ragtales

painted russian dolls

2012-01-06T05:31:00.000-08:00

ery scant on images to post lately so here are yet more russian dolls that I painted on thin MDF before Christmas....not very good photos but everything I do these days is done in a rush! Maybe when the men in white coats come to take me away, I can paint faces all day...its great therapy!

bonny scotland

2011-12-31T10:29:00.000-08:00

apply New Year everyone, here's hoping that 2012 will be peaceful and happy!
Have just spent a week up in beautiful Scotland, and the magical Findhorn Bay where the sky is big and the light inspires! My delightful God daughter Lola helped us all remember why Christmas is so special.xxxx

russian dolls for Christmas

2011-12-08T03:52:00.000-08:00

Have managed to bash out a few russian lavender (!) dolls using the spoonflower printed fabric. I have backed them with red ginghams, stuffed them with lavender and embellished them with the myriad of haberdashery that I have stashed away in various draws, I really enjoyed doing the faces...next project will be just faces ......hopefully they will get to the post office in time for christmas pressies......frantic times...

India...

2011-11-20T02:22:00.000-08:00

ust had to post these 2 amazing images from my folks recent whirlwind trip to India.....I have gone past the jealous stage and am now writing to Father Christmas for a one way ticket to Delhi!

so many russian dolls I don't know what to do with them!

2011-11-16T06:06:00.000-08:00

poonflower have now delivered me 2 sets of my russian doll fabric, I made a mistake on the dpi sizing when I uploaded the designs and now I have a huge version of the dolls.....seemed like such a good idea at the time, now I have 4 metres of the fabric, no ideas and no time to actually sew them up into anything vaguely interesting!! any ideas?

character illustrations

2011-11-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Feeling bad about neglecting my blog...so much work at the moment that I have nt had time to scratch my nose...even my pinterest addiction has taken a back seat...here are some illustrations that I have been working on for a future project! I drew the characters on paper , scanned them in and them collaged them together in Illustrator using scanned in bits of fabric and vintage textures of old paper...

autumn acorns

2011-10-26T12:28:00.000-07:00

ery very busy at the moment, and despite bashing out some more acorns and bracelets and crochet, I have not had time to even put them into my etsy shop...but here they are.....look like all the others.....ho hum!

more miserable moths

2011-10-18T03:08:00.000-07:00

utting up pretty bits of printed paper and old french books is a pastime I throughly recommend, especially if you are as stressed with the day job as I am at the moment...and probably cheaper than a stay in the Priory as well....but it does create a mountain of torn paper and very little else...but here are the fruits of my labour last night.......fluttering moths, with plenty of glue smeared everywhere for good measure!

beautiful wallpapers

2011-10-17T02:52:00.000-07:00

xquisite wallpaper samples from a very well known english paint company....this clever company has looked at old paintings and has copied textile designs meticulously painted on all the saints to produce designs for their new range of wallpapers.....Nick brought home these beautiful postcards from a colour talk at the National Gallery, all bound in a moleskin wallet for me to copy onto tissue paper for my collages! these patterns will make really beautiful moths...can see them fluttering around the burnt at both ends candle already!

the little gardening book

2011-10-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

ust feast your eyes on this object of beauty that Margaret Harvey has created over in her wonderful studio in Cobham...made from found treasures, and deftly put together, this vintage gardening book has exploded with life! I fell in love with the lttle metal moth made from bits of broken jewelery ( I think) and the way she has produced such dainty flowering growth from bits and pieces that have been discarded over the years...

russian dolls for Christmas

2011-10-04T09:39:00.000-07:00

hinking of Christmas already ( well I saw mince pies stacked neatly in Tescos today!) the russian dolls will be printed onto the lovely canvas cloth at Spoonflower and hopefully be made into bags...make up bags, tote bags, purses....all I need is to give up the day job and dust down my trusty sewing machine!

vintage chinese opera

2011-10-03T03:33:00.000-07:00

saw some beautiful vinatge images taken from Chinese Opera on the back of some playing cards during my trip...here they are....they would make beautiful collages, or embroideries, no?

