British Craft Trade Fair 2012

Worcestershire Arts Trail

I packed up my studio last Thursday and headed on down to the edge of Herefordshire for the first Worcestershire Arts Trail:

I set up at Blue Ginger Gallery and spent the weekend demonstrating my working processes to the Trail’s visitors. I was nice to be out on location, being away from the workshop gave me a little extra freedom and the