Edinburgh Yarn Festival 18th and 19th March

Find me in the Pop Up Market!

Time is racing by and Edinburgh Yarn Fest is nearly upon us!

I am working hard to make as many of my felt creations as possible for the event.

I had a successful day last Saturday at Falkland Craft Market and even managed to make some new bunting for my stall.

I've been topping up my Felt Jewellery Collection with these Cottage and Sheep Pendants below.

Needle Felted Pendants £24

I will also have plenty Sheep Brooches and Earrings with me.

I have been very busy making my Harris Tweed and Felt Trinket Boxes as well.

I have them in 4 different sizes ranging from £30 to £45

A few new felt pictures include this Sunset Cottage and Tree below. Made with beautiful hand dyed Strathearn Fleece and Fibre who will also be at EYF. Looking forward to buying more from them!

Felt Pictures £95

I had to order more Sheepie Pouches as they had all sold out! Some have been laid aside for EYF visitors already. I'm delighted that they are so popular.

Printed Sheep Pouches £7.95

I will have a selection of cushions printed with my artwork with me as well as all my notebooks, cards, mouse mats and mugs.

Oh and I also have my sets of coasters back in stock. I have them in sets of four at £14.95 or sets of 2 at £7.95

 

I'll be spending the next 11 days working like a mad woman to make sure I have my full range of items well stocked up. I'm so looking forward to this event! I love going round all the other vendors as well as there are so many inspirational materials on offer.

You can buy tickets online at 

www.edinyarnfest.com

The festival is held at Edinburgh Corn Exchange

Friday 18th and Saturday 19th March 2016

10 - 6 pm

11 Newmarket Road

Edinburgh

EH14 1RJ

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.

Edinburgh Yarn Festival and How It Went.

I had such a great time!!!

This was my stand at Edinburgh Yarn Festival on the 14th and 15th March.

I didn't get time to take many photos at the but here are some taken of my neighbouring exhibitors in the Pop Up Market.

All these incredible felt items are handmade by Dalia at Felting Studio. Originally from Vilnius in Lithuania, Dalia and Linas now live and work in Edinburgh and the quality of Dalia's felt making is outstanding.

Their Cat Caves were very popular as were the slippers. 

I particularly liked this shawl and was delighted to see it get snapped up by a happy customer.

To the other side of my stand was Joe's Toes selling brilliant felt slipper kits and haberdashery. The slipper kits come in many different colours and you can needle felt your own design onto them before stitching them up.

I treated myself to some cute little wooden butterfly buttons which I hope to use on some boxes in time for Open Studios.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Clive and Laurence from Thurso who were there with their wonderful hand dyed, hand spun yarns and fibre batts. We had 'met' online and Clive had carded some batts that he just knew I'd love and funnily enough I picked them out straight away! I also got a few hand spuns to use in my felt pictures which I have been enjoying working with this week.

The yarn festival was a big event, taking up the whole of the Corn Exchange with vendors and visitors coming from all over the world especially.

There was such a great atmosphere with everyone in their element surrounded by wonderful products and exciting new materials to take home and try.

Most of the vendors were through in the main exhibition hall and although I was busy on my own stall, I asked a friend along to help me so that I could escape and buy some fibre for myself.

I love this hand dyed roving from Strathearn Fleece and Fibre. So many different colours and it's a lovely texture to work with. 

I also bought these lovely greens and worked them in with scrims and hand spun to make background pieces for landscapes.

You can see the results below.

I purchased some beautiful hand dyed silk embroidery thread which I have used for my flowers here. It has a lovely sheen and subtle variations in colour along the strands which makes it just lovely to work with. I'm wishing I'd stocked up on more while I had the chance! 

'Mary's Cottage'

Sold

Here is some more of my stash below. If you love all the colours in this photo, then imagine a whole exhibition hall filled with stands selling all this and you can understand why everyone was so excited and happy to be there! :)

You can see more photos from the event on the EYF website here 

Our Open Studios North Fife event is only 6 weeks away now. I will be at my usual venue in Ladybank with a whole host of new pictures, Trinket Boxes, Booches and Jewellery pieces to exhibit. I am also planning to have some new printed cushions available. I just need to get the artwork made first! 

You can pick up brochures for the event from me today at Falkland and from Waterstones bookshops in the next couple of weeks. You can also find all the information you need on our website here.

