Craft Fair

Ayton Village Hall are holding a craft fair on Sunday 15th November, so I've been busy working towards it. These photos show some of the things I've been pricing up. Most fun? The hand-painted wellies - owls and puffins.

Sooty Owl

Sooty Owl is knitted in different wool from the King Cole tinsel yarn I've used for the rest of the owls - it's still hairy, but not as sparkly, and it knits to a slightly different tension.

Tea Light

This is an experiment, based on a tea light we bought in Norway. The base log is from the Whitebeam tree, which we pruned earlier in the year, and the twigs are mainly from our recent walks in Keswick. I used a hot glue gun to stick the twigs to the log base, and added a shallow glass ramekin, plus tea light and ribbon. Maybe I'll make the twigs a little longer on the next one, to completely hide the glass. Another stocking filler for Christmas sorted - and a walk on the beach planned, to collect driftwood for the next one.

Gruffalo

I love the Gruffalo story and created a collage in the style of "Mouse meeting the Owl", in the deep dark wood. Now I've added a soft toy Gruffalo to the set. It was quite time consuming, making sure my Gruffalo matches (almost!) to the description in the book. (Acknowledgements to Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler) 

More necklaces

I've just finished another handful of bead necklaces - thinking - coming up to Christmas ... stocking fillers. The green one uses recycled ceramic green beads as well as the small white pony beads; the others are as before. The colour isn't too clear in the second picture - the red and black material is true to life, but the others are navy/white spots and red/white spots. I need to photograph them again in daylight, not electric light. Selling for £3.50 each or three for £9.

Beaded necklaces

These necklaces have been made using a strip of fabric, with enough material at each end to tie in a knot or bow when wearing the necklace.

The “black background, patterned material”, with the dusty pink beads, is a Liberty Print, the others are cotton prints.

The necklaces are made with alternating 1.5cm (approx) polystyrene balls and pony beads. Each necklace has 19 or 20 polystyrene balls and 19 or 20 pony beads, and each is approx one metre long.I thought these would make great presents for friends, (thinking - get organised for Christmas) or to wear myself with a choice of colours to suit different outfits!

Twiddle muff

Volunteers are needed to knit these for dementia patients (see various internet sites) - mine has buttons inside and loops outside, for twiddling, plus an owl pocket for a hanky/specs/phone/purse - and the different textures of wool add interest.

Silk painting

This is a new venture to me, so I've had to do lots of internet research, and buy lots of new equipment.

I'm not sure if this is the right way to paint on silk ... I did a design on A4 and traced it onto freezer paper (plastic coated paper) which I then ironed onto my piece of silk. Next I traced all the outline with gold "gutta", trying to make sure there were no gaps for the silk paint to leak through. The gutta is like a resist (barrier) to stop the paint spreading into areas you don't want that colour. Then came the fun bit of painting ... and after removing the freezer paper and ironing the silk to "set" the colours, I put the picture into a double mount using double-sided tape.

Turquoise-blue patchwork bag

Happy to say the turquoise-blue shades bag is now finished

Patchwork bag

This is my first foray into patchwork, and the bag is mainly hand stitched, with machine stitching around each square before turning right side out, plus on the handles.

The bag is made from 20 Japanese folded patchwork squares – each square starts out with a sandwich of two 12cm squares and a 12cm piece of wadding. Four 8cm squares are folded to make triangles, and added to each corner. Once the piece is securely stitched around the edge, it is turned and the centre square hand stitched in a running stitch.

The 20 squares are then joined by hand into a flat piece (as one of the photos), embellishments added (in this case – buttons), and then the final edges hand stitched to give the bag its shape.

One square is folded over to make a “fastening” with elastic and buttons.

The handles are made from black and red fabric strips, with iron on interfacing for extra body.

I’ve loved doing this, and just bought material to do another in turquoise shades, with butterfly and bee motifs.