Hong Kong

2011-09-26T00:30:00.000-07:00

Wow Hong Kong was everything that I had been told about and more.....I traipsed the streets for hours with my trusty street map and my octopus card seeing the most amazing sights, smelling the most amazing aromas and tasting the most delicous if undistinguishable foods! Alot of dried fish and medicinal herbs...not sure what fate the poor toads were awaiting..The shopping is awesome, I am sure there is nothing in Hong Kong that one cannot buy....a shopping mall every 100 yards and street markts around every corner.

miserable moths

2011-09-08T23:45:00.000-07:00

Miserable colours are what inspire me ....and moths....while I will never be a neat embroiderer, I am pleased with the way the colours turned out..I dyed lots of squares of linen by dipping them in various pans of dye and overdying to get lovely muddy mothy colors!

acorns and leaves

2011-09-05T03:36:00.000-07:00

utumn is definitely in the air here, lots of spiders in the house and the conkers about to drop! Tried experimenting with doing some autumn colours for a bracelet, and after creating alot of mess and cutting up lots of bits of fabrics I did achieve something that could be put round a wrist! Must make more.......!

dasher the little daschund

2011-08-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

ave been tempted once again to enter a spoonflower competition, only because it was for a soft toy pattern tha I have been working on anyway, so decided to use one of my little daschund designs to make a 'plushie' pattern.....better make it up so that I know that the pattern works properly!

Russian dolls from Spain

2011-08-19T02:28:00.000-07:00

ad collaged russian dolls from Spain....I have just spent nearly 3 weeks in beautiful sunny Spain, but not being one for sunbathing spent the hot afternoons cutting up mountains of paper to make 30 russian doll designs which I thought would look really lovely when grouped together for a fabric design. Spending all that time away from work and dismal England always makes me think of new ideas, mostly to do with Spoonflower and printing fabric....and then 2 days back in the office they are all forgotten! Oh well.......

2011-07-25T01:18:00.000-07:00

ummertime in London brings the annual RA summer show which we love to go to, and this year it was the prints and the wintery pictures that I loved so much...Bryanston Square by Eileen Hogan, the one with the tree drawn in charcoal on watercolour paper was spectacular - Roy Wright, as was the amazing landscape of the battle of the unicorns, all made with wire armature and elastoplast!
Tea at the Wolsey afterwards is part of the treat!

scanning in sketches

2011-07-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

rying to find a way to use drawings for logos, by scanning the sketches in and then working on them in photoshop and then illustrator...thought it would be easy but it seems to be quite difficult to keep the line looking hand drawn...

2011-07-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

have discovered yet another reason to sit at the computer and spend hours trawling the internet for inspiration...and I'm hooked to Pinterest.... have managed to pin over 200 images to various boards.....might need therapy to stop the obsession!
Its great, take a look.....oh yes...you can use the link top right of this page to see some beautiful paintings and work....

lots of little faces

2011-07-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

orking hard this week at the day job......I need to complete 24 illustrated faces for a memory game by the end of the week....I'm going crossed eyed at my computer!

Hampton Court Flower show

2011-07-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

eautiful flowers at the Hampton Court flower show this year but only if you planted red cabbages amongst the petunias! Growing your own veggies and running allotments, geese and all was a big theme this year....

soft tomatoes

2011-07-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

ust when you think that you might be going senile and you cannot cope because there is so much to do, make some fabric tomatoes! Really bonkers and completely useless, they are a good way of using left over fabric! ....and I do have alot of that!

softies pattern

2011-06-30T02:31:00.000-07:00

oila!
Have scanned in the images, coloured them up in photoshop and done a rough repeat pattern....will have to get a tutorial of my Santa Fe guru who is also the best textile designer in the world on how to make a pattern look like its meant to be a textile design!...maybe it needs some polka dots to fill in the gaps....?

doodle drawings

2011-06-29T03:57:00.000-07:00

have been burning the midnight oil and drawing up some of my softie characters as I thought it would make a nice wrapping paper/textile design.....and I have just been given a brand new scanner at work and it seemed a shame to waste it on the day job! I hope my boss is nt reading this! I think they need to be treated with some photoshop to inject some colour...will post soon!

more softies

2011-06-25T07:47:00.000-07:00

ore portraits, this time the latest batch of softies that I have been making...working out the patterns for the little animals is a long process and probably much easier to just buy the patterns but I quite enjoy the challenge of working out where to put the darts!

