Spring storm, hares and a bit of good news.

As I write, there are sporadic storms passing over the cottage, driving in from nearby Herefordshire. It’s been muggy all weekend; not the overpowering heat of full summer, but a heavy, dense warmth that brings on slight headaches and sleepiness. Now the heat has been partially lifted by cool winds and intense, short downpours, and the thick grey clouds rumble and grumble with low thunder. I do love this weather - if only it could be forever May, with fickle, changing light, flurries of tiny, fresh flowers and all the greens popping with new life. 

Things are, to be perfectly honest, not easy. I have no idea what the rest of this year will bring, nor if I will be here the next. I’ve somehow managed to survive eleven years in this scruffy but very dear little home, first of all not knowing if I wanted to be here after losing Andy, then not knowing if I could, as I am almost totally reliant on my Etsy sales for survival. Mostly I take a stoical viewpoint and try to ignore the things in the past that I cannot change and the future, which is largely unknowable.  Not having anyone to discuss things with is so hard and I don’t have the mental resources to deal with what might happen. So, I carry on needle felting and try to drown out my subconscious fear of what may be. 

I’ve just finished a marathon of making two ‘show off’ pieces, which have taken a month or so to create. Usually I try to stick to more affordable, simple things, such as this batch of carrots, in my newer, realistic style - 

 - and for which I made little letterpresses labels, just for extra niceness. 

But sometimes I feel the need to flex myself and go large. Often I’ll make a sketch of something before I start, but these two were made up as I went along and I gradually added the little extras such as two lines of trimming to Carla’s skirt; French knots stitched with thick Perle thread. Then getting to almost the end and deciding she needed a special antique mother of pearl stud from my best button box to finish her off. 

Poor Charlie was started a couple of years ago and was taking so long that I abandoned him, finding him in a plastic moth-proof bag at the bottom of a basket earlier this year. He was very grateful to be rescued and even more relieved to be given ears and arms at last. I usually can’t afford to invest so much time into bigger pieces like these, but sometimes, as I said, I like to indulge in a bit of ‘showing off’. Wonderfully, Carla has just found a new home and so tonight I will sleep a little easier before packing her off on one of the lovely new gift boxes I’ve sourced, tied with a ribbon. 

Which leaves me with another piece of very good news - on the recommendation of my friend and miniaturist painter Valerie Greeley, I entered one of my imaginary toadstools, ‘Fog-in-the-Woods’ for the annual exhibition of the Royal Miniature Society, whose patron is King Charles. I almost didn’t, as it costs £18 per piece to submit, which is half of my weekly shopping budget, but I thought I’d give it a try; nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

Needle felt - or needle sculpted wool, which is what it really is - is a non-traditional and fairly new media. I wasn’t optimistic that  it would be considered, especially as it’s been languishing in my shop, unsold, for a few years. 

However, I was thrilled to receive an email telling me that it has been chosen for pre-selection. This is the exhibition choosing stage and there is every chance it may be rejected. I don’t know if any of the selectors will have knowledge of needle felt, so it will probably be judged solely on its merits as a sculptural piece. 

If it gets in, the minimum selling price is £190, which puts it up there as a serious work of art and would make a huge difference to my profile as a selling artist. However, I am keeping a firm lid on my expectations and consider it an honour to have been chosen just for consideration. But wouldn’t it be wonderful…

If you’d like to buy one of my pieces before I enter the high-rolling international art market, do pop into my Etsy shop and pick up a bargain. (Said with tongue firmly in cheek). 

My Aunty Dora

 

Last month I finished off another batch of my ‘imaginary toadstools’ for my shop - these ones are darned and patched with various threads and vintage materials. When I create more natural toadstools, such as these...

...I give them folksy names, which are fanciful but not totally unbelievable - ‘Angel Eyes’, ‘Spice Ball’ and ‘Scarlet Bonnet’ are just a few of the toadstools that dwell in the woods in my head. 

