Bunnies & Bunnykins

So far the weekend has been filled with bunny activities of one sort or another.


In the last 3 years of living here I have watched the antics of the same rabbit family in the garden areas to the front and back of the house. Mother rabbit is a sweet looking creature and more gingery in colour than Father rabbit. He is a bit more grey and has a dark mark across his nose as if he's been thumped about a bit. There have been many ups and downs, what with rats taking their babies the other year and willie the weasel bounces by occasionally when the baby rabbits are fresh on the scene, along with an owl. 
This year there are noticeably less rats and the rabbit family seem to be doing ok. Mother rabbit has had one litter and in the last couple of days she has re-dug out an old burrow in our back garden and yesterday I saw 2 babies pop out of the hole for the first time. I think you will make them out on the picture if you follow the arrows. They are just so cute bouncing around the garden and quite addictive to watch once you start.


The other rabbit tale so to speak was a rather unusual call from a lady asking if I would be interested in painting Bunnykins characters on vintage prams she is restoring. I wasn't sure if this is something I can do so I've had a go at copying and whilst it's been quite easy to do on paper with acrylics I'm really not sure if I could do it on the side of a metal pram in enamels to get the same painterly effect. I would also be concerned with the copyright issue so there is much to think about here.

Anyone heard cuckoo yet?

Last year I made a note in my diary when I first heard cuckoo and it was April 24th. Since the 24th this year I have been eagerly listening out for that most spring like sound of the cuckoo call. I actually thought with all this fine weather over the last fortnight that cuckoo would be here but it seems not.


I'll keep listening out and report back when I have evidence!

New Hornsea pots for my collection

Met an old work colleague for lunch yesterday and had a nice few hours shopping & catching up as we didn't get to meet at Christmas what with the weather putting stop to it.


Anyway I had a lucky find in one of the charity shops in Beverley and scooped up these Hornsea cups & saucers from the Concept range in dove grey & cream. There were just 3 cups and 4 saucers but in immaculate condition and Concept is something new for my collection.
Concept was produced from 1977 - 1991 and was designed to succeed Contrast. It used the same vitrified technique as the Contrast pots to give it that highly polished look which the glaze alone does not capture.
Concept was so successful that it won many design awards and was in huge demand around the world during the 80's.


It is still relatively easy to find and now I just need to find a single cup to complete this set.
Should look really nice if I can do a coffee and some latte art in the cup!

Easter baking, better late than never!!

I was too busy with the art exhibition to get my baking done before Easter so the first opportunity to produce some nice food was today. I feel like I've been baking and preparing all day, well I have been at it most of the day so I'm looking forward to a veritable feast shortly!


Actually, I made the brownies yesterday as we'd had a delivery of coffee beans so they were essential to go with a latte! The brownie recipe was the ultimate brownies from the Womans Hour show, I swapped the rice flour for ground almonds and they are equally delicious. Here's the link:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/womans-hour/cooktheperfect/perfect/brownies/



The other photos as we go down are:


Black olive & tomato tart


Veggie spring rolls and there's dip I made to go with them (not shown, in fridge!) which is coconut cream with ginger, garlic, lime, chilli & soy sauce. It's fab, they are a bit of a faff to do so I reserve my spring rolls and dip for the likes of Christmas & Easter which makes them feel special.


Courgette cake with lemon cheese frosting (bit runny in heat!)


Mini baked lemon cheesecakes, decorated with choccies my sis brought over from Lorettes chocolatier in Brussels.
Time to go eat I think!!!


Happy Easter all.

Scarborough, high tide, scooters, gardens

Had an early morning run to Scarborough yesterday to avoid the crowds of day trippers. It was quite an interesting visit because the tide was in and extremely high, must've been one of the spring high tides. I always find it mesmerising just watching the waves roll in.


The wave watching was down at the quiet & tranquil southern end of Scarborough. The walk into town along the front soon started to get noisy as a vintage scooter rally was on this weekend. Lots of Vespas & Lambrettas, fish tail parkers, ageing Mods all having great fun gathering down by the beach. Saw some fab  coloured scooters, two tone, chrome and mirrors glistening. Classic seaside bank holiday event!


Finally peace was restored again with a stroll back through the Italian gardens which I had not discovered before. The only sound was bird song.... lovely!

Sledmere - sneak preview

The exhibition is set up following much running up and down flights of stairs with easels yesterday. It looks really good, we seem to have a good mix of work and most are very reasonable prices.
Looking forward to the preview tonight as the weather is still being kind to us.

Networking evening in Hornsea

Last night our networking group met in Hornsea, 4 of the Hornsea members put on the hospitality. We started off in Andrea's wedding and gift boutique, hopped next door to Fran's boutique and finished up in Sharon's hair salon where Selina was having an exhibiton of her animal portraits.


It was a lovely evening, different to our usual format and we had a great time with plenty of soft drinks, cupcakes and other nibbles and a bit of retail therapy thrown in!


Next month we are speed networking in Bishop Burton village hall.

http://www.andallthingsnice.net/

http://www.jinglesboutique.co.uk/

http://www.selinafennell.co.uk/

My Folksy shop is open for business, yippee!

After a fair bit of sorting out today I am happy to reveal that my Folksy shop is stocked and open for business.
My shop is called Fabric Mountain which relates to the mound of fabric I have in my workroom. I also thought it was nice because I like fabric & I like mountains!