2011-06-24T04:43:00.000-07:00

eeling in the need of some inspiration and not feeling the need to sit at my desk at work I escped to the amazing National Portrait Gallery to see the BP portrait awards......"The annual BP Portrait Award is the most prestigious portrait competition in the world, promoting the very best in contemporary portrait painting. Over the past thirty-two years the Award has proved the launch pad for the careers of many successful portrait artists."
It was wonderful and inspiring......I want to paint portraits now!
Above are my 2 favorites from the exhibition as well as the (top image) winning portrait by Wim Heldens "Distracted"...

my dad

2011-06-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

appy Fathers Day to my dear dad....he is without doubt the best one in the world and if you're reading this dad I will see you and mum on wednesday with a chocolate cake! xxxx

little faces

2011-06-17T06:10:00.001-07:00

orking hard on the day job so not much to post in the way of real creativity or inspiration...still, I was pleased with my little boy and girl characters that I wanted to look very slightly retro, and still be able to be screen printed at the factory...

courting frogs

2011-06-14T02:48:00.000-07:00

ust look at the lovely quality of this very old childrens book 'A frog he would a wooing go' that I found at Spitalfields market on friday. The pages are actual linen and the dot screen of this early printing looks amazing...reminds me of those magical watercolour colouring pages where you just had to add water to bring the colours to life.

Judith Kerr

2011-06-13T06:49:00.000-07:00

riday was an inspiration day and so as the toy museum at Bethnal Green is one of my favorites I took the camera up there for research....There was the most wonderful exhibition of the artwork of Judith Kerr who wrote 'When Hitler stole pink rabbit' and 'When the tiger came to tea'....There was a huge No Photography sign up but could nt resist as her paintings were so much more beautiful than than the printed versions, and while my hurried amateur snaps dont do her artwork justice, I had to share them with you all!

a new little mouse

2011-06-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

new mouse in fluffy pink slippers and my rather strange little red riding hood characters....wanted to see whether I could photograph them all against some patterned backgrounds and give them some kind of personality with some blurring....I might leave the photography to the experts!
Shall I call the mouse Nibs or Jacques?

Chelsea flower show

2011-05-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

helsea Flower show was amazing last week despite the hail and the thunderstorms here in London.....There were the usual stunning displays of awesome blooms but what I really enjoyed were some of the wonderful sculptures and garden ornaments on display....such talent everywhere! The buttons in the top picture were made from shaped and cut pebbles, as was the Thames townscape underneath.....amazing!

tooth fairies

2011-05-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

wo little milk teeth fairies.....they just need to be made up using plain and patterned coloured velour. At only 10 cms in height they should look cute enough to collect those lost teeth!

cats and dogs

2011-05-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

ome new designs for applique animals....thought about a load of animals all chasing each other.....a bit tom and jerry perhaps...shows my age!

annual factory visit

2011-05-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

very hot and humid week here in Surabaya, Indonesia where the factory is....but also very exciting! One of the cats had a litter of kittens in one of the buckets, and we feasted on some amazingly delicious homegrown tropical bananas from the garden!

pen and ink

2011-05-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

have been experimenting with some inks and pen line...just copying some photos in magazines, gives enough inspiration to produce something colourful!...I love the mad fluid patches of colour you get with the running inks....more tomorrow.....

fashion drawings

2011-05-14T02:46:00.000-07:00

wesome fashion drawings from Francesca.....amazing to see the development over the last 9 months...and she made the jacket!

beautiful spain

2011-05-11T06:16:00.000-07:00

pain was so beautiful this weekend, despite being there for only 5 days I was struck again by the wonderful colours and textures to be found wherever you look....

bunting

2011-04-28T06:43:00.000-07:00

he Royal Wedding tomorrow and the prospect of our street party has bought out a flurry of bunting and in order not to be left behind on all this activity I have made my own - bonkers version of those patriotic little flags! Could not help but to applique some rabbits and doggies as alternate flags.....Have nt finished them yet but will post when I have....and if I have the guts to display them in public!

butterflies and bunnies

2011-04-14T04:56:00.000-07:00

appy days when I realise how wonderfully talented my mum and my Fran are.....this little chap is something mum knocked up in time for Easter and the stitched butterflies is something Fran did over 3 years ago on the old sewing machine whilst chatting about her friends at college......amazing...

lots of white hankies

2011-04-11T03:21:00.000-07:00

had really given up hope of ever seeing my hankerchief tree flowering as I bought it 15 years ago and it had never shown any sign of wanting to grace us with its spectacular white bracts that look like hanging hankerchiefs. So imagine my surprise when I realised that this was the year that it was going to happen!

great fashion drawings

2011-03-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

e have all been so frantically busy at home for the last couple of weeks that I have nt even had time to post anything....however Fran has been doing some great fashion drawing in sketchbooks which I thought were definitely worthy of a post! I love the way she has incorporated photocopies ias part of the final artwork..

a beautiful jug

2011-03-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

o beautiful, so like my Fin, and now so mine! I cannot believe what my friend Nicky pulled out of a brown paper bag and presented me with but this gorgeous jug by her very talented mum over in south Africa. When Gay du Toit heard that I had fallen in love with it because the little boy reminded me of Finlay, she sent it over for me.....

