The Mini-est of Collections

This weekend sees the inaugural Summer Arts Market at St George's Hall in Liverpool. A two day event like the successful Winter Arts Market with over 100 artists and makers, craft classes and kids activities, I'm really looking forward to it.
For the occasion I have put together a tiny collection of Liberty print work, using up some Tana Lawn I've had in for a while and buying a minimum of supplies in. The prints are Mia's Island in a pale yellow, Strawberry Thief in navy with flashes of almost neon colours, and also sleep masks in a black print I have never been able to find out the name of, so if anyone can help me there... In total there are two a-symmetric necklaces, two josephine pendants, 2 josephine cuffs, 2 little josephine bracelets and two sleep masks in each print. 

 

When they're gone they're gone!

Catching Up

  Happy New Year!

No posts in a while from me, but in the interests of fresh starts I will rattle through the last few weeks now and hopefully be much more organised for the rest of the year, hopefully.

First fair of the season was at the amazing Camp and Furnace in Liverpool's Baltic Triangle, complete with live music and vintage caravans.

The next weekend was a biggie, with stalls at Blackburne House and Caspstans Bazaar. It also coincided with 'The Big Move'....

It was out of our big, damp flat by the sea and into our smaller, warmer, dryer flat in the city!

Because moving house wasn't enough of a task for us I spent the rest of the week preparing for the Winter Arts Market.

My second year at St Georges Hall and it wasn't a disappointment. Lots of lovely customers to talk to and other amazing artists to see. Best sellers for me; sleep masks, bags and muffs!

This hand painted decoration by Laura-Kate Draws was my favourite find at the market, along with some beautiful illustrated cards by Lyndsey Green.

Once the fairs were over sorting out the flat was a breeze with Catsby helping. He's good with books.

It rained a lot, but I braved the elements and made it back to York for Christmas.

Bunny Bosworth: Treasure Hunter

Every few months or so Decorative Fairs put on a big Vintage fashion and textiles fair in Liverpool and it is always worth a rummage, even more so today as it was in the beautiful St Georges Hall.

Although I was on a fairly strict budget, and was absolutely not allowed to buy anything for myself, I still picked up a few pieces that will find their way into my work soon.

Hand embroidered table linens.

 A large piece of Sanderson furnishing fabric, fantastic blousey flowers!

 

Beautiful, old, cream lace, a crisp white lace insert doily and some wooden spools of cotton. (Frivolous Pink!) 

But best of all...

A pair of Liberty of London curtains for a mere £15! There's plenty of bags to be made with that, so watch this space.

Retail Therapy, Part 1

As I mentioned in my previous post this past month has been a hectic one, with some great opportunities for selling my designs and meeting other crafts people. 

I began at the end of November with the Christmas on Hope Street event at Blackburne House. I wouldn't have known about this at all had it not been for the Merseyside Etsy Team, and I'd have missed out on a really lovely event. I have a particular soft spot for Hope Street as I spent three years in a shabby building at the very end of the street while doing my BA, and know the area well. The event itself was a lot bigger than I was expecting even though it only occupied Blackburne House itself and the grounds outside.There was so much to see and do and unfortunately I saw and did very little of it, the pitfalls of going solo to these things, there's never a good chance to look around. I did manage to pick up a couple of treasures for myself, and heard good things about the rest of the event from friends who stopped by for a chat. It was really well attended and brilliantly organised by Orb Events, a great start to the season!

Next up was the Winter Arts Market at St Georges Hall, this was the biggie. I'd heard so much about last years event from other makers, and having been there as a shopper I knew how busy it would get. So I booked a week off the day job to prepare. Excessive? Well, I had holiday to use up!

The Saturday was brilliant, despite the awful weather, and I had a great day, talked to lots of lovely shoppers and had some repeat custom from folks I'd sold to at Hope Street and the L1 fair in September too. Sunday started out much slower and looked to be a bit of a disappointment, but I had a bit of a peak later in the afternoon, most noticeably when I sold both my upcycled muffs! These were some of the first things I ever made and never failed to get compliments when I've had them at fairs, but they never sold. I even had a conversation with my boyfriend on the Saturday night and he said I should just accept that now was not the time for muffs. Proved him wrong! Overall I had a fantastic weekend and I'd love to do more fairs with Open Culture in the future.

I rounded off my trio of fairs with the Made Here Chistmas Market on Bold Street. As ever this was a lovely event to do, the organisers do a great job, the location is brilliant and the other stall holders are always wonderful. This time round I even had a surprise visit from my sister bearing christmas presents and a hangover!

Hopefully next year will bring many more opportunities like these, so I'd better get making!

Retail Therapy, Part 2: Handmade highlights in my Christmas shopping, coming soon...

Grand Days Out

Last weekend was a very inspiring one for me, with trips to both the Liverpool Design Show and Capstans Bazaar, how great is it that both these events were happening in the city on the same weekend?

Hand printed linens, woven in Burnley, by Thorody.

I will admit I was a little apprehensive of the Design show, I tend to associate 'design' with a harder, more clinical aesthetic, as opposed to the obvious human input in works we describe as 'craft' or 'art'. But that's just my own prejudice, and how wrong was I?! The Design show was a great mix of furniture, jewellery, fashion, textiles and home wares, from individual designers, makers and studio groups, some of whom were there in person presenting their own work.

The standout exhibitors for me were mainly textile practitioners. Orwell and Goode, who's beautiful stag print fabrics, prints and home wares make me drool every time I see them, had a beautifully abundant stand with a huge range of products on offer, if money were no object my flat would be a shrine to all things stag. Thorody had the advantage of being the first stand you saw on entering the hall, and also had the joy of being situated by the exposed tile flooring the hall is famous for. The colours and textures in their hand printed linens looked beautiful beside the Minton tiled floor.

One of Katie Heeks' beautiful 3d gardens.

North-West based designers Katie Heeks and Faye Power both had beautiful work on display, and both had special interest for me as they were using fabric designs I've used myself, it's always interesting to see how other people use the same materials in different ways. Katie Heeks' beautiful  3D scenes, made of fabric laminated plywood were magical and fragile looking in kaleidoscopic colours and textures. Faye Powers textiles and ceramics were beautiful combinations of hand illustration and collage techniques, simple but striking.

Slightly outside of my usual sphere of interest was the jeweller Alice Bo-Wen Chang. Alice's mind-blowingly intricate, sculptural designs appealed to the bit of me that enjoys making 1:25 scale models of tables and chairs (not just for fun you understand, but for my secret life as a theatre designer). Her training as an architect is apparent in the precision and rigour of her work, as well as the manipulation of space and line.

I made a comparatively brief visit to Capstans Bazaar I'm afraid, might have been the lack of cake in my system, or the ill boyfriend I had dragged along with me, but a quick whizz around was all I could muster, that's not to say there wasn't some great work on display here too though. Purlesque, Becka Griffin, Snap and Dazzle and Panda Perdu to name a few. Next time I will make a day of it, drink copious tea, get my weekly cake ration in (preferably Leaf's amazing chocolate brownies, or cheesecake, or lemon cake....) and enjoy a leisurely stroll round!