Ayton Art Exhibition 2015

Well, it's amazing what you can achieve when the pressure is on and there's only 4 weeks to go!
These are my 6 entries for this year's exhibition. I was inspired by Puffins from my recent visit to Norway and the Arctic Circle, hence the collage, and the lino prints. Then no exhibition would be the same without an IRIS picture of some sort! The last two pictures are for the separate room, where the theme is "Interpretation of a poem". I've done an extract from The Gruffalo, when OWL meets the mouse and invites him for dinner ... and secondly, a view of Scarborough North Bay, inspired by John Masefield's Sea Fever ...  "And the flung spray and the blown spume.."
The exhibition runs from July 25th to August 2nd 2015

Puffin Coaster

I've just been to a workshop at The Stained Glass Place, and am delighted with my first ever coaster!

I started with a template on paper, coaster size, to show what colours go where. Then I put one piece of 3mm glass over the template, outlined a puffin in liquid black, and coloured in the eye, part of the head and his back. Picture two is the other piece of glass, to which I added sprinkles (or piles!) of FRIT - tiny glass pieces. Some were sprinkled onto glue, but the larger areas just had glue round the outside, to stop the molten glass oozing out of the "sandwich". I left the coaster to be fired and collected the finished item 24 hours later. Emma explained the science behind fusing glass - all fascinating - it's a great workshop. Now I've seen the finished product, I would be more selective about choosing the colours to use. Watch this space - there are more courses coming up!

Rabbit booties

Toddler sized booties in 100% wool - fun to knit. Maybe the pompom is a little on the large size!

Cruise Ship Crafts

I've just got back from a cruise to Norway and Russia. As there were 8 "sea days", there were three art and craft tutors to keep us occupied, culminating in an exhibition on the final day.
Jessie did a range of craft work items - and she had a mountain of wonderful ribbons, buttons, self adhesive greeting tags, materials etc .... for us to choose from, for each craft. Here's what I did - a Japanese folded patchwork earring holder (or needle case) in "Russian Doll" material, a wicker heart decorated with "Suffolk Puff" flowers, cross stitch cards, silk painted cards, Liberty fabric beaded necklaces, and gift boxes made from one piece of card - and the surprise of those is they fold flat for storage. Some great ideas for hand-made Christmas presents!

Sarah and Geoff lead a "printing without a press" series of workshops, with the aim of us making cards. There were 20 of us, and the range of ideas and end results were amazing - each so different and successful.The fish were done from a piece of funky foam, and the puffins were done using lino cutting tools, and a piece of soft lino. As a complete beginner, I loved learning the process - and now I have more idea of what to expect, I need to practise! I feel the need for browsing the internet for the tools and materials, and adding them to a birthday wish list!
PS The cruise was good too!

Felted pictures, postcard size

In July this year (2015), WOODEND  in SCARBOROUGH is holding an exhibition and sale of local 2d artwork - the only stipulation being size - maximum 6" x 4". The pieces of art will  be displayed anonymously, and only if bought will the artist be revealed. £1 from each sale will be donated to Cancer Research.
I've done four postcards from merino tops, felted to the right size. I added some detail by needle-felting afterwards e.g. the poppy centres.

Yorkshire blue and yellow bunting

I knit this length of bunting for the Tour de Yorkshire cycle race which came through our village. Unfortunately, I then couldn't find anywhere outdoors to show it off, so we bought a flag pole to fly the Yorkshire flag instead! I'll think of somewhere for the bunting before Yorkshire Day on August 1st.

Bluetit

Just for fun! 

I couldn't resist this pattern which I borrowed from a friend, and I had enough oddments of wool to complete him. However, I did have to buy a packet of beads for the eyes  - so now I've enough eyes left for a whole aviary of birds!

More Tinsel Owls

Two more owls in the Parliament of Owls!

Painted Welly

The last welly I painted was in Clarice Cliff style - this time I thought I'd have a go at copying the idea of Aboriginal Art, using dots. You need a first layer of gesso, so the acrylic paint adheres OK, then I used sticks, cotton buds and a fine paint brush to do the dots. Finally the whole boot had a coat of yacht varnish for protection. It has holes drilled for drainage, so in summer I can use it as an outdoor planter.