Christian and rugby

2011-03-07T02:10:00.000-08:00

icking balls and throwing stones has always been a passionate pursuit for Christian, and yesterday, 17 years of practice paid off when his team won the semi finals of the Daily Mail RBS Under 18 Vase! They now get to play the final at Twickenham....every schoolboys dream come true! They are an awesome team and there was not a dry eye amongst the 200 supporters who had travelled up to the pitch in Coventry yesterday....Unfortunately these pics are not of the game itself as Nick and I were far too nervous to take any photos! the photos above are from the quarter finals....

appliqued cot quilt

2011-02-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

k I know it's cheating to post images of work done ages ago, but I was looking for some pillowcases the other day in the mess I call my airing cupboard when I found a cot quilt which I lovingly stitched for Finlay 14 years ago! ....as I have not painted, photographed, or created anything worthy of a post this week, thought I would show these pics instead. I used Francescas' and Christians' drawings and turned them into the applique pieces on each square, using a wonderful coloured linen from our trusty John Lewis.

soft dolly

2011-02-21T11:36:00.000-08:00

ollies everywhere in my head at the moment as I'm frantically trying to produce some styles that would be more commercial than the ones I have done before......this dolly would be for a much younger age group hence the velvet/velour style hair which would be more suitable than lots of wool, and much softer.The face needs a little more cheering up though as she looks a little non plussed sitting in my armchair!

collage dresses

2011-02-15T05:55:00.000-08:00

seem to have become a little fixated with the idea of collage-which is basically alot of tearing, glueing and then wondering why I have been making such a mess on the dining room table! Was inspired by some russian dresses in the christmas issue of selvedge....I love the idea of the same dress pattern collaged in different patterns....Jone reckons I should hang them all in a row with little wire coat hangers...

valentines day

2011-02-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

alentines day has brought me a delightful lavender infused paper heart from Julie all the way across the atlantic, here with another lovely paper heart all the way from vintage fairy tales in sweden.....as ever, this day brings unexpected surprises!

Threads of feeling

2011-02-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

ccompaning Di this weekend, we went to see Threads of Feeling- an exhibition that is showcasing fabrics never shown before to illustrate the moment of parting as mothers left their babies at the original Foundling Hospital, which continues today as the children’s charity Coram.

In the cases of more than 4,000 babies left between 1741 and 1760, a small object or token, usually a piece of fabric, was kept as an identifying record. The fabric was either provided by the mother or cut from the child’s clothing by the hospital's nurses. Attached to registration forms and bound up into ledgers, these pieces of fabric form the largest collection of everyday textiles surviving in Britain from the 18th Century.
The pictures above are rom those ledgers....not a dry eye at the exhibition!

rabbit years

2011-02-07T03:54:00.000-08:00

ust finished combining all the watercolours onto a background for the spoonflower contest which is 'year of the Rabbit' to celebrate the chinese new year....no chinese rabbits in my entry as I went for the very english look of a portrait wall of many years of rabbits instead! I downloaded the background from a fabulous website called Lost and Taken which supplies high resolution downloads (free!) of the most amazing textures- cheating I know - but I'm actually supposed to be working at the day job today, not entering more competitions!

alot of rabbits

2011-01-31T01:54:00.000-08:00

abbits are everywhere at the moment.....could be the fact that there are already easter eggs in our local Tesco's and the latest challenge at spoonflower is rabbits! Got out the watercolours yesterday and ignored the washing, ironing and hoovering (Health and safety are really going to shut us down soon!) and painted a load of rabbits, a sort of family tree of a rabbit family - will paste them altogether into a montage and post the results soon!

