The Merry Month of May

"Twas in the merry month of May when balmy winds first blow.............."

And what a merry month it has been so far.
As I said in my last post, the Open Studio weekend was a great success.
Among my many visitors was Kirsten aka Quernus Crafts. Kirsten has family here in Fife and came up from down south to enjoy the North Fife Open Studios event and write about it for the UK Handmade magazine. Her piece will be in the summer issue due out in June. It's a great online magazine and you can find a link to it on my side bar.
Kirsten took some photos while she was here and has kindly sent me some to use here on the blog as I forgot my camera each of the three days!


Here I am at my little work space whizzing some felt through my embellisher machine.
Everyone was fascinated by the machine, especially as it looks just like a sewing machine but when you look closer you realise that it doesn't use thread.

I enjoyed demonstrating it's various uses to those who were interested. Above are Joan and Watty who came all the way from Midlothian to visit my studio. Joan discovered my website last month and is now inspired to take up needle felting. I was so taken aback that my little space on the internet could have such an affect on people. It really meant a lot to me that Joan and many others traveled many miles just to see me.


Here is a wee selection of my work on display.
The great thing about my studio is that it has more than one room. I can keep the main room nice and tidy with plenty of pieces on display while the work room is a shambles and has the door shut on it. There is also space in the main room to work on small projects without it becoming too untidy.
I plan to work from the studio on a more regular basis when my daughter starts school in the Autumn. At the moment I'm only there sporadically, opening to the public on occasional weekends. I think if Ladybank were a busy little tourist town I could open every day and be really busy but it's not and I don't really want it to turn into a shop as I'd never get any work done.

So, the rest of last week was taken up with house work and preparations for my friends wedding.
It was a privilege and a pleasure to make Shirley's wedding flowers. We thoroughly enjoyed the day too, swanning around a country mansion sipping champagne and seeing lots of friends we haven't seen for ages.

It has been five years since I gave up working in a flower shop but like riding a bike you never forget how to put flowers together.
My career as a florist began when I worked as a Saturday girl for my Mum when I was fourteen. My Mum ran a shop in Perth and she taught me all the basics.
When I went off to art college I got another Saturday job in a really good florist called David's. David gave me a really good training and from there I worked full time in various shops here in Scotland and in Ireland.

I had planned to become a freelance wedding florist a few years back but then I got into textiles and here I am building up my little craft business.
I still do weddings for family and friends and would consider doing flowers locally if asked. I do miss working with fresh flowers every day, but contrary to popular belief, it is hard work! Working in a flower shop is not what people imagine it to be. You are standing most of the day, lugging heavy buckets around and getting chilblains on your fingers in winter. It's murder on your back and quite often so busy that you spend much of the day answering the phone. I much prefer working for myself.

Shirley chose a bouquet of Vandella roses with eucalyptus, bear grass and china grass foliage. Each rose had a little pearl headed pin in the centre to tie in with the pearls around the neckline of her dress.
For the bridesmaid she chose a hand tied bouquet of Sarina gerbera, purple lisianthus and Vandella roses.
They both looked absolutely stunning and were delighted with their flowers. A great day was had by all.