Cluny Craft Market

Look where I'll be selling my wares on the 7th of August! Terrified!

Update

I went to woodfire then I came back and soon I will blog about it. Honest.

Super Fun Reader's Club

My lovely comic book creator boyfriend had me read Garth Ennis's 'Preacher' and I think I should have you read it too. It was awesome. Now on to the entire works of Grant Morrison...

Avoidance technique number 1

Thanks to the panic that has decsended due to my wood firing plan being a driver down, I thought I'd not deal with it and do something else. Maybe a solution will drop out of the clouds. Here I have a vintage scarf and I want to do something fab with it because I'll just loose it otherwise. I have a couple of options.

Option number one

Display it in an emroidery hoop a la Poppytalk

Option number 2

Make a questionable pair of underwear like the brilliant Thrift-Ola

Option number 3

Make a chic patchwork quilt (something I think even sewing idiot me could do) using lots o vintage scarves. This is from the Craft Zine.

I could, of course, get on with tidying my studio and working on pieces whilst sorting out a lift to Keswick but that's unappealing. I'll decide by myself if no one says anything helpful.

Driver wanted

On the 18th I'm taking 3 or four people to the Lake District to wood-fire, it's going to be awesome. But the girl with the car (the aforementioned Leah Dennis) has dropped out. My first instinct is that I've had lots of lessons so maybe I could drive? This seems a flawed plan. So anyone who wants to take three beautiful girls to the Lakes to wood fire their gorgeous pots please step forward!

Happy Camper

The great outdoors! This is my response to the IdeasTap brief on 'Camp'. Not 'On Camp' by Susan Sontag but on 'Camp'- got it? Good.

Modeled on the fabulousity of Miss Leah Dennis this piece was a breeze, a delight, lovely. And the first sitting figure I've made.

Now there's a true pal ladies and gents, not too rock and roll to cling onto a bottle of vinegar to pose for a friend. I hope you all have a Leah in your lives.

The slip I painted her skirt with was yellow when I put it on I swear, I didn't mix it up myself though so I suppose I shouldn't grumble. And it's pretty. But if anyone can explain the yellow-to-pink issue I'd be much obliged. She looks good in the tall grass, like she's at the beach rather than in my back yard.

Part of me wishes I'd made an entire set, but that feels like it could have gone a bit too twee so maybe this is best. She looks like a cheerful adventurer with her cuppa so I'm pleased. It was a real struggle to get her finished in time for the deadline, I was teaching myself how to do something new and it didn't really pan out, you'll note that her legs aren't in the picture? That's because they dried out too fast for me to hollow out so would have crumbled had I tried and exploded in the kiln if I didn't. So I left them out. I suppose I should take another whack at it, get the skills and all that. If anyone knows how to build proper armatures that would be handy, I make big wadges of plastic bag and model around those, which is fine for things like this but for more intricate things I think I may have to break out the glue gun.

You know what they say, no one gets better without criticism so roll up roll up, to punch me in my pride.x.

Figures, huh?

Reasons I couldn't live in London? Number one would be the Victoria and Albert museum. It's just too amazing. I visited on the 29th and although I was supposed to go to the Tate Modern on the 30th somehow I couldn't go anywhere but back to the V & A. I got lost inumerable times but the wonderful collection of ceramics on the top floor overwhelmed me and I got in some great time with some amazing sculptures of figures.

Here are the wonderful Gabriel.

Who doesn't love a bit of allegory?The lovely Truth who ripped out the tongue of Deception and pushed off his pretty mask to reveal he was a bit of a minger. Along with a bit of my budgeting skills.

These two are...well, one of them is a man and the other is a Pharaoh. The man had a really feminine vibe that I wanted to capture. I was looking to find the crumbly texture of the Pharaoh but was distracted by a guide of the British Museum entitled 'The Bible Tour'. I would have thought that would be a tour that simply pointed out items that had some sway over the Christian faith but sounded more like 'This was made by unbelievers, Jehovah said to destroy them, so if you turn to verse 10..." really odd.

I liked doing some drawing, if anyone wants to pose all nudey for me so I can do more, lemme know.x

New Designers

I have been in London! Predominantly to go to New Designers to support Sunderland's third years and get some tips on why to go and how to go. That sentence nearly made sense. I'll do a proper post about it but now for some rubbish mobile phone photos. A-whooo!That's my man. He's tired, his idea of a great holiday is one where you walk for hours and hours and buy longboxes full of comics. So don't let his tired eyes fool you, he's loving it.

The view from our hotel (almost) a couple of steps along the road and we could see the London Eye and the Old Vic and all sorts. Waterloo was wonderful but did cue a weeks worth of me humming/singing 'Waterloo Sunset' have a sing along now, and you'll see why it irritated my man.

This. This. This offending piece of pastry had Daniel and me worried for an entire day of our holiday. It's a cannoli. A delicious Italian pastry. I'll give you a heads up though, usually, they aren't mouldy. They just are from this particular cafe and even there, they aren't supposed to have fur. So cue worrying about my Penicillin allergy and drinking vast quantities of water whilst Daniel googles and asks for help on Twitter, I didn't get ill, which was a nice surprise but it still makes me angry. I'll do a more upbeat London post in a bit because we had a really super time but gosh it's good to get home.