Beautiful Typography

2011-01-30T08:53:00.000-08:00

eautiful sketchbooks always take my breath away- and Christine Buttner's is no exception. Christine is the most talented typographer i know ! Even her handwriting is spectacular... Here are some images of the sketchbook that she has been keeping these past couple of months and she has transfered some of her typography onto a cut-out bit of perspex- the idea being to create a contemporary and modern christmas wreath. Oh such talent...

alot of torn paper

2011-01-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

n a vain effort to inspire me the lovely Di Foster sent me some treasured printed tissue papers so that I could at least bash out a couple of collage style illustrations, and after an awfully long time I managed to produce a very large pile of torn paper and some rather pathetic looking greetings cards....oh well, at least I started!

miserable january

2011-01-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

truggling to find inspiration this very grey miserable January, although no excuse really as my friend Christine, who can make the simplest things look stunning presented me with these 2 delightful hearts made from french vintage fabric, which I love....and then I found this gorgeous tin at our local flea market, and it was full of buttons, all for a fiver! I then got very excited about the potential of our local antique shops and came home with this beauty (!) of a victorian armchair which just needs to be upholstered in some chic stone coloured linen and given a lick of farrow and ball paint...........

Margaret Harvey

2011-01-13T06:24:00.000-08:00

ast weekend was great because I got to visit Margaret Harvey's lovely home and wonderful studio where she showed me some of the stunning work she has been churning out recently.....I first Margaret at Kingston uni where we were studying Graphic Design, and then worked with her at the BBC....many moons ago!
The small needle felt is the eg of the 'Impressionist Felting' courses Margaret will be teaching at Make me craft and lifestyle workshops at the lovely Medicine Garden in Cobham,Surrey. info@makemeworkshops.com
The Wooden collage blocks , mix media collages and jewellery are exhibited at Fire and Iron Gallery Leatherhead Surrey.

paper doll printable downloads

2011-01-13T03:06:00.000-08:00

his week I have been working on an illustration style for our website, so that we can do some printable downloads for children that log onto to the website. The paper doll idea is always popular and easily printable onto thicker paper.....the illustrations above were done by using the illusrator programme on the mac to trace the watercolour painting, and create gradients in the vector shapes....while the painterly style is prettier, the clean lines of illustrator is more in keeping with the rest of our products...if you want to see all the dolls in the range you can log onto the budkins website

internet inspiration

2011-01-07T03:20:00.000-08:00

ooking for illustration styles at work today got me looking at these fabulous designers and drooling over their wonderful sense of colour and strokes.....from the top - sarah Jane, Frederique Bertrand, Julia Denos and Helen Dardik

gauguin

2011-01-06T11:47:00.000-08:00

appy New Year to all of you who have found yourselves here! Desperate for some kind of inspiration after the flu ridden festive period, the family and I took ourselves off to see the stunning Gauguin exhibition at the Tate Modern here in London. What is so wonderful about retrospectives such as this one is that there is always a painting that you had never seen in any of the art books pored over in the past, and we all decided that the beautiful painting above 'the little one is dreaming' painted in 1881 was the one we would all want to take home. What also stood out was the flatness of colour and shapes and the lack of depth, making it possible to focus on some gorgeous figures in the backgrounds....I love the woman crouching near the house....

2010-12-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

ore presents delivered to the Hanson household, this time from Di Foster, soldering Queen of the north! ....and she even sent a pressie for Francesca, seen modelling above...I had seen these beautiful trimmings in Selvedge a couple of months ago but never thought about creating anything as lovely as the 2 brooches that Di has made....and of course, just feast your eyes on these naughty choir boys trapped forever behind these opticians eye pieces.....more inspiration, and so little time to do all the things we want to do!

brilliant becky

2010-12-19T06:37:00.000-08:00

How delighted and surprised was I to receive this beautiful print from the wonderful Becky over at vintage fairytales!
I love it, the colours, the moss, and especially that gorgeous papier mache reindeer...so inspired!

faces of angels

2010-12-13T05:24:00.000-08:00

inally got around to painting the last of the angels...thought I would show you the faces as Meredith was asking whether I copied them from anywhere...I paint them from my head, making them up as I go along.....great fun especially when there is all the chaos of the weekend activities going on all around me in the kitchen!

alot of red & gold paint all over the kitchen table

2010-12-05T06:09:00.000-08:00

t long last I have managed to get in to the christmas spirit and have spent all day painting a load of angels to wing their way over to friends far afield... have gone for a deep red ever so slightly miserable look this year as the angels from the summer are far too cheerful for this cold weather we have had!

no angels yet

2010-11-30T10:45:00.000-08:00

ard to think that I painted these girlies in the scorching heat of the spanish sun...thinking how organised I was going to be for Christmas and my annual production of painted angels.... these rather shabby specimens have no wings yet and don't even look holy...what was I thinking? I think I shall put them back on the shelf and just cut another load out and start again......

cracks in the walls

2010-11-23T08:16:00.000-08:00

rifting aimlessly through other bloggers' links I came across this wonderful illustrator Ana Ventura who has used the cracks and texture of old painted walls to create these great images...I wish I had thought of that idea! I love them....

