Workshop fun & WOYWW

Morning all! Thanks for dropping by to catch up on this week's activities from my work desk.

So here's the work desk this morning...

The 'works in progress' from last week are closer to completion. My stockists are asking for more pictures and I have a craft fair a week this Saturday so there'll be a flurry of felting for the rest of the week!

I'm working on a development of my sheep felties using brightly dyed pre-felt.

If I ever get chance to work more on these sheepy ideas I'll share them on the blog!

On Saturday I ran a workshop - Magical Gardens in Needle Felting & Embroidery - so spent the back end of last week preparing for that. The workshop went really well - another great bunch of participants who produced some really lovely pieces of work. Here's a snapshot of some of their masterpieces...

One of the participants, Stephanie, wrote a really lovely review of my workshop. Whilst the best proof of a successful workshop is always the work produced by the end, it's great to get positive feedback and I'm touched that someone took the time to write such a detailed review!

On Sunday Ben had his friend's birthday party - the first in a series of 2nd birthday parties which will occupy every other weekend between now and the end of September! We went to a local farm for a picnic and a visit to the animals. Much fun was had feeding piglets, calves, sheep and even a peacock!

Right, I've got to dash as I need to do some wet felted backgrounds to work on this week. Thanks for stopping by. If you're new to my blog and you'd like to meet other craft bloggers like me, What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW) is the perfect place.

Happy crafting,

Max x

WOYWW - working on new designs

Hello dear reader!

Apologies for my absence last week, I was snowed under. More about that later. You're here to see my workdesk aren't you. Here you go then...

Among all the clobber on the desk you can see my nice pieces of wet felting from a few weeks ago and some linen with little needlefelted landscapes.

I've been slowly working my way through the pieces of wet felting to create new designs. I'm guilty of being a bit hooked on the same designs, so for the last fortnight I've been trying out a few new ideas. Still within my comfort zone of fields, gardens and hedgerows but a bit different. Whadda ya think?

Delphinium

Bluebells and daisies 

This said, I've also had to step up production of my existing sheepy and floral designs by popular demand. My work is now in four shops and galleries and three of these contacted me last week to say my work was going...going...gone and could they have some more?! Chuffed to bits, I started dumfing away and this was how I spent most of last week. Here's the collection I pulled together...

After all the hard work, Ben and I had a well-earned day off to see my friend and her lambs at the farm in mid Wales which was the original inspiration for my sheepy landscapes. We had a fab day!

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. I hope to stop by a few desks later. If you're visiting here for the first time, hop on over to Julia's Stamping Ground to meet lots of other lovely artists and crafters!

Happy crafting

Max x

WOYWW - feeling sheepish

Hello all, welcome to my first post of 2016! If this is your first visit to my blog, this is my weekly WOYWW (What's on your workdesk Wednesday) post giving you a snapshot of what I'm working on at the moment.

So here's my workdesk today...

You can see I've started the new year with some dumfing (needle-felting). For New Year's Eve we stayed with friends at a sheep farm in Powys. A walk around the farm on New Year's day inspired me to work on some new 'sheepy' ideas in needle-felting and embroidery.

These are waiting for a bit of hand stitching to give some foreground detail...

Here's a close-up of the finished one...

I guess my toddler, Ben, is hoping I'll needle-felt some cows next as 'mooooo' is his word of the moment (although he also uses this to refer to moon and balloon).

Also on my workdesk is the second of two pairs of fleeces onto which I need to sew the hand embroidered logos I've made for my in laws' gardening business. Here's the first pair I completed earlier this week...

Getting four hand-stitched logos to look as close to identical as possible has been quite a labour of love!

Well that's all for this week. I've got to get cracking this afternoon with my latest customer order, another personalised picture - 'L is for...'  with a hand embroidered lion.

Thank you for visiting my blog :-)

Happy crafting,

Max x