New Fabric to Play With

Here is a little sneak preview of some new fabric I've been playing with.
My Mum was in London earlier this month and went to a great fabric shop. She found me some beautiful bright yellow voile which I haven't been able to get up here for ages. She also got herself some lovely remnants for making bags and cushions.
I fell in love with this beautiful turquoise and cream woven silk. She let me have a wee strip of it so I'm using it very sparingly.

This is an acceptance card for a wedding I am going to on the 8th of May. I had planned to do the St Andrews Craft Fair that day but will be swanning around a beautiful country house sipping champagne instead! I'm also doing the brides flowers which I'm very excited about. I was a florist for years and although I don't really miss working in a flower shop, I do miss the fresh flowers and making up beautiful bouquets for people.

I also used some of the silk in this embellished piece. The turquoise really comes out when it's put through the embellishing machine. I gives a lovely texture and sheen too.

I've used a corner of the embellished piece for this simple necklace. I might make the rest into a cuff.
I think a landscape would be nice worked in these rich colours with the silk included in the sea. The colours are reminding me of Skye actually, especially at this time of year before the brighter colours of summer have arrived.

Above is the Loch Shianta, the Healing Loch. Special algae give the water that amazing turquoise colour and it is said to have healing properties.

We had lots of sunshine and showers last year making beautiful rainbows at every turn.
Hope we get some nice dry weather for walking when we go next month.

Just a Little Update

Been mad busy here over the past while. Trying to get lots of pieces made to stock the shops and make some new bits and pieces for the upcoming Glenfarg Folk Feast. I will have a stall in the foyer of the village hall during each of the evening events and will be around all weekend in the Glenfarg Hotel enjoying the music and songs.

I've also been asked to exhibit at Crail Festival in July. I'm delighted to be asked and hope to develop some of my harbour house pictures to suit the location.

These have been very popular in the past and I hope to develop the theme and push them in new directions.

My usual range of items will also be available.

The Green Door Craft Studio is due to open for the North Fife Open Studios weekend on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of May.
I have lots of work to do for this event and want to make the studio as welcoming as possible, including a nice hand painted sign for the door! We missed the deadline to be in the official brochure as we did not have the studio up and running until December last year but we are hoping for some visitors anyway.

My online shops are not very well stocked at the moment as most of my new pieces are going out to my stockists.

I have also been featured on one or two blogs recently by friendly fellow crafters.
The lovely Kirsten of Quernus Crafts gave me a mention in her interview with NiftyKnits (she of the Harry Hill Meercat fame!)
Also a fellow Scottish Crafter Jo of Dragonflight Designs featured me on her blog.
It's a great buzz when fellow crafters admire your work and feel the urge to tell others about it. The creative community here online is truly great to be part of and I very much appreciate all the lovely feedback and compliments.

I have also set up a new group on Flickr this week called Experimental Textiles.
I love Flickr and find it a wonderful resource for inspiration. The idea of this new group is to share photos of our experiments with fibre and textile, share ideas, get feedback and encouragement. I'm hoping that we can have featured techniques in the group relating to felt making, machine embroidery, dying, needle felting and embellishing. Lots of us mix up different techniques to achieve our finished pieces and are happy to share some of our processes.
I'm so pleased with the enthusiasm this group has been met with and hope that it turns into a lively and inspirational place for all the members.

So, another busy week lies ahead. Here's hoping that Spring makes a miraculous appearance as we are squeezing a trip up to Skye into our busy schedule and will be sleeping in a tent!

We did it last year and survived. Here's hoping that this lovely dry weather continues but that the ground thaws out!

March So Far

Just finished this little piece today.

'Cottage and Pink Poppies'
12 x 17.5cm

£55

I took some time off over the weekend to attend the Creative Stitches exhibition in Glasgow and spent all day Sunday playing around with some new bits and pieces I bought there.

It was very interesting talking to the exhibitors there, especially mixed media artist Isobel Hall and felt maker Ewa Kuniczak.
Both were exceptionally friendly and very generous with their knowledge.
I'm very inspired to try some new felt making techniques to improve my skills and make bigger pieces. Wall hangings are on the cards as well as more felt jewellery.

I always come home with something new to try and this year I bought Transfer Paints. I'm not actually very sure about them but there are possibilities there.

For this book cover , I painted paper with the transfer paints in shades of yellows, oranges and greens then ironed it onto white synthetic felt. The colours look really dull on the paper but become quite vibrant once transferred.
I will do a step by step photo post about the process soon.

Although you can't really see the paint effects on this piece, they do produce subtle colours showing through the sheer fabrics that I have applied using the embellisher machine.

The whole piece was then stitched with random free machine embroidery and turned into a little jacket for a basic notebook.

Below are some wrist cuffs I made last week.
As you can see the effects are similar to that of the book cover but the designs are more stripy. What I liked about the transfer paints was that they provided a more random background to work onto.

Wrist Cuff Purple and Turquoise

Wrist Cuff in rich Tones

Wrist Cuff in Pinks

So it's back to making more pictures this week. Some new work will be going over to The Cottage Craft Centre this week and In house Design in Portobello next week.

More Felted Landscapes

In between orders for this and that I have been able to make a few more felt landscapes this week. I loved the Bluebell Cottage that I made last week so tried another in the same colours.
This could however be interpreted as heather so I've named it 'The Wee Bothy' and the viewer can decide what is growing on the hill.

'The Wee Bothy'
12 x 12cm in 23.5 x 23.5cm frame
£40

This next piece below is a variation on last weeks 'Poppy Cottage'. Similar with it's organza poppies with French knot centres. I just love doing these drystone walls!