Made 10 craft fair in brighton

2010-11-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

my ...check out this beautiful collage, hand stitched illustrations from Elaine Hughes 'ohgollygosh' who I saw at the Made 10 craft Fair down in Brighton this weekend. truly inspirational use of found ephemera, and different papers all chopped up and rearranged into delightful designs!

more presents

2010-11-20T11:33:00.000-08:00

resents for ones birthday are always great but when they come flying over from Santa Fe, thy are a delight.....and look what I received a couple of days ago...the most gorgeous velvet beads in sumptuous colours and the star of the parcel was this amazing little stamp that I completely love....Jone is a stamper extraordinaire and has just opened her shop on etsy, look it up for some beautiful hand carved and stamped stationery.....really lovely and useful!

roses

2010-11-14T06:32:00.000-08:00

henever its my birthday, my lovely mum always does me a handmade card and this year she excelled herself! Look at this beautiful watercolour of some yellow roses, is n't she brill?

kaffee fassett

2010-11-11T03:43:00.000-08:00

h how wonderful are these paintings by the amazing Kaffee Fassett. I saw an exhibition of his huge canvases in Liberty's many moons ago, and fell in love with the way he paints the patterns and not really the forms so that the whole thing could then be very easily translated into a tapestry or patchwork...the colours are so gorgeous and inspirational....

sparkles and velvet

2010-11-08T02:53:00.000-08:00

sually this time of year is the start of the glittery season so I thought to make some sparkly evening bits and pieces for the etsy shop...after all the pale pink and silver, I think that will make a midnight coal velvety affair.....cannot resist making the acorns at the moment...

beautiful becassine

2010-11-08T01:49:00.000-08:00

ast week for my birthday I received the most beautiful present through the post from Di my soldering chum....she knows how much I love Becassine and she managed to find this amazing edition dated 1919! to think that this book has survived 2 world wars and many children is wonderful.....Becassine chez les Turcs!

flowery bracelets

2010-11-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

ighty busy this past week with the day job has left this blog looking a bit deserted!
But decided last night to completely ignore the little screaming terrors trick and treating last night (Nick did the honors) and sat and sewed the orders for bracelets and necklaces that should have been done last week, nearly there....very pleased with the liberty fabric bracelets which seem to be getting madder and floweryer as the weeks go by......

saturday soldering

2010-10-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

indly Di, soldering expert extraordinaire has made the marathon journey down from Manchester to show me how to solder her amazing dobbers! Yippee! I was planning to tie her to my kitchen table but she willingly sat down all day and soldered and fluxed and polished without a moan...and look what we made!

soldathon

2010-10-19T03:27:00.000-07:00

ery much looking forward to the soldathon that will take place this weekend! Di Foster's beautiful dobbers can never be recreated but I have a vision of what some of my family'd old photos could look like trapped forever behind glass....
Found the work of an amazing artist called Tabitha Moses,(bottom image) which reminded me of my medal phase, but I really love the way the photos have been immortalised by giving them a surround, hopefully I can crop into our famil pictures to make into dobbers of my own...Yippee!y

anyone bored of bracelets yet?

2010-10-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

our more bracelets to put into the etsy shop...getting quicker which is great as they take ages to make and the domestics are really getting in the way at the moment! I'm very pleased with the liberty fabric one as it looks different from anything I've seen before....but there again that could be because its just odd!!!

roses on black

2010-10-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

nother spoonflower attempt, scanned nature objects is the competition this week. I have scanned in all the late produce from my very neglected garden and tried to assemble the foliage into a traditional style flower arrangement....not perfect but it will have to do otherwise I shall miss the deadline!

more bracelets

2010-10-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

ave been busy making more bracelets for the etsy shop, and here they are.... I'm very pleased with the little velvet acorns and have been slicing into the liberty fabric stash to make more of the fabric bangles....

felted necklace and acorns

2010-09-29T01:39:00.000-07:00

ittle tiny acorns made with some tiny scarps of the most beautifully expensive silk velvet from the cloth house in Soho, are my latest fad! I have crocheted the 1cm diameter cups from different miserable coloured embroidery threads and then wrapped a plastic bead with a small round of velvet and sewn together....they will all be strung on a double loop of velvet ribbon for a bracelet for the etsy shop! The very plain for me felt ball necklace will be uploaded to the shop later...

beautiful photographs

2010-09-28T05:03:00.000-07:00

t my parents this weekend we were looking at some of the wonderful photos that she has of when she was living in Tangiers in the 40s and 50s. The photo on the beach is of (clockwise from bottom left) Tio Manolo, Tia Maria, my mum, my uncle Pepin, my grandmother and my beautiful aunty Fita who sadly died earlier this year, the little boy that she is holding onto very tightly is a little street urchin they adopted. The other photo is of my mum and my auntie Fita with a friend.