However, even I have to admit that I have never come across a toadstool with visible mending on its cap, so I let my imagination go wherever it liked with the naming of these. And here we have my favourite, ‘Aunty Dora’s Bedroom’. 

Now, bear with me, while I explain. I had (as some of you may have) several ‘aunties’, all of a certain age, some of whom were bonafide aunts, some who were a kind of cousin or just friends of my mother’s. I had an Aunty Dora, who lived in Yeovil, Somerset and she was a proper aunty. We didn’t have holidays as such, but usually once a year mum and I would go to stay with Dora for a while. I loved her and always looked forward to our visits. Apart from the novelty of being in a more modern, comfortable household than ours, with a television, proper wall to wall carpeting and a dining table, she was very kind and fun to be with. She always had a little gift for me; just simple things, but I was easily pleased and when she gave me a small plastic box full of brightly coloured map pins (the kind with fatter ends, which I’d never seen before) I was thrilled; she’d brought them back from her job at the Milk Marketing Board, I think. Once when we arrived, she gave me a empty blue glass perfume flagon which still smelled fragrant and every time I sniffed it afterwards it reminded me of our stay with her. And a matchbox sized green plastic television which had a blank grey screen, but when you looked in the peephole in the back, it showed a photo of picture of Spain or France or somewhere exotic, and when you clicked the button on the top, the picture changed.

So, to return to her woolly namesake; I used typically 1970s colours, as that was the era in which I saw her most and although I don’t think she had such outlandish colours in any of her bedrooms, somehow it reminds me of those kinder days. I can only find one photo of her, (which is not the best) of us both enjoying a summers day in her back garden when I would have been about eight or nine, I think. I seem to be sucking on an ‘ice pop’ (another treat) and I am wearing some new and ever so trendy (I thought) espadrilles which were turquoise canvas with a bit of a chunky heel and woven hessian down the sides. New shoes were few and far between, but these were special ‘holiday shoes’ and I felt quite the thing. 

Wherever you are Aunty Dora, thank you for those lovely memories. 

Heading onwards with toadstools

What a month it has been. So many thanks for the supportive comments, advice, emails and messages - who knew there was so much love in the world? I’ve been a little taken aback at how much there is, but profoundly grateful, as it has been an immense help. 

I’ve had my self indulgent week of beating my breast and wailing - it was inevitable, but it’s over now and I feel cleansed and strangely calm, under the circumstances. I have spent the last week organising and planning - some plans that I was already putting in motion before things went wrong, and some new. My brain can be a slow moving animal, but with the aid of numerous lists, I am making progress and dealing with as much as possible. 

My other studio is the bedroom and it is the best place to sort out wools for add-on workshop packs. I held my first Zoom workshop last Wednesday and despite my initial nerves, it went very well. None of the participants had tried needle felting before and over the two and a half hours, with much live demonstrating from myself, they produced excellent toadstools. It was remarkably like holding a real-life workshop, but in some ways better, as I had equal access to everyone and was able to show working techniques to everyone, equally,  without constantly moving round a table. Later, I was sent this lovely in situ photo of a finished piece - 

So with more confidence than I had before, I have set up four hanging toadstool dates for October in U.K. time, with limited spaces of four people per session. 

October 9th, Friday 10.30am - 1pm

October 15th,  Thursday 10.30 - 1pm

October 23rd, Friday, 10.30 - 1pm

October 29th, Friday, 10.30 - 1pm

I’ve already had a couple of bookings, and it’s early days. All of my courses can be booked directly through myself (email me here) with payment via PayPal or booked on my page on Craft Courses here. I am also offering one to one sessions with flexible dates and timing, which should allow for overseas sessions in differing time zones. (Hello America!) 

So, that’s one thing started and a Patreon page is set up for a launch next week, which will initially be a more personal ‘plus’ extension of this blog, for a small subscription. And although I’m spending most of my time tapping away at one website or another, I am still making a little time each day to wind down with my own work. 

Discover more wanderings by supporting me on my Patreon page