A workshop with Julie Arkell

I was very very excited a couple of months ago when I spotted a listing in Craft Magazine for a solo show of Julie Arkell's work. I rang up the gallery straight away and asked if any talks or workshops were planned, it turned out they were running a brooch making workshop for just £20. I booked it there and then - before they'd even put it on the website!

I'm a big fan of Julie's work, it's charming, funny, a little dark in places, and best of all it's mostly made with paper and glue.

The only problem was the workshop and exhibition were in Liverpool, which meant a very early start, on the Sunday that the clocks changed which made it feel even earlier!

I arrived at Bluecoat Display Centre a little bleary, and was stunned at what a lovely place it is, a real community arts space. It's been there since the 50s and is fabulous, I'd LOVE a place like it near me!

And the exhibition of Julie Arkell's work was just utterly charming.

After a little talk by Julie we went to the workshops space to get making. 

The brooches were in a style inspired by one Julie had seen at the Imperial War Museum, and were made in a wonderfully simple and effective way. 

We cut a shape from cardboard, wrapped it with wool, then stitched fabric to it. Then embellishments could be added.

The results were really lovely.

With the workshop over I headed back for another wander around the exhibition, and found what is my favourite little bit of Arkell embroidery so far - 

I throughly recommend paying the Bluecoat a visit!

Duckpond Market

Well I did it! My first art/craft market! It was a great day, so friendly and some wonderful stalls. I had a bit of a crisis the night before when I realised that no table was provided, but with some creative improvisation I got around not having anything to use (thank you to Mr Roselullabydolls for stopping me from panicking for long enough to think something up!)

I sold 2 dolls and and plenty of postcards, there was also a lot of interest in my portrait dolls, I'm very glad I put together some literature to give to people about them.

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I didn't sell a single brooch though, which I was rather disappointed about, but I think I need to look at how I present them, I'm not sure that many people realised what they were, and I was so busy talking to everyone about portraits that I didn't explain them.

I'm really looking forward to next week up in Cambridge, and next month back at Duckpond!

Liberty's and dolls-houses

In a couple of weeks I'm going to be showing my dolls to some of the buyers for Liberty's of London, which is rather exciting and terrifying!
I spent an hour or so in there yesterday wandering around, I hadn't been in for a couple of years and had forgotten what an utterly gorgeous place it is. The fabric/yarn/haberdashery department was predictably the section I gravitated towards, and oh my the things I found there! Vintage glass jars full of beautiful fabric covered buttons, a yarn selection I just wanted to jump into and snuggle up in, a selection of ribbons and trimmings to die for and of course the fabric...Oh the fabric!
I umm-ed and ah-ed for quite some time but eventually settled on a couple of pieces of liberty tana lawn. This is one, the other is covered with line drawings of Elizabethan sailing ships.




I can't wait to use these fabrics to make some special Liberty dolls!

Today my cardboard dolls houses arrived, which I'm also thrilled with. I got them from Oxfam's January sale and they're just fabulous.




I'm going to cover them in ivory tissue paper and use them to display my dolls at exhibitions and shows. I have plans to create a whole village for my summer exhibition, with these as the 3 main houses filled with dolls going about their business, surrounded by lots of little houses with one or two dolls in and some fabric hills with trees on and dolls on swings hanging from their branches.
I've got a million ideas swimming around my head at the moment, I could just do with the time to realise all my plans!