A Day of Rainbows, Some New Makes and New Arrivals.

Saturday was indeed a day of rainbows in more ways than one!

I decided to take a run over to Strathearn Fleece and Fibre near Muthill in Perthshire to stock up on some lovely hand dyed fibre.

Linda rears blue faced Leicester and texel sheep on her farm and the fibre she has available as rovings and as spun yarn is just a treat for any fibre lover.

I got well stocked up with all my favourite colours and can't wait to get started with it this week.

I also popped in to see Tracy at Lagom Felt Studio in Crieff as she has very kindly asked me to be her featured artist later this year.

Tracy offers a wide range of felting fibres and materials as well as some spun yarns, drum carded batts, feting kits and various notions. She also offers tuition. You can check out her website here for more info.

I'm looking forward to exhibiting here late May and throughout June.

Last week I enjoyed working with my stash of hand dyed North Ronaldsay fibres from Orkney. These fibres give a lovely rustic look to landscape pieces and are very enjoyable to work with.

 

Having needle felted my first collie dog back in January, I had another go and set this one to guarding a little flock of sheep on the hill.

'Gaurding the Flock' 

£95

This matching piece I have just called 'Three Sheep' and priced it slightly lower at £75 as there was less work involved.

It has been a busy time preparing for Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2017 which is less than three weeks away on March 10th and 11th.

I have been hoarding my makes and not putting them on Etsy as I am running out of time to make things.

Here are some finished trinket boxes that will be coming with me to the event.

I have also had a delivery of new printed products including mugs, mouse mats, zipped pouches, notebooks and cards. These are all available on Etsy here

Some new Sheep Brooches and Pendants have also made their way onto Etsy. I probably won't be adding any more until mid March.

If you are planning on coming to Edinburgh Yarn Festival, you can see the venue layout here

You can find me on stand J6.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there.

As usual, if you have any enquiries about my work, please feel free to email me aileenclarkecrafts@yahoo.com

❤ 

Coasters, Mouse Mats, Mugs and Notebooks

 Here we are at the start of February already and the landscape begins to look a little more colourful. It is certainly very colourful around here with the arrival of new work from the print workshop.

I'm delighted with these new coasters. They are the same four designs that I had made into coasters back in December but the colours have come out better and are more true to the original pictures. 

Set of 4 Luxury Coasters

£14.95

The coasters come Gift Box as a treat to yourself or ready to give as a present. 

Also back in stock are all these Notebooks.

Pretty Bird Notebook

£5.95

My Notebooks are spiral bound and alternate between plain and ruled pages making them perfect for sketching and keeping notes.

I ran out of the design below last year so it's back by popular demand.

Lupins and Sheep Notebook

£5.95

Moon Gazing Hare Notebook

£5.95

Hannah's House Notebook

£5.95

Dolphin Notebook

£5.95

Island and Gulls Notebook

£5.95

Highland Cow Notebook

£5.95

Vibrant Hills Notebook

£5.95

You can find them all for sale here 

I was sorting through my printed cards the other day to see which designs needed topped up and was I was stunned to realise that I actually have around 35 different designs in stock! And yet I always seem to need more! haha

'Home for Supper' below is one of my constant best sellers and is now back in stock.

Cards £2.50 each

'Washing Day' is also popular and as with all my cards, they look great framed.

I'm pleased to have all four of my mug designs back in stock as well.

Each Mug comes with it's own matching Gift Box

The mugs are £8.95 each or £32 for a set of 4.

I am planning a new addition to the mug collection. I have had this image in my head for months of mauvey hills and flowers in the foreground so I made it last week and have sent it off to the printers and hope to have the new mug very soon.

The original will go on sale as soon as I have a frame for it. This is a virtual frame. It's great fun playing around with all the colour options and wood effects. I generally opt for white stained wood with a double mount.

Below is the same frame in Ivory.

Feel free to comment on which you prefer :)

And last but not least, my printed Mouse Mats are back in stock.

There are four designs to choose from.

