Warwickshire Open Studios Summer Event 2014 opening night

Having no reputation to worry about, this year I decided to sign up for the Warwickshire Open Studios Summer Event. In preparation for the actual event, the organizers run workshops on marketing arts and crafts, which at the same time are an excellent opportunity to meet fellow art and crafts people - I will write more about them.
Last Friday was an Opening night at the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum,which I think went great. The exhibition will be on until the 12th of June, displaying the work of 80+ artists and craftsmen/women from around Warwickshire. My grey doll was perched among beautiful pieces of jewellery and ceramics - so proud! :)

Unfortunately, I don't have the booklet with a list of all the exhibits, so I'll have to wait posting pictures of other people's work until I know who it belongs to and can give a proper credit to the authors.

Doll-making

Almost two years passed since the last post... During this time, my accessory-making developed into doll-making, and so the blog is undergoing a metamorphosis. So many things I want to share! Now I just have to be disciplined and write regularly, rather than make ten posts in one day and then stop for another two years...


To start with, here is a group of dolls to justify the new name for the blog:

Green crochet scarf and brooch

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Here is the scarf! It wasn’t difficult at all, actually. I remember thinking when I was a student that I would never ever have the patience to finish a large crochet project. It took me 7 years to finish a flower poncho, and now - what a progress! – the scarf took only a couple of weeks in total. It took several goes of undoing the stitches because of mistakes (making triangles or pentagons instead of squares, or starting a new row along the long side of the scarf instead of the short), but luckily I never had to undo more than one row.  When it was finished, I still dreaded spreading it out – what if there was a triangle lurking somewhere in the middle?

Since the scarf is quite dark, I thought it needed something to it. So I’ve also made a flower brooch in a lighter green shade. This Gluis Yarn is hand-spun by a local crafter (http://gluisyarn.weebly.com) and can be purchased in small skeins in a variety of colours. 

Style: Art Deco black cat

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One of the advices that I keep coming across when reading about selling crafts is this: make the shop consistent, develop a recognizable style. I can see that many of the successful shops do indeed look consistent: matching colours and patterns, defined sets of materials.

It’s very difficult though to apply this to myself, the simple reason being that I like variety in what I do. Crocheting for a couple of weeks, then hand-stitching cute felt things, then machine-sewing something less cute, more stylish (or so I say to myself), like iPad covers. Then – gemstone and bead jewellery. Then painting paper-mache boxes. Can it really be true that I have to pick just one and drop all the rest, or open one shop per each type of items I produce?

Maybe it’s a question of time. Maybe one gets fed up with many styles but one – probably the one that best reflects the personality?

Please share your story! Have you settled on one type and/or style, and if yes – how did it happen?

On the practical side: this is my Art Deco black cat, made from upcycled (or recycled?) wool fabric. It is 38 cm tall. I was considering giving it long eyelashes, but then its face would look like Bratz doll’s, and that was NOT what I wanted. As it is, it looks thoughtful and peaceful – I was actually pleased that I managed to give it the intended expression.

On even more practical side: the cat itself and the the PDF pattern are available for sale in my ETSY shop.

Crochet net scarf in making

Recently I found myself drowning in crafts supplies.  Even trying to be super-organized doesn’t help – not that I manage that very well either! Which means that either my storage system needs revision, or that I need to make more beautiful/pretty/cute/useful creations and find new homes for them. Here is a project I am doing to help with the overflow. I had two skeins of very soft and fluffy yarn (50% merino wool, 50% acrylic) in a beautiful green colour, so I decided to crochet a net scarf. The inspiration came from here - thank you to Olga! It’s very easy to make, and the best of all is that it grows very quickly, I’ve used up one skein already. The pictures of the finished scarf to follow!