Papercutting workshop

Last Wednesday I ran a papercutting workshop at The Whitworth Art Gallery as part of the Crafternoon Tea series. It was a slight departure for me as I'd been asked to do something 'non-messy', suitable for the gallery setting. It was great to do something new and I really enjoyed researching the history of papercuts and all the different styles from around the world. Here is my little fox design:





This was my favourite of the day! So intricate! It was adapted from a template I got from the Scherenschnitte blog, which has loads of lovely designs to try out.

Platt Hall Gallery of Costume

Thursday was the first day of a week away from the studio (although I went in to print an order on Sunday as I don;t like my lovely customers to wait) so I had a bit o'culture with my good pal Gemma. We took ourselves off to Platt Hall, as I hadn't been there since the refurb, and Gemma hadn't been at all, despite being a lifelong Manchester resident! Tut tut.



I used to work for Manchester Art Gallery as a VSA when I was studying for my Masters and I had my interview at Platt Hall. Ah, the memories!

Ramsbottom Festival

Last Sunday I went on a tiny adventure to Ramsbottom music festival to help run some drop in kid's crafts workshops and to sell some wares! It was a great day, despite some adverse weather conditions and I made lots of sales, which was ace!



To get to Ramsbottom we took the vintage train from Bury! Hence the sepia effect.



My stall with lovely Andrew there to help me. I haven't done a market stall for ages, as I found them to be a bit hit and miss, but the day was so successful I'm thinking about possibly doing some more around Christmas...

Pandas and Penguins ...

I've been doing a bit of updating, looks like my mojo is back! Sometimes I find it hard to keep on top of everything, little and often is the best way for me to work...
So, here are some new products!



Panda bib is available from etsy and folksy.



...as is the matching hat!

The newest wintery guy on the block is Ernie, the baby Emperor penguin.



Purchase him here on etsy or folksy.

Here he is in hat form!



I'm going to be at the Ramsbottom music festival on Sunday with a small range of my wares and running some fun workshops for kids. Come and say hello if you're going to be there! x

Wonderful Workshops

Hello! Not much blog action of late, but I've been busy working and playing. I went on a lovely holiday to Nice (via Nimes, but we don't talk about that...) which was super beautiful and lovely and sunny!
Last Saturday I ran 2 workshops for the Ministry of Craft, screenprinting in the morning and lino printing in the afternoon. As usual, I was impressed with the variety of designs that people printed.









If you fancy giving it a go, I'm running more workshops on Saturday 19th November, details on how to book here.
I'm also doing a papercutting workshop on Wednesday, October the 19th of October at the Whitworth Art Gallery, as part of their Crafternoon Tea sessions, which I'm really excited about as it's a bit of something different for me to research!

Happy Birthday Fred Aldous!

Hello! This is my 100th blog post and I'd been feeling a little shy about what to put in it. Well, luckily I remembered that I'm doing some drop-in workshops on Sunday as part of our lovely local craft shop's 125th birthday celebrations! There will be market stalls and other crafts to try over the weekend, so come on down, it's free too!
Other than that I've been working on new designs for commissions and such, all good fun.

QR-3D

Yesterday I had an exciting time in the studio, making my entry for the QR-3D project, initiated by the wonderful Sally Fort. When I first read about it, I started racking (or is it 'wracking'??) my brain for ways to create a 3 dimensional screenprint. Then Sally herself suggested that something like my Fairisle Heart Cushion would be perfect for this project. Stupid Nelly! I had already done 3D prints!



So I excitedly created my QR code and got to stencil cutting. It took me nearly 2 hours to cut this as I was trying to be as precise as possible.







This is the finished print, post-puffing! It was a lot darker before I heat-fixed it. That's the thing about 3DP, it's hard to predict the colour outcome. All part of the fun! (Does anyone remember 'Fluff-its'? They were fabric paint pens that you dried with a hairdryer to create a puffy, 3D design. I loved them! Ah, nostalgia.) I was a bit worried that the code wouldn't work, as some of my stencil pieces moved about a little bit, but I tried it out with the scanner I downloaded for my phone and it does!! Joyous day.