I'm so excited

2010-09-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

'm sooo excited, after watching the etsy site like a maniac for the past couple of days a very kind person called Kcompliment has included one of my braceletes in her treasury! which is a members curated shopping gallery! I think I might be getting obsessed...

more felting

2010-09-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

esterday I picked the last of the apples of my tree and felt very autumnal,-Its the best season by far and I'm really into all those beautiful berry colours- have made some felt and crochet acorns to keep me in the mood which I shall make into a fall necklace for the shop....

thank you Meredith

2010-09-17T03:48:00.000-07:00

great many thank yous to all of you have encouraged me to start this wretched etsy shop....I really did need a kick start! it has been painful and certainly not for the faint hearted (!) trying to work out a shop policy was like drawing blood from a stone but at least after months of procrastination I have a banner and a somewhat amateurish shop front....just have to list everything now!
nearly there!

Thank you Di

2010-09-17T01:34:00.000-07:00

allelulia I'm home! And just look what was waiting for me on my return, but the cutest most perfect bijoux gift! My own little travelling Becassine, where did you get her Di? I love her....shame I cannot look like her when I travel.....

incidents in Indonesia

2010-09-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

ere I am in Surabaya this week on the bi annual factory visit which was going very well until we took a trip to the beautiful Shangrila hotel in the centre of town.....a crowded bus failed to stop and managed to write off the car we were travelling in! Within minutes we had attracted quite a crowd of locals, I snapped some pictures of the general chaos that ensued, quite a contrast to the tropical haven of our destination....

islamic tessallated tiles

2010-09-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

eville is also home to the famous Alcazar which is a moorish fortress built in the 10th century, - the moors not only introduced beautiful architecture to the south of Spain and amazing culinary skills, but they also were brilliant mathematicians- the tile work throughout the palace is all based on mathematical tessallations, regular, irregular and star-shaped tiles are juxtaposed to create geometrical patterns that flow over the whole surface,- the individual pieces, called "alízares", were cut out by blows delivered by a pick and then fired using a limited palette. In 1922 M. C. Escher was so inspired after studying the Moorish use of symmetry in these tiles, that he produced all those intricate works using these regular divisions of the plane.....

another bracelet

2010-09-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

ery addicted to wrapping lengths of cord...here is the thickest bracelet I have done so far, I think that they look better if they have lots of different coloured cords...

silky cords

2010-09-01T05:17:00.001-07:00

he only thing that I really managed to make successfully while I was away was a bunch of bracelets- made by twisting lots of different coloured embroidery silks around thick cord and then securing 10 - 20 of these coloured cords with a thick wrap of linen, which then had loads of seed beads sewn all over the top- all for the still fictitious etsy shop that is still a figment of my imagination!

Sol y Sombra

2010-08-31T03:42:00.000-07:00

inally back home from 3 glorious weeks in sunny Spain,and an amazing trip to the beautiful Seville where as you can see from the photos above of little details that you see as you amble through the city, there was an abundance of yellow...something to do with their famous oranges perhaps? Don't let anyone tell you that Spain is not the most beautiful country in the world, with its stunning mountains ranges, rolling plains, soaring eagles and rich cultural heritage....

dobbers and medals

2010-08-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

iane Foster, my new best friend, is not only very clever with words, handy with the soldering iron, but she is extremely kind and generous! True to her word she has made all her classmates a dobber which is a jewel like image encased under a glass blob which is then soldered to another to produce a deliciously chunky pendant which I ABSOLUTELY LOVE!!!
I could say that the best thing about it is that it is mine or that it has been made beautifully, but it is the choice of words that makes it so magnificent.......

bracelets

2010-08-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

ery excited about making bracelets at the moment and I've made one for my fab Goddaughter Phoebe...she's very arty so she might just appreciate that its handmade!
Inspired by the amazing photographer Becky over at vintage fairytales I have made an effort to photograph them with a bit of the ole blur in the background...

