Pet sale!

This trio were designed for the sadly now discontinued 'Craftseller', and were featured in April 2015. They were made specifically to a tight design brief, which is why they are a little different to my usual work. Anyway, the time has come to clear out some of my old designs and raise some funds, so I am offering them up for sale. They can be found in my  Etsy shop here, at low prices as I am clearing the decks.

 

 'Toby' is  4 x 4½ inches (9.5 x 8cm). He was my favourite.

'Bunty' was named after my favourite magazine when I was a little girl (which puts me at a certain age). She measures 4 x 3 inches (9.5 x 7.5cm).

And 'Daisy'. Just 'Daisy'. She measures 3½ x 3 inches (9 x 8cmm). I'll be adding more discontinued designs to my sale in the coming weeks.

Needle felt tinies and new workshops

Tiny Polar Bear (sold)

I  recently updated my website and for the first time (ever) catalogued all my designs by year and month. Nine years of almost non-stop needle felting.  It took many days of hunting on various camera cards and through this blog and Flickr, but eventually I got there.

 Tiny Squirrel doll for sale on Etsy

Looking through it was a bit of a wake up call and I was able to look at my work and realise not only that I've done a phenomenal amount of work, but also that I've not really moved on, stylistically. Although, to be fair, the last few years haven't exactly been the time for creative navel gazing.

Tiny Crow girl for sale on Etsy 

I think it has a lot to do with the last few years of creating commercial patterns, which have to be easy to make, and doing so many workshops, ditto. So I've not really stretched myself. 

 

Little King for sale on Etsy

 

I think making myriad cute toys has almost run it's course for me, after all, I've been doing them for nine years. So I've been finishing off several bits and pieces, including this set of tiny animals and bird dolls, which despite being small, take around six hours plus to make

Little Horse Girl for sale on Etsy

As usual, I've bunged them on dear old Etsy. I'll be starting a shiny new website soon, for my new work. 

 Petite Maison for sale on Etsy

I started a new and very 'grown up' line of work this summer, but it is under wraps until I have several pieces. Suffice to say, I am stretching myself at last. 

Olga the Russian dog for sale on Etsy

While I'm cheerfully shoving things for sale under your noses, I may as well add that I've got some fabulous new workshops in the UK, for later in the year. I have two winter workshops in Hampstead, London at the Village Haberdashery - my first time in London! It's going to be the red eye train at crack of dawn for those two.

I am also going to be in Witney, Oxfordshire at the Witney Sewing and Knitting Centre. And in Birmingham, at the lovely shop of Lauren Guthrie, who was a British Sewing Been finalist in 2013, at Guthrie and Ghani. 

All of these courses, with links to the relevant booking pages, can be found on my website, on the Needle felt workshops page.

In other news, I've finally started painting properly again. But I'll spare you that for the time being.

Nothing but needle felt

I feel I ought to make some kind of apology for my blog being about very little but needle felt - however, that is what my life mainly consists of. I don't go out, don't do the cinema/eating out/shopping/concerts/whatever most people do. I tend to stay in my overcrowded room working and hope to earn a bob or two along the way. I did manage to update my shop recently and have stock for the first time ever. Sparrow Hill Cottage was snapped up within seconds though.

I have two teeny tiny toadstools left, gift boxed and tagged - and am happy to add clips at no extra charge, for pegging onto trees and wotnot.

My new fox and polar bear brooches were also bought at once, so I'm offering them again as custom orders, with a four day lead time, each one taking a day to make.

Nobody loves my crow brooch! Andy hates it. Maybe he's right.

I have four robins up for grabs -

- and just two Silver Pine danglies left -

And for the first time in two years, I have desk top calendars, at the same price as they were two years ago.


None of these things are as desirable to most people as a Kindle, an iPad; or a new pair of fashionable shoes, (none of which I possess). I like to think that they will last a lot longer and are a heck of a lot cheaper as well as being 100% handmade.

Monsieur le Roitelet and the Birds

Nearly everything I buy comes from the internet; the village has a couple of food shops, but that's it for anything useful to me; I don't drive and what buses there are, are infrequent, expensive and take a long time to get from A to B. Buying something like good paper, which really needs handling, is a problem.

However, handily, there is a brilliant paper merchant Paper Resources, literally just down the road from us. So in search of some really nice papers, I popped in to see them. Unlike a lot of paper suppliers, they are more than pleased to sell small amounts to individuals and the choice is fantastic; hence I emerged with a decent amount of gorgeous smooth, specialist papers, for about ten UK pounds, all handpicked by the merchant and myself, with much deliberation, including a wodge of hard-to-find Mohawk paper from the USA. Happiness!

