WOYWW -

Hello lovely reader, welcome to my 'What's on your Workdesk Wednesday' blog post - a place where I share with you a piccie of my workdesk and a recap of what I've been up to in my world of textile art.

Here it is; the desk today...

There's a few bits for a commissioned piece I'm working on, a couple of finished pieces ready to mount and then loads of part-finished hand-embroidered bookmarks. I think I might need a finishing day! I also have a growing pile called 'not sure this idea worked' - attempts at new ideas which I really don't love. Does anyone else suffer with this when trying new ideas?

My desk hasn't seen any action today, however, as it's my birthday and I was determined to get out there and enjoy the sunshine with my little man. We had lunch with mum (Twiglet) and when 'im indoors' got home from work we went out for tea at our favourite tapas place. There...no room for needlefelting today!

But I have been a busy bee this week so can spare myself a day off. This week I've had a photo shoot for my pansy brooch project, which I am making into a step-by-step guide for my courses and an article for an online publication later in the year. I produced the brooch in real time while my in-house photographer  (a.k.a Dad) took some brilliant close-up photos of each stage of the process.

The shoot set up

My snap of the finished brooch

Right, that's all from me today. There's a pile of birthday brownies with my name on it!

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy crafting,

Max x

WOYWW - crafty gifts

Hello all, hope you're well and have been spared by this week's stormy weather.

Without further ado, on my desk today I have a pile of lovely goodies I received for Christmas from Twiglet.

There are some beautiful Tilda fabrics, threads, ricrac, spray glue and bondaweb which should keep me busy on the New Year. Also there's a fab thread bin Twiglet has made for me. She's so clever, aren't I lucky?! There isnt much work in progress on the desk at present. I haven't had much time for sewing over the last week - I've spent much of my time watching my toddler explore his new toys and books (and tidying away the carnage after!)

I did promise to share some of the pieces of work I produced for customers once Christmas was over so here they are...

'M is for Marlowe'

'E is for Elodie'

I also found time to make some last minute gifts for friends and family. This little fella is a Christmas present for Ben's bestie, Isabelle.

My final piece of news is that my business cards arrived yesterday and I love them!

I had several different designs made up for each area of my work. I used an app called picolage on my phone to produce the designs from all my photographs then sent them to Moo.

Well that's all for today folks. I hope to have a busier workdesk to share with you next week. I'll be dropping by Julia's Stamping Ground later to catch up with other artists taking part in What's on your workdesk Wednesday - why not join me?

Happy crafting x

WOYWW - Chubby and plump, a right old elf!

Yes, dear reader, a line from my favourite poem 'T'was the Night Before Christmas'. I thought it an appropriate verse to accompany my workdesk photo this week...

You'll see up front my latest make. Last year I made Ben a sack for his first Christmas and added to it a little felt Rudolph decoration with 'Ben's first Christmas 2014' on the back. This Christmas I have stitched a Father Christmas and so the fun will continue year on year (or at least until he twigs that Mrs Claus's stitching is uncannily similar to his mummy's!)

Now that Twiglet's sewing room is finally tidied, we managed to share half an hour of sewing time this week while the boy was asleep...

What fun! Good job I'm better at sewing than I am at taking selfies!

Also this week our tree went up. I had feared all sorts of mishaps would occur when toddler met tree, but we've been lucky and Ben hasn't been nearly as curious/destructive as I'd feared.

He has taken a shine to all the handmade goodies that mum (twiglet) has made for my tree over the years so I thought I'd share them here so you can enjoy them too...

My final share of the week is a collection of fab photos that my dad has taken of my work. I've been grumbling about how I need to have better photos of my work to improve my Etsy listings and so dad, a professional photographer, set up the studio for me and took these fab pics! He even got round the problem of reflections on the glass in my box frames!

That's all for today folks! Hope you've enjoyed visiting and reading my blog. I'm off to visit some other fab bloggers' workdesks on What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday so why don't you join me too!

Happy crafting x

WOYWW - dumfling breeding programme

Afternoon all! I've no workdesk photo this week as we're round at Twiglet's house so I can use the space in her sewing room for mounting all my needle-felted dumflings. Here's a shot of her ironing board this morning instead... I'm sure these dumflings have started breeding!

This week I've been working on another customer order for a little girl's first birthday. Like my post last week, I can't share the full finished piece but here's a quick peek...

Finally I've got to share some pictures of my toddler - or should I say climber...

We've had a couple of bright days this week so we've enjoyed playing on the big kids' play equipment in a quiet play area while the big boys and girls are all at school. The rope netting bit was definitely his favourite bit!