Cottage by The Stream, Harvey the Highland Cow, Distant Shore and Hannah's House.

Mouse Mats

£6.95

So among all this frenzy of ordering exciting new things, I have also been busy working on orders and making a few boxes.

I got all my favourite fabrics and threads out the other week to make a background using my needle felting embellisher machine.

I really enjoy this process of choosing a variety of different materials in toning colours and meshing them all into a textured piece ready for over sewing.

The piece in question was a lid for a box featuring a dolphin for a change.

This box measures 10 x 10 x 6 cm and is made with Harris Tweed as well as vintage Shetland Tweed and the needle felted lid.

Dolphin Box

£40

Another box I made recently was this raspberry red and green silk one for a commission. I teamed the felt lid up with a reddish pink Harris Tweed. I gave the lid a sparkling of gold and a bit of free machine embroidery just to add a bit of detail. 

That's me almost finished my commissions, just one to go. I'll be concentrating now on making some larger framed pieces for a Gallery and making stock for my upcoming events.

New Mugs Now Available

I promised photos of my latest mug design and here it is!

It has a cottage with sheep on one side and a highland coo peeking over a wall on the other. Just what you need to keep you company while you enjoy your favourite hot beverage. 

 You can see the full design on the box.

Also available as a card.

So now there's a Set of Four! They can be purchased individually, as pairs or as the full set, mixed or matched.

£8.50 each or £32 for the set.

I also had the design for the Sheep Mug made into a card.

Long Card £3.50

I will have all these with me at 

 The Morningside Makers Market, 

Columcille Centre, 2 Newbattle Terrace, EH10 4RT 

Saturday 5th April

11-4pm

and at Open Studios 3rd - 5th May. Hope to see some of you there!

Sheep Mugs and The Aurora Borealis!

What an exciting end to last week we had. On Thursday evening I was faffing about finishing off a few things when I spotted an update on Facebook from a friend in Orkney saying that the aurora was amazing right there and then. Knowing it was a clear night down here I went out on the off chance that we might see a glimmer.

At first we saw nothing but started to notice a green glow on the horizon. We all got our boots on and went and stood in the field and suddenly an arc of green appeared with lights shooting up out of it and a red haze all around. It was absolutely breath taking.

It was the kind of moment when you think you should try and take a photo but on the other hand you might miss everything by running inside for the camera. I also know that getting good photos of the aurora involves tripods and special settings on the camera so instead of fiddling about and missing anything we just stood awe struck and watched as the lights moved and changed.

I got permission to share this photo from Keith Proven Artist and Photographer who is based in Cupar, north Fife. This is pretty much what we saw although we were a little further away. I have seen the aurora borealis once before but had never seen any colours. I have always wanted to see it again but never imagined that we'd see it from our own front door! You can see more photos on Keith's Facebook page here

So as if seeing the northern lights wasn't enough excitement for one day, my new mugs then arrived from the printers on Friday! 

The original felt picture that the mug is printed from features this fluffy mamma sheep and her three Spring lambs skipping through the meadow.

I have also restocked with the Cottage and Coo deisgns.

The mugs come with their own matching Gift Boxes as well.

£8.50 including the box available here

The Sheep Mugs have been flying out the door over the weekend and there are only 8 left. I have ordered more but I'm not sure when they will be in so if you would like one soon, please don't hesitate to order.

I have also have four new Notebook designs printed.

Pretty Bird

Dolphin

Creagan Cottage

and Hannah's House

Notebooks are £5.95 each available here

Pretty Bird is also available as a card

£2.50

I've been busy with my jewellery making as well and came up with these Pony Pendants last week.

And these Treble Clef Pendants and Brooches

The Treble Clef pendants sold out within two days after I shared them on my Facebook page and these two are all I have had time to make since so it's back to the sewing machine this week to re stock.

That's all for now. I've been trying to update my blog since last Thursday but have just been so busy! It's going to be another busy week here as well with lots of juggling of time.

Remember if you have any enquiries about anything you see here, just email me at aileenclarkecrafts@yahoo.co,