Edinburgh Yarn Festival 14th and 15th March 2015

You can find me at Edinburgh Yarn Festival on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th March

Edinburgh Corn Exchange

10 Newmarket Road

Edinburgh

EH14 1RJ

10 - 5.30 pm Saturday

10 - 5 pm Sunday

I will have my full range of felt goodies with me including some new Trinket Boxes and Landscapes.

Maybe see you there!

Thistle's, Sheep and Forward Planning

January is usually a month to enjoy a bit of creative play time but I have had quite a few commission's to work on over the past couple of weeks and I'm constantly thinking ahead to what I need to make for shop orders and upcoming events so I haven't really had time to just play around with materials and let the creative process take over.

When I am working on commissions there is always a waiting time for felt to dry though, so I put that time to good use and made this picture last week.

The thistle's are a new addition. I hadn't tried them before. I began with using embroidery thread for the stems and leaves but it was too stark so I unpicked it all and needle felted the stems in two tone fibre instead. It has given a much more natural look.

I added some sheep and framed it and it sold as soon as it was finished. I have a request for another similar but will get one up for general sale as soon as I can.

I enjoyed needle felting the thistles onto the picture so much that I thought I would try an individual one on a brooch. I really like the three dimensional effect. I used little French knots to secure the felt and to add texture but I will try some tiny seed beads on the next one to see how that looks. The added 'bling' might be nice.

I was nearly out of Sheep Jewellery for a few weeks there but I have been working very hard to replenish stock in my Etsy shop.

Pendants £25

These pendants and brooches are now available. I'll be working on more earrings this week.

Brooches £18

Two dates for your diaries are March 14th and 15th for Edinburgh Yarn Festival at Edinburgh Corn Exchange, 11 Newmarket Road, Edinburgh, EH14 1RJ

I will be there with all my woolly wares.

Although it sounds a long time away, Open Studios North Fife is on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of May this year and all the participants are already working hard behind the scenes to bring you a wonderful weekend of inspiration and creativity. It is the 10th Anniversary year and some extra projects are in the pipeline.

I will be at my usual venue in Ladybank

Hello 2015!

What a difference a couple of weeks makes! January always feels so different to December doesn't it? One day we are in the depths of the deepest darkest month, a couple of weeks a few parties later and we are out the other side with the light getting brighter and the winter sunshine lasting just that wee bit longer every day.

I hope you all enjoyed yourselves and got a bit of a break over the holidays.

We did all that we wanted too with walks walked, snow sledged, shops shopped, songs sung and time spent with family and friends. It was a busy couple of weeks and I don't feel like I have made anything for over a month! 

One of the highlights of our holidays was taking another trip into highland Perthshire and walking beyond The Hermitage over to The Rumbling Bridge.

It was a glorious day with a light frost on the ground making it much less muddy for walking.

In all my years visiting The Hermitage I had never taken the path up and over the moor. It was beautiful.

 The Braan River tumbles spectacularly down an incredible drop under the Rumbling Bridge, giving the bridge it's name. It was actually really hard to capture on camera for fear of falling over the edge of the bridge or down the steep sides of the gully.

It looks lovely and calm here in between the little falls in the distance and the great drop just a bit further on.

Another highlight was going in search of some snow! We promised our daughter and her wee friend that we would take them sledging so we set off for Glenshee in the hope that the snow they'd had hadn't melted yet.

It didn't look too promising on the journey up but as we rounded the bend at Cairnwell we could see there were plenty of patches suitable for sledging.

I got very wet because I landed in a burn but we will gloss over that!

The view coming back down the glen was stunning.

As the sun rays broke through the clouds the whole scene before us changed and we were treated to a little dancing light show.

The two weeks of madness were rounded off with my Mums annual party where songs were sung, tunes were played and plenty of food and drink were enjoyed.

I'm trying my best to get back into work mode and started by making some new felt yesterday.

I bought the fibres before the holidays and was very excited to finally use them. Not sure what I am going to make yet but I have a few ideas ruminating. 

My SALE is still ongoing and can be found here

Many items are Half Price including my 2015 Calendar. 

My next event is Edinburgh Yarn Festival on Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th of March. I know it's only January but if you are into all things knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving and dying, you will want to add this event to your Calendar now.

Here is a link to the list of vendors attending. It's very exciting! I'll be working on all things felty and sheepy for my stall.

❤❤❤