Over the weekend I had been working on the new image I wanted for my shop banner and the shop name lead me to create a fabric collage, see below.
I was so excited and keen to get the shop open that I've got going with just a few brooches for now but more will follow when I get chance.


Hope you enjoy having a look around.


www.folksy.com/shops/fabricmountain

Folksy shop ready to launch soon

It's been a busy day. Started off by going to an open day at my friends stamping & crafting studio in Bishop Burton where I bought a couple of new stamps and some very good value glue tape dispensers.


Was home for lunch and have spent most of the afternoon finishing the design for the banner which will be the new corporate image for my Folksy shop.
Took ages writing a description only to find I'd written too much and I spent equally long trying to edit it.
Anyway it's done, the shop is created and all will be revealed soon when I'm ready to stock the shop with my first few items.


Here are a couple of sneak preview images of my new identity, wonder if anyone can guess the shop's name?!


Now all I need to do is familiarise myself with how Twitter works as I've not really had any interest in it thus far as I find nothing more boring than people tweeting what they've had for tea or I'm on a train going to sew n sew! I do however think it is useful for small businesses to notify followers of new stock, forthcoming events etc. So, just need to get a Twitter account to run alongside the Folksy shop.

Rabbits with dresses!

I managed to add a few trimmings to my bunny rabbits yesterday despite sneaking out to Scarborough for a walk whilst the weather was nice.
I think my favourite rabbit is the one in the single photo.

A few more rabbits

I have had these little rabbity creatures on the go for a while now so yesterday I got them finished. In an attempt to make them look more cute I am going to add some clothes & trimmings when I get my sewing machine out today.


I'm a frustrated crafts person at the moment, because I've got so much design work  in, I'm struggling to get going with an idea to open a Folksy shop. I had considered this for some time as I have quite a bit of stock built up from the cancelled christmas craft fair and I will also hope to sell bits of my surplus vintage fabric. I just need some time to make a nice looking shop banner so hopefully I'm going to get that into action this weekend.

Sledmere Exhibition 22 Apr - 17 June

I've just been mounting my paper and textile brooches ready for the exhibition at Sledmere House next week. I'm helping to set the exhibition up, all the work is going to be free standing (on easels) in the room to which provided inspiration for the artwork.
25 artists have produced just over 70 pieces of work and the exhibition called Ways of Seeing runs for a couple of months.


Check Sledmere opening times and admission prices before making the journey.


www.sledmerehouse.com

New & old textiles

The open exhibition at the Ferens has finished so I went to collect my unsold picture yesterday. With making the trip to Hull I decided to make the most of the use of petrol and did some shopping. 

I found this lovely seed pod patterned quilt which is part of the new bedding range at Asda.

Walked past just one charity shop on the way to the car and happened across these vintage Austrian placemats and coasters. I love these Tirol style designs and will probably re-craft them into something else.

Hornsea Pottery fabric purse

Just recording a 'make' which is no longer in my possession as it was a one off.


I had some fabric printed with my version of the classic Hornsea Heirloom design and I made this little pouch purse. In keeping with the 60's theme of the Heirloom pots I lined the purse in some vintage 60's barkcloth in groovy brown & orange.


The purse was my donation for a raffle prize at the Hornsea Pottery AGM the other day. I thought it might draw a bit of interest as 1. you never get any hand made gifts donated and 2. people usually bring boring things like wine & boxes of sweets & biscuits. 
It surprised me that no one seemed a bit interested in it. It was one of the raffles were each time a ticket is drawn you go up to the prize table and choose anything and embarrassingly my little purse was the very last thing to be taken. I think people were only interested in the food & drink as I saw a few turned up noses looking at the purse as if to say 'what's that'!


It kind of tells me not to bother going to such effort another time.

Last few Wales pictures

I am just cataloguing a few final photos of my Wales trip.
From top to bottom we have some ruined buildings from quarrying/mining in the Elan Valley Powys.
The lovely ice cream coloured buildings of Georgian town Aberaeron, followed by a couple of dollops of the famous honey ice cream from the honey farm up the road from Aberaeron.


The next 2 pics are tropical Tenby! It turned wet after those photos but you can see through the palm trees across to Caldey Island.


And finally, a trip to Wales wouldn't be complete without Welsh Cakes!

Hornsea Pottery AGM 2011

Today was the Hornsea Pottery Research & Collectors AGM and spring meeting in Hornsea.
This year there didn't seem to be as many stalls selling collectables and what was there wasn't the type of stuff to add to my collection. However I did buy these 2 egg cups for £1.


Again, not much of interest in the auction but the one thing I was interested in (and successfully bid for) was this collection of leaflets and promotional material. As an avid leaflet collector, a designer interested in typography and a Hornsea collector, these were right up my street. New projects and ideas may come from these bits of paper.


After the meeting we get to visit the museum free of charge so I headed across for yet another visit as the pottery collection is so inspiring. Plus, the promotional material I had bid for was donated by the museum and Dr. Walker of the museum kindly gave me some extra leaflets to add to my collection. I also saw behind the scenes and wow it's like an aladdins cave of Hornsea pots, moulds, samples, glazes etc.
I gather the museum is hoping to get involved with a future project involving the railway station so I have offered my services if they need any promotional railway style posters or literature for the funding bid.