Dates for your Diary 2017

2017 is shaping up to be another busy year kicking off with Edinburgh Yarn Festival on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th March. 

The festival is held at Edinburgh Corn Exchange and I will have a stand in the main exhibition hall this year which is very exciting. I have started making stock already!

Lots of Sheepy Shawl Pins, Brooches, Pendants and Earrings will be coming with me as well as new mugs, coasters, cushions, notebooks, bags, pouches and more!

Tickets go on sale soon. For more info see the EYF Website here 

New Harris Tweed and Felt Trinket Boxes are on the work table as well. 

This size measures 7 x 7 x 7 cm at £35

Other sizes include 10 x 10 x 6 cm at £40 and 12 x 12 x 7 cm at £45

I'm concentrating on my big events this Spring rather than trying to do lots of little shows in between so my next event after EYF will be Open Studios North Fife at the end of April. It's a week early this year so that it falls on the May bank holiday weekend. Brochures will be available mid to late March.

I will be at my usual venue in Ladybank and hope to have lots of new framed pieces made as well as my usual selection of jewellery and gits.

For daily updates you can find me on Facebook and Instagram

❤

Upcoming Events this Spring

I'm busy already preparing for some upcoming events starting in March.

Saturday 5th March 2016 - 10 - 4pm 

Falkland Craft Market, Falkland Village Hall, 

Back Wynd, Falkland, KY15 7BX. 

Free entry

These Markets will be running every first Saturday of the month until November and I will be at the March one, then June, October and November.

Friday 18th & Saturday 19th March 2016

 Edinburgh Yarn Festival - 10 - 6pm 

Find me in the Pop Up Market at Edinburgh Yarn Festival 

at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange 

11 Newmarket Road, Edinburgh, EH14 1RJ. Tickets £10

The yarn festival is such an amazing event! The exhibition hall is full to bursting with the most incredible selection of vendors selling the most beautiful array of fibres, wools, yarns, equipment and everything to do with knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving, dyeing, felt making and more! There is such a great atmosphere and so much going on, worth every bit of the ticket price!

Saturday 7th, Sunday 8th and Monday 9th May 2016 

 Open Studios North Fife 

10 - 6 pm each day. 

This is my biggest event of the year. Come and see me at 64 Commercial Road, Ladybank, Fife, KY15 7JS. I will be exhibiting my full range over three rooms in this little venue. I will also be demonstrating some felt making techniques. Refreshments available. You can read all about this brilliant event on the Open Studios website here.

 Brochures are available mid March so you can plan a route and visit some other artists as well over the weekend. There are 10 taking part in Ladybank alone! Free entry to all venues.

A Peek Into Venue 28 during Open Studios North Fife

I can hardly believe that Open Studios North Fife is over for another year. 

If you missed it or were too far away to visit, here are some photos of my venue.

The place I have been using in Ladybank was taken over and renovated by Gillian MacIntosh of Kingdom Osteopaths last year. Gillian has made a fabulous job of redesigning the space and very generously took some days off and left me three empty rooms to exhibit in.

I transformed the main room into a display area with sales desk where visitors could browse my whole range of items and purchase if they wanted to.

The newly painted walls in a pale sage were a perfect backdrop and complimented the colours I use in my work perfectly.

An inner wall and door have been removed letting so much more light into the room.

Having such a wide range of printed goods really adds colour to the display.

My sets of four coasters were a big hit with visitors this year.

Both my big felted pictures on the wall above are away to happy new homes.

We always try to give people a nice place to sit and have a cup of tea if they have been to lots of studios and are feeling a bit tired.

Gillian's waiting room was easy to make cosy with some artwork and flowers and the shelves filled with lots of colourful items.

My new cushions nearly sold out!

Of course Open Studios is not all about selling. It's about letting people see into our creative spaces and explain a little about the processes that go into what we produce.

I always try to recreate my work space by bringing as much as I can down to the venue for the weekend.

 This year I did a bit of demonstrating with the embellisher machine and was able to show how wet felt is made as well.

Some of the materials I use in my work.

Fibres laid out ready to be wet felted.

A little shelving area with some bits and bobs and gifts from other makers. 

I find glass jars so useful for keeping oddments of wool in. You can find the scraps easily plus they add a splash of colour.

It has been a big job taking everything back home again and setting up my work space ready to start again. It's all looking spick and span though and I am raring to go!

Today had to be spent restocking my online shop. Lots of new things have been added.

You can browse my shop here

If you are new to shopping with me and have any problems, please feel free to get in touch at aileenclarkecrafts@yahoo.com

I'm looking forward to May and June being slightly less busy than March and April. It was a bit of a marathon jumping from one event to the next and having to make so much stock in between. I have plenty to be getting on with though and will keep you up to date with what's new on here, on Facebook and on Instagram.

Thank you very much to all of you who came along at the weekend. Your support for the event is much appreciated ❤

Such a Busy Time!

April has been such a busy month what with the school holidays, craft fairs, Glenfarg Folk Festival and preparations for Open Studios which is in two weeks time!

We had some lovely sunshine during the first week of the holidays and headed over to the East Neuk of Fife for a nice day out and to distribute some Open Studios brochures to caravan sites and other businesses.

This is Ruby Cove, our favourite little beach for a picnic and a bit of beach combing.

Although it was sunny, it was still cold. You can see the snow on the hills to the south across the Forth estuary around Edinburgh.

We had great fun all piled into the camper van. It belongs to my Mum and her husband but we got to stay in it for a couple of nights for Glenfarg Folk Festival. 

