour choices and his blue-lidded eye. Next session we'll be carrying on and making some more birds, I can't wait to see what they come up with!

Work in progress

Design work

Appleby Craft Fair

My Stall

Wow, I can't believe how quickly the past few weeks have gone. Since my last post I've run the second of my life drawing sessions, which went very well, made Halloween decorations and costumes and put up an exhibition of work from the Big Draw, including work done by our members at the Heathlands Project and our local primary school. I did mean to post about all these things but never quite round to it, the main reason being that I have been fully immersed in stitch madness. The reason for this being...

...I was in Appleby in Westmorland today, selling some of my crafts which I have been working away at making for the past few weeks. I was asked if I wanted a stall and I said yes but then had a major stress that I wouldn't have enough to fill a whole table so consequently I've been working like some form of stitching demon for the past few weeks. It has, however, been great fun and I sold quite a lot today so it was all worth it. It was great hearing people's comments and seeing what people liked and what they weren't so impressed with. I very much enjoyed today and I'm hoping to do another fair before Christmas. Having something like the craft fair to work towards has also been good because it's given me an incentive to make things and I've tried out lots of new ideas along the way.

Owl Doorstops

Cards, Key-rings and 'phone cases

Tree Cards



Bird and Heart Cushions