Needle felting inspiration from the countryside & WOYWW

Morning troops! Welcome to my weekly blog about my journey as a textile artist.

Let's begin by showing you my work desk...

This time last week I was rushing off to get cracking with some wet felted background pieces. Once these had dried I needle felted strands of wool, silk and chiffon using my embellishing machine to create the background greenery for my pictures.

As you can see, I've started to needle felt some flowers and today's job is to free-machine embroider on top and finish with beading and hand embroidery.

Ive also been out and about the Shire this week, peddling my wares and getting inspiration from the wonderful landscape. This time of year the Shropshire countryside is incredibly diverse - from the lush greens I use in my needle-felted sheepy landscapes to softer shades of heather and corn yellow. On my way up to drop more pictures at The Bog Visitor Centre the other day I noticed these lovely soft hay meadow shades and thought I'd have a dabble at incorporating them into my work...

Here's the result...

In amongst all my needle felting I've still made time to enjoy the simple pleasures in life - such as seeing my little man don his swimsuit and frolic about in Shrewsbury's brand new splash park!

Well I've got another busy Wednesday ahead of me today finishing off pieces to sell at Quatt Open Village on Saturday. Thanks for stopping by my blog and do pop across to check out other WOYWWers sharing their desks on What's on your Workdesk Wednesday.

Happy crafting

Max x

It's poppy season! WOYWW

Good afternoon folks! Thanks for dropping by to catch up with the activities from my work desk this week.

So here's the desk today...

Regular visitors may recall that I love to felt poppies. So you can imagine my delight when I saw was my first little cluster of poppies this year. OK, so it was just on a roundabout on the ring road but it immediately prompted me to pull out the red fluff and needle felt some poppies.

These are a work in progress. I started with a wet felted background onto which I've felted a variety of green wool and other fibres to create a background. Onto this I've felted red blobs then free machine embroidered over the top to create more texture and detail. To this I'll be adding embroidered daisies and beading all the poppies to give them centres.

Shropshire has some beautiful fields full of poppies so I shall be looking for opportunities to photograph them.

On the subject of photos, here's one I took from my lounge window of the summer solstice sunset last night. Whatever was going on behind those trees must have been pretty spectacular - such gorgeous shades of pink, purple and blue.

Visitors to last week's blog post will know I had a 'meet the maker' event planned at Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre on Monday. The centre sells my pictures and the aim was to give visitors an insight into how my work is created. Here's my 'work desk on tour'...

I had a lovely afternoon. Lots of people stopped to look at what I was doing and I had some great feedback about my work. I even did a demo for a group of 15 primary school children who were visiting the centre. Children ask the most interesting questions, don't you find?

"How to you get red sheep wool... do they dye the sheep?"

"How many times have you stabbed yourself with that needle Miss?"

"Do you like my spiderman wellies?"

All good fun and a few enquiries about WI and craft group talks so it was a worthwhile day.

Anyway, that's all my news. I must dash as we've just bought a bicycle seat for Ben to ride on my hubby's bike and we want to take him for a spin before it rains (again!).

Thanks for stopping by, I always really appreciate your comments.

Happy crafting,

Max x

More felted sheep, meet the artist & WOYWW

Hello folks! Welcome to my weekly blog giving you a snapshot from my workdesk.

So here it is...

Most of what you can see is work in progress. My stockists all need more pictures so I've been furiously felting this week - sheep being the order of the day once again.

I'm also preparing for an exciting new development next week. On Monday I'll be holding a 'meet the maker' session at Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre. The centre, in Craven Arms, currently stocks my work and has many visitors each day. Hopefully being able to see how I create the artwork on display will give added interest to the visitors.

Pop back next week to find out how it went!

Finally, eagle-eyed readers may have noticed a little addition to my workdesk. Last week I had a lovely surprise in the post from Diana Velvet Moth, a fellow artist and WOYWWer who I admire a lot. Diana has a real gift for colour, composition and combining media. I'm really chuffed to have a piece of her work to marvel at!

Well that's all for this week, I've lots of little felted sheep to bring to life while a certain toddler naps!

Happy crafting

Max x

WOYWW - Felting sheep...again!

Afternoon all! I'm afraid if you're a regular visitor to my page you're in for yet another instalment of needle-felted sheep! New visitors - welcome,  hope you like my felted sheep!

This week I'm mounting some of my small sheepy pics and also working on a much larger picture combining the sheepy landscape with my flowery fields.

It's a work in progress but you get where I'm going with it, right?

It's been a week of sheep for us this week. Monday's weather was fab so the boy and I went on a little walk with our mum and toddler friends. Ben thoroughly enjoyed seeing the sheep and lambs in the field as we followed the path down to a little stream.

As I type, Ben is down for a little nap, but once His Lordship wakes we're off to our nearest National Trust property, Attingham Park, where you can see deer grazing. Maybe next time you drop by I might have been inspired to move on from felty sheep to felty deer pictures!

That's all for me - got a workshop this weekend with TWELVE members of an Embroiderers Guild group (12...gulp!). They sound like a lovely bunch so I'm really looking forward to it but I've got lots to prepare to make sure they have a fab day!

Thanks for stopping by,

Happy crafting

Max x

WOYWW - Question: What's on my workdesk? Answer: Me!

What's on my workdesk today you ask? Well, actually I am!

This week I needed some good photos to sent out with the press release about my forthcoming workshop. With a photographer for a Dad what else does a girl do but jump up on the workdesk and pose for a few pics!

Today I'm playing around with some new ideas. With Mother's day and World Book Day both round the corner I felt like making some book marks. Here's a quick peek at the trial run I'm part way through felting. When completed it will probably have a sheep or two on it and a little hand embroidery in the foreground...

That's all the needle-felting action from my desk today as I've spent most of the week editing the photos I've taken for my shop. I was permitted to use Dad's photography studio and given a bit of a tutorial so these look a bit more professional than most of my snaps!

 

Thanks for stopping by. If you're new here, you might like to know that I blog most Wednesday's as part of an international blog group called - What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday (WOYWW). Meet more WOYWW artists and crafters by clicking here.

Happy crafting!

Max x

WOYWW - Things to do with bubble wrap and a roller blind

Hello all!

I took a brief sabatical last week to look after a toddler with a leg in plaster (more about that later) so didn't manage much sewing.

Here's my workdesk this morning. A bit of everything - a customer order, some mounting and some new background pieces to needle-felt later.

You can see a large piece of wet felting that I made yesterday as a background for a larger sheepy picture I've planned, inspired by the Shropshire Hills.

If you're not familiar with the process of wet felting, essentially it involves layering pieces of wool roving (dyed sheep fluff) loosely on a piece of bubble wrap, squirting it with liquid soap, trapping it between net and another piece of bubble wrap, rolling it round a rolling pin wrapped in a bamboo roller blind and rubbing vigorously. The picture below might give you some idea of this...

It's quite a spectator sport...

My customer order is yet another personalised picture - this time for a lovely little girl called Ligeia. Ligeia loves lions and I thoroughly enjoyed designing this little lion for her picture. Here's a sneak peek and I'll share the whole picture at a later date.

My last share is a picture of my little man who fractured his leg just over a week ago when he tripped over kicking a balloon. He's been a very brave boy adapting to his plaster cast well (though thankfully it will be taken off next week).

Of course, with his football practice on hold, he's had much more time to focus on his reading!

That's all for today folks. I hope you have enjoyed reading about my work. Pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground to meet dozens of other fab artists sharing a snapshot of their workdesk with you.

Happy crafting 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