'The Poppy Field'
12 x 17.5cm in 23.5 x 32.5cm Frame
£55

This however is the piece I've been desperate to try for days now. I've wanted to a feature a stream in my work for a while and then thought how nice it would be to apply the drystone wall effect to a little bridge.
It was quite finicky to get such detail on this scale but I'm pleased with the outcome. I might try a large 30x30cm version of this scene.

'Over The Brig'
12 x 12cm in 23.5 x 23.5cm Frame
£45

'Over The Brig' is listed in my online shop
The other two are available but not listed as they may go off to one of the stockist shops soon.

Tulips, Bluebells and Poppies

Ahhh....Spring is on it's way with snowdrops popping up every where and tulips brightening our homes.

My lovely bunch were given to me by my husband. Isn't he great! He even chose ones that match the felt vessel I made myself in December.


I bought a felting ball from Twist Fibre Studios in Newburgh and just followed the instructions. It was good fun and I'm hoping to make more soon.

Been getting back to my felted pictures this week.

As I was laying out the fibres for the hills and sky I spied lots of lovely purpley shades in my stash of fibres and before I knew it a swathe of bluebells had appeared.
I have kept the piece simple to try and capture the tranquility of rural Scotland.

Bluebell Cottage
£55


I'll definitely be making more on the bluebell theme as the purples and soft greens really appeal to me.


I also made another piece featuring a drystone wall.


This time I added some organza poppies to the foreground with French knot centres.

Poppy Cottage
£55

These two are available in my online shop at the moment.

This week I have been very busy with commissions. Although I find commissions very time consuming and sometimes frustrating, they do push me to come up with new ideas, often things I may never have thought of doing otherwise.
This Piano Card for example. It is all fabric and stitch. I suppose I could have bought an appliqué piano but I feel that would be cheating. I like to make everything from scratch. It makes the piece totally unique and truly handmade.

Another card I made was this wedding card. Again I made everything from scratch so it was quite time consuming. It's not the kind of card I could make for selling. It was more of a gift than just a card. Instead of lots of gifts we had a whip round and I made the card with the thought that it could be framed afterwards.

I did however make these simplified versions for selling. Some have gone up to Boo Vake in Perth and the purple one is available in my Folksy shop.

With Love Cards £6


I have really struggled to get good photos of these cards. The light has been terrible and my camera is really showing it's limitations now.
Hopefully we will get a better camera this Spring and with the light changing already now that we are into February, my photography will improve!

Last week my new supply of fabrics arrived. I've never bought my stash online before but I'm delighted with my finds. Some really different ones than what I get from my usual supplier.

I made this piece below just to try out some of the colours together.

I'll frame this in a lovely white 23.5 x 32.5cm frame.

The square areas are made by needling some scraps of fabric into felt. I loved the effect and made another piece of fabric similar to use for other things including this pretty heart necklace.

I also made a few brooches which are available in my shop.
These mauve shades remind me of freesias and spring crocuses.

So, on with the commissions today.
I hope everyone is enjoying the brighter days we've been having and the sight of snow drops which never fails to lift my spirits.

Embellish, Stitch, Felt and Buttons.

Time to create can be quite short and sporadic sometimes and I like to make best use of it and therefore find it hard to make time just to experiment.
As I build my little business and expand my range of items, I really have to be quite disciplined to get the work made and out into the shops or ready for fairs and events.
Discipline and creativity don't always go hand in hand though and I'd hate to stunt my creative growth by being too rigid about how I spend my time.
So with my embellisher machine up and running again and the urge to just play around with some fibres and fabrics, I found this piece emerging over the weekend.

The base is just loosely felted merino roving in shades of ochre and rust. It was originally square but I used a bit of it for another project. So with the L shaped piece that was left I cut it into this long rectangle and chopped bits off the spare part to needle onto here in sections. I also needled on some gorgeously rich orange organza ribbon then left it for a while wondering what to do with it.


The idea to add fused fabric areas came to me after looking through some of the great books I have invested in.
One of which is Embellish, Stitch, Felt by Sheila Smith

This is a must have for anyone looking to expand their use of the embellisher machine.

I love the effect of stitch on felt and the textures of metallic fabrics on felt excite me too.
I have had my machine for two years now and I still have not even scratched the surface of what can be done with it.
I got this other book free with my machine when I bought it and it is stuffed full of inspirational techniques to try.
For anyone here in Scotland looking to buy an embellisher machine I would recommend David Drummond in Edinburgh. They are a specialist sewing and knitting machine shop and can be found at 77-81 Haymarket Terrace, Edinburgh.
They have been so helpful in the past.



I have just ordered a huge amount of new fabrics online and can't wait to get them. There's nothing like new 'stash' to get the inspiration flowing.

My vintage button collection is slowly but surely increasing too. With a few good finds in some charity shops last weekend I am now able to separate them into jars! They used to all live in the one box but it was taking me ages to find just the right button for the job.
The lovely ornate brass ones used above came from the Comrie Cancer Shop and I'm pleased I've been able keep them together.

These jars are from a yoghurt making machine that I was given but have never used. I thought the jars were cute though and look even more cute filled with buttons!

So here we are in February all ready. First Craft Fair will be in March at the Cupar Corn Exchange (date to be confirmed).
I have also been asked to do the front cover for the Glenfarg Folk Feast Programme again this year. The Folk Feast is on the 9th, 10th and 11th of April and I will be having a stall in the foyer of the Village Hall during the evening events.

May will get off to a busy start with the North Fife Open Studios on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd and the Craft Fairs Scotland St Andrews Craft Fair on the 8th.

I've been asked if I will be running workshops at the studio any time soon. The answer is not yet. As you can see I will be busy making for all these events but I hope to get someone in to do a felting workshop later in the year.