On the windier days we've donned our fab new bobble hat made by Bobble & Squeak. Cute, warm and snuggly.  It certainly does the job!

 

That's all for today, these dozens of dumflings won't mount themselves! Thanks for stopping by for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday :-)

Happy crafting x 

WOYWW - The Shropshire hoard

Hello all and a warm 'happy December' to one and all this fine 'What's on your workdesk Wednesday'!

Firstly, forgive me for my absence last Wednesday. I took a sabatical to help mum (Twiglet) organise the sewing room following the arrival of new furniture and a huge hoard of craft stuff from storage. More about that later.

You're here to see my workdesk today aren't you? Here it is...

In the foreground are yet more little needle-felted backgrounds ready to work on, so there's lots to keep me busy on these long, cold winter evenings.

One day I'll get round to framing them all (but then I'll have nowhere to store them... note to self: must organise some exhibitions for 2016!) Did I just make a New Year's resolution already?!

To the right is a top secret project - a customer Christmas order- so I haven't been able to share it with you in full just yet. But here's a quick peek...

...or perhaps I should have said a quick squeak!

Now I explained earlier that I'd been helping sort Twiglet's sewing room last week. 'Can it really take a week?' I hear a few of you say. 'Can it only take a week?' I hear others chortle. Well it has...there was quite a hoard. I certainly owed Twiglet some help as much of my sewing time is spent there and a good portion of the crafting hoard that has been amassed is actually mine! The full horror of the task would be too grim to share with you, dear reader, so here's the edited highlights!

Needless to say, neither of us need any more crafting bits and bobs and we could both craft every day next year and barely make a dent in it! Did I just make another New Year's resolution there?!

That's all for today, thanks for stopping by. I'll swing by some WOYWW desks later on today and see what other WOYWWers have been up to.

Happy crafting x

WOYWW - busy book grand finale!

Morning all, and welcome to my What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday post!

The last week has involved much grumbling (and some swearing tut, tut) in pursuit of a finished busy book. The primary cause...bias binding. I decided it would give a professional finish to edge each busy book page with bias binding but soon discovered that my enthusiasm exceeded my skill! Undeterred I battled on and, after burning the midnight oil last night, I have finally finished my busy book project.

The busy book, entitled 'Ben's Jungle' is the star of the show on my workdesk this week...

I'm really pleased with how it has turned out. Each page will offer Ben something different to fiddle with and every one incorporates an activity which will grow with him too. Hopefully hours of fun will be had.

I couldn't leave the book anonymous so I stitched a little maker's mark on the back! The last innovation to be added to the book was a bookmark. We happened to notice that Ben was very interested in the ribbon bookmark on my Husband's A4 work diary so I thought it would be nice to incorporate one in Ben's busy book so he could be like Daddy.

A massive thanks goes to mum (a.k.a. Twiglet) for keeping Ben occupied while I've whirred away on the sewing machine, not to mention her technical advice!

Also on my workdesk this week is my ideas book with... yes you guessed it, my plans for the next busy book. Glutton for punishment perhaps!

I've collected together all my nautical bits and bobs and have found a cute little bear that my Aunty Annie (a.k.a. Wipso) made for me some years ago. The busy book will be called 'Bear at the Beach' (not to be confused with 'Bare at the Beach', a naturist's guide to the coast tehehe...) and will see the little bear doing lots of seaside activities. Watch this space!

On the subject of the seaside, I'm taking Ben to the Welsh coast today with my best friend so will stop by a few workdesks later on this evening. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy crafting x x x

Bunting on Royal Service

 Just thought I'd share some of the photos from the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant at RAF Cosford on Thursday 12th July.

As the charity I work for was selected to take part in the pageant procession, I was one of the lucky 5000 to participate. Yes, waving away to crowds five people deep, I almost felt like Lizzie herself!



Her majesty brought with her some lovely sunny weather for the day, which was a great relief to us all after days of torrential rain (though took me a little by surprise, and I still have the sun burnt beak to show for it).

Anyway, the other VIP taking part in official duties that day was Twiglet's amazing hand-crafted bunting. In preparation for the day Twiglet (aka Mum) had churned out yard after yard of perfect hand-made bunting for us to use to decorate our float and display stand.

Needless to say, with dozens of local charities taking part, we weren't the only ones with bunting...in fact it was sort of a giant 'bunting-off'. I have to say though, Mum's was certainly 'best in show'. I also spent several hours knee-deep in florist's ribbon making a set of rosettes for the float!

Here's a few pictures of the day!

Didn't manage to 'pap' her majesty so, sorry if you were hoping to see photos of her!

Three cheers for her highness...Twiglet, Queen of Bunting! :)