a magical bracelet

2010-08-02T03:21:00.000-07:00

ne cover button is very much like another cover button until you wrap some pretty fabric around it and make it into a bracelet! The fab Jone Hallmark - polkadotponie - showed me this bracelet when she visited last month, and it caught my son's eye, despite being 17 years old and 6ft 2, he immediately fell in love with it and was the proud owner by the time Jone left for America. I wanted to show it to you all here on my blog because it is so wonderful and covered with Jones gorgeous textile designs, but when I looked for it, I realised he must have taken it with him on his world challenge to Africa!!??!! Could it be that he considered this thing of beauty a lucky talisman? We are really missing him here as he is away for 30 days in the depths of Uganda...I hope that the bracelet is working its magic for him!
I have done a quick illustration from memory as I want to make one myself using some illustrations from an amazing find whilst in France of an original edition the french heroine Becassine. I have scanned in the pages and cropped the images ready to cover some buttons. All I have to do is to experiment with printed directly onto silk through my inkjet printer or maybe do a spoonflower order....

what I did on my holidays

2010-08-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

ailing on my brothers beautiful yacht Soutache proved to be as spectacular as usual, despite the moody weather we all had a wonderful time aboard the floating 5 star boat. We sailed from Inverness past John O' Groats and up to the Orkney Islands. The ever changing seascapes and grey atmospheric mountains made it impossible to let us pass by without an illustration or two! Here are some of my collagey watercolours.....

Billie Spile

2010-07-19T03:41:00.000-07:00

uly has certainly been eventful, with the beautiful things that I saw while in France providing enough visual stimuli for about 6 months. Billie Spille the incredible artist who is a friend of the Armitages, opened her home to the workshop ladies....look what they brought back with them.....while Billie's work is a amazing as ever, ( I love her industrial chimney pots) her husband Dean had painted these exquisite watercolours on old letters! what a treat to see this work.....

what I made

2010-07-17T03:22:00.000-07:00

did n't manage to burn the midnight oil on the Julie Arkell workshop, due to the 10.30 lights out curfew, but was still pleased with what I made. I had lots of ideas about what I was going to do, but sitting next to the wonderfully creative Sue and Jone, I ended up experimenting instead. Here are some pics of the mad things I made....

Julie Arkell workshop

2010-07-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

fabulous week at the wonderful Julie Arkell workshop has left me with some great inspiration, not only from the delightful Julie but from some very talented women also on the course......here are some snaps that will continue to make me smile for a long time....
from the top...
1.some beautiful corsages made by Diane
2. Jone's amazing notebook
3.Sue's wonderfully colourful bracelets and bits
4. Katie's stunning papier mache painted pendants
5. Claire's fabulous flowers
3. from left, Julie, Mike, Sue Julie A and Claire
6. Claires stash from the french markets
7. A stunning necklace that I would very much like to own made by Diane

Petersham Nurseries

2010-07-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

eautiful Petersham Nurseries in Richmond has the most stunning display of wild flowers seen within the M25 and so I took Jone and Sue for a visit before we all went off to France...paper thin poppies, sweetpeas with the heady scent of Jasmine and home baked cake in the air, mmmm...

travelling around the world

2010-06-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

ravelling around the world is a hot topic in our house at the moment as one child is off to Uganda and the eldest is in Koh Samui....got me thinking wistfully about my own travels around south east Asia with Samantha all those moons away....when I looked at my diary which I kept while travelling I realised that I had been to all the places that Francesca had been texting me about! Here are some pages from that diary/sketchbook and my Heyday!

my dad

2010-06-16T05:17:00.000-07:00

ather's day on Sunday here in the UK and so as I always make something for my mum, I thought I should do something for my fab dad! I decided on a medal, only because he has a real one and he once made me one for learning how to swim when I was 7! Could not resist also showing you some gorgeous 1940 photos from the sweetest baby photo album that my grandma embroidered....Happy Fathers day!

bird ceramics

2010-06-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

ust look at this beautiful bird that arrived on my doorstep after holiday....something this stunning could only be made by Samantha Williams, who has always been the most talented person that I know......She is having an open studio showing her ceramics from June 8th to 20th Evergood cottage, Brick kiln lane Horsmonden TN12 8ES

Lola

2010-06-09T01:25:00.001-07:00

y amazing and very pretty God daughter, Lola is not only the coolest 5 year old ( along with Rafael ) but is of course very arty and she very proudly showed me her sketch book the other day...arn't they great colours?