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

WOYWW - It's raining felt...hallelujah!

Hello there, dear reader!

Welcome to my regular ramble about the life of a textile artist. Here's a snap of my workdesk to mark 'What's on your Workdesk Wednesday' (WOYWW) a weekly global gathering of fab craftsfolk.

Here's my workdesk today...

I'm mounting and finishing some pieces of embroidery which I initially envisaged as bookmarks but having finished them I've decided they're destined for more than being tucked between the pages of a book.

I've had a busy and productive week of needle felting to replenish my stocks at the three outlets selling my work in Shropshire. I started the week with a load of part-finished work and (thanks to lots of help from mum) finished the week with 35 framed pieces of work.

Yesterday I drove round the county dropping work off so now I'm starting from scratch again!

My little sheepy collages are proving popular so I made sure I made several of those.

I made a few tiny sheep landscapes too, then found some great little frames in Ikea which fit them perfectly.

When I dropped off my work yesterday I was told a touching story which I'd love to share with you.

Two of my needle-felted poppy pictures sold at The Bog Visitors Centre, Stiperstones, last week. The lady who sold them was also there yesterday when I dropped of new stock and she told me this...

A lady and her husband came into the Visitors Centre a few weeks ago and she really loved the needle-felted poppies. This weekend her husband returned to the Visitors Centre. Sadly, the lady had passed away. As she'd loved the picture so much, he bought it to remind him of her love of poppies. Later, her daughter had visited the centre to buy a different needle-felted poppy picture I had there.

It's always great to here that people appreciate my work, but touching stories like this mean the world to me! I really hope those two pictures bring comfort at a time of sadness.

On a cheerful note, it hasn't just been 'all work no play' this week. We've had lovely sunny weather in Shrewsbury so Ben and I got out and about in the local park. Every parent worries about shading their little ones from the sun so it was with great relief I discovered Ben wanted to be a 'cool dude' in both sunglasses and hat!

Here's to many more sunny days!

That's all folks, thanks for stopping by.

Happy crafting,

Max x

WOYWW - dumfling relaxation!

Hello - Tilly Tea Dance here!
I am joining in WOYWW for the first time.
(Well I have been following a few of you for ages! My Mum is Twiglet and my aunt is Wipso - I am one of the two 'M's that they regularly refer to......the one that hasn't had those lovely cheeky twins!)

I don't have a desk to reveal - I craft on my kitchen table so it has to be cleared away when I am dumfed out.
Over the last few weeks, I had a bit of relaxation time and borrowed Mum's dumfing machine (needle felting embellisher to most of you).


Click on the pictures to enlarge them

As you know Wipso and Twiglet are masters of the art but I just like to play - so here's what I made. You can see where my influences came from!

Update - I have popped these in my Etsy shop.




The seascapes are now beaded up and mounted on toning card. One is missing, as it was spotted on my earlier post and snapped up by an eagle eyed WOYWWer! Thanks lots.

These little pink dumflings are some of my favourites.
They are just tiny puffs of wool curls and silk, dumfed together  and embellished with beads and little mother of pearl stars.

 I might sell them but, if not, I have a couple of weddings coming up and they will make great gift cards.

Well - that wasn't too hard was it - I might squeeze in enough time to join in next week - work permitting.
Maybe I will even snap my table when I next get a bit of crafty time so that you can snoop - tho I guess you will have seen it all on Twiglet's table as that's where I "borrowed" it all from!!
OK now I think I have to find out how to add my name to Mr Linky on Julia's blog.
Thanks for calling.
Tilly.

Finishing what I started....



...a little dumfling on a rainy day!

Hmmm... so won't be mowing the lawn in this weather!

What to do on a rubbish rainy day in my week off?
I know, I'll spend the day finishing off all the bits of needle-felting and free-machine embroidery that I've started during sewing sessions with mum but never completed (this is a bit of a bad habit of mine!).

I'll start with some needle-felted poppy pictures (aka dumflings) I created a few weeks ago. These were sort of a case of "anything you can do, I can...also do!" when I saw my mum's treasury of fabulous dumflings she sent to her WOYWW friends around the world.

Then I'll sort out the free-machine embroidered needle-felted seascapes that I half-finished and left in mum's craft room. Think they got some positive comments from mum's WOYWW friends so it's daft not to finish these off! I just mounted them on some blue card so I can leave the larger ones as individual dumflings and mount the slimmer ones as cards.

And not forgetting the collection of 'secret garden' dumflings to mount on cards. These miniatures have been quite a labour of love given that hand stitching is not my favourite activity (which possibly explains why they have sat half-finished for a while!).

 I like to think some of the little knotty stitches look like foxgloves or lupins.

Yep, still raining. Don't fancy being Jessie J doing her open-air concert in Shrewsbury quarry tonight! Bet she wishes she had some needle-felting to get on with right now! Right, now I've got to grips with my unfinished dumflings, I might start on some new projects!