I have always had a day dream about having a camper van but I have to say the reality of a family of four staying in a camper van doesn't appeal so much when your 15 year old son is suddenly 

6'1"! Here he is with an amazing piece of drift wood we found on the beach.

I think we'd need a bigger van or a Winnebago to accommodate us all comfortably! 

I do love finding interesting things on the beach to take home. 

When I discovered this lobster creel all tangled up in seaweed, at first I fancied it for the nice wood that was half worn away. But after wrestling it free, I realised it would actually make quite a nice shelf as it was! Here it is hung up in my wee shed with a few beach finds and little Louis Mulcahy pots displayed on it.

My daughter who is nearly 8 now is an avid little artist and I just had to share this picture she drew last week.

She uses one of my Highland Cow notebooks to draw in and took it upon herself to copy the front cover.

Here is the original.

And here is her imitation of it.

How cute is that! I love the fringe.

I have been making like a mad woman but haven't got around to photographing everything yet. I suppose I am hoarding my stock a little bit for Open Studios! I have a lot of wall space  and shelves to fill!

I have made some Sheep Jewellery available in my Etsy shop though.

Rings £18

Pendants £22

Brooches £18

I've had a great response to my new mugs. 

Here is one all wrapped up that I sent directly to the recipient as a gift from her daughter.

I'm enjoying using my own mug here at home. Being porcelain and not stone ware or china, it makes a great cup of tea as well as a good coffee.

You can find my Online Shop here

We are finally seeing some signs of Spring here which is such a relief after all that snow we had up to the beginning of April. 

The daffodils are still not in full bloom but are showing more signs of opening.

I really hope we get a good weekend for Open Studios.

I will be having a preview evening on Friday the 3rd May from 6pm.

Come along for some wine and nibbles and a sneak peek at all my new work.

I'm hoping to have lots of new pictures made and have a couple professionally framed already.

You can see the reflection of the hedge in the glass here but it gives you an idea of how they are looking. I have another couple of smaller pieces going off to Robertson's today.

Here are some snap shots from other artists participating in the 2013 Open Studios event. 

Remember you can download your free brochure and browse all the artists and areas from our website here.

From top left Audrey Reid Jewellery,Chloe Brown Illustrations, Moyra Stewart Ceramics, Helen Glassford Fine Artist, Ann Leitch Collection, Sharon Black Art, Beth Pollard Designs and Glass by Kathryn

 From left to right, top to bottom- Ian Ledward venue 36, Aileen Clarke Crafts Venue 32, Jean Ashcroft venue 31, Dianne King venue 50, Siv MacArthur venue 42, Michael Robson venue 4, Poppy Cyster venue 26, Sarah Honeyman Stained Glass venue 1, Jane Duckfield venue 45, Jan Wightman venue 36,Derek Robertson venue 69, Pvalentega - Graphic Artist venue 16, Morag Muir venue 63, Kate Murray venue 40, John Smith venue 8,Perfectly Formed venue 10, Kirsty Lorenz venue 34, Laura Appere venue 18, Mhairi Lafferty venue 13, George Young venue 53, Marianna Lines venue38, Lindy Knowles venue 20, Lynsey Ewan venue 33, John Bonington venue 24, Lindsay Mathers venue 75

So the next two weeks are going to be pretty mad for me. I have so many things I would still like to make!

Seaweed Abstracts in Textile

Following on from Sunday's experiments with a whole heap of naturally dyed fibres, I continued to experiment with more fibres and yarns and the embellisher machine.

I also intorduced some free machine embroidery and shibori into the mix along with some hand stitch and here are the results.

The shibori piece here is inspired by the suckers found on the roots of bull kelp.

It's usually a greeny yellowy brown colour but a bit of artistic license lets me make mine teal and purple.

Aquatic Roots (1)

The background fibres in the piece above are hand dyed in Orkney.

The fibres in the background below are all handspun and were bought on the Isle of Skye.

Aquatic Roots (2)

The hand dyed nature of the fibres lends itself well to art pieces inspired by nature.

I really love drift wood as well and always pick up a few bits when we find ourselves by the sea. I made a point of collecting some tiny bits last time we were at the beach in Elie a few miles away on the Fife coast.

I have looped some faded pink chiffon around a piece here as it reminds me of the way seaweed drapes itself on pieces left on the shore.

The background here is a wet felted fusion of hand dyed fibres, silk flibres, Wensleydale locks, hessian fibres and hand dyed scrim.

Drift (1)

I've had this triple apperture frame for a while but couldn't decide what to put in it. This tryptich of felted fibres suits it well I think.

Abstract Seaweed Tryptich

More dfrift wood, a few shells and some beach glass have been incorporated into this piece below.

Shoreline Finds

I have enjoyed using all these natural shades in my work and have had some of these ideas floating around in my head for over a year! I would love to push the ideas further to see what would develop but it's back to landscapes this weekend and onto jewellery after that.

I did have time to make this box though.

I have enough of the felt left to make another tiny box and might possibly make some more to make a treasure chest shaped box. The ideas are flowing already! Oh for more hours in the day.

I have some printed cards available featuring landscapes made using the naturally dyed fibres.

You can find them in my Etsy shop here

Our Open Studios event here in North Fife is on Saturday 5th, Sunday 6th and Monday 7th May 2012. We are working hard to get our beautiful brochures distributed far and wide all across Scotland so look out for one in a gallery, library, gift shop, cafe or business near you.

The brochures are free and also available to view and download online.

www.openstudiosfife.co.uk

You can also keep up to date with us on Facebook 

Even if you are too far away to attend our event, by becoming a fan of our page, you can help us to spread the word.

Thank you!