So commenced another round of remembering how to print. Lino printing seems to be a bit of an ugly duckling in the art world - not regarded as sophisticated as etching, more akin to stamping or potato printing. However, there is a bit more to it than that. For a start, to get a really good, smooth print, the ink has to be rolled just so, the paper chosen to go with the ink viscosity and then the actual rolling of the ink onto the lino block is in itself a delicate operation, to get an even surface. I don't want edges on the print, so it mustn't be too thin or too thick.

That up above is a nice vintage Speedball brayer, which I was trying for the first time; I'm going to stick with it from now on as the roller is nice and densely soft, making the ink go into the block better than the harder rollers on my other brayers. I roll the ink out about an hour before using, to let it harden a little and get the right 'tack' - then it is rolled out thinly and again on a tray and then on a glass slab, until it starts making the right kind of light hissing noise. And only then it is carefully rolled onto the block, checking it from every angle to make sure that all areas are covered evenly. I look for a velvety surface like this;

To minimise ink getting where I don't want it, I use a mask while I'm inking up the block. The bed of the proof press I use has also been carefully raised up with various layers of paper and card, to get the depth of impression I want - even slipping a single sheet of newsprint underneath makes a difference.

And then yet another mask, for the actual printing.

The paper is held into place with a bit of tape, but I also like to hold it down lightly with my thumb as I make the first pull across, to stop slippage and misprinting.

I do two 'pulls' - quickly but carefully, not taking the roller off the paper, or it will slip minutely and give a double, blurred impression. It's a single, smooth movement and often goes wrong for me, with the first practise pulls. Here we go, with the first - the impression showing through.

And after the second pull. Now you can really see the deep indentation. Taking care to remove the paper so that you don't smudge anything, you peel the print from the block...

Breath a sigh of relief, as this time it came out well.

A now familiar sight in our little front room-cum-print-studio. Much has been discarded over the three hours of work and out of this lot, only a handful were deemed good enough to put in my shop.

Printed on the gorgeously smooth Mohawk Superfine heavy ivory paper, there are 14 copies of this printing of 'Monsieur le Roitelet and the Birds' for sale here at a princely £5.25/$8.

I'm really pleased to have managed that many, as it's a vast improvement on my other print runs and I think I'm getting back into the swing of it at last, after an 18 year break. Less bodge, more hurrahs.

If you are in or near Oxford, Simon of Paper Resources is going to be selling similar packs of paper at the Fine Press Book Fair on the weekend of 5/6 November at Oxford Brookes University, details here. I may well be going myself, to look up some old friends and seeing what's new.

(PS - There is a reason why my little man is called Monsieur le Roitelet, but I'll let you Google that one yourselves).

Printing little hare

I have been trying to organise my working days so that I don't spend it needle felting all day, every day. Love it though I do, I have many other things I want to produce. So I have been trying to take at least one day off per week to do something else. Time to unearth the old proof press, which has become swamped by books and magazines.

Time to find the little lino block of a hare I cut sometime in the winter and the block inks which I bought a few years ago and have barely used. Still in perfect condition.

A patchy first pull, but remembering that it takes a few inkings for the block to saturate with ink I do some more on test paper. The quality improves.

And with a bit of sweat and swearing, progress is made. Nice thick paper which has been saved for such an occasion is finally utilised. The eagle eyed long-term readers of this blog may spot the fabric hanging on the other side of the beam - yes, it is still there, my fabric stamping efforts from - goodness me, March! What happened to the time?

Some of the prints even come out moderately well. (Considering it's been a very long time indeed since I last did this).

At the end of the afternoon, everything is mopped down and replaced. It is as if the flying print-room had never existed. Except of course, for the long washing line of drying hares.

Later, a few of the best ones are popped into my Etsy shop, at pocket money prices. Just to see if it's worth carrying on with.

No more fairies

I had more or less forgotten about these two watercolours; they were in my first little exhibition in 2002, when I first discovered that people liked what I did and wanted to buy it. This pair are actually studies for a larger nursery commission.

They are also some of my last forays into fantasy subjects - I find my interest nowadays is returning back to the real world and painting what's in front of me.

The pixi and gnome were sold at the time but the purchaser never collected them, despite my best efforts to contact them, so they've been languishing under my desk for years. Time for them to move on to someone who will appreciate them more than I.

BUY YOUR OWN PIXI OR GNOME HERE!

Dolores

Dolores. Likes knitting, port and lemon and smart shoes that don't quite fit her right.




Sits all day clicking her needles and watching the world go by. Has a mean streak.





And a rather disgruntled look on her face.





Is off to America to live with Janet, where she will eat cake and watch Red Cardinals and Humming Birds. Lucky, lucky Dolores!

Yes, I have finally updated my Etsy shop with a few things - it's good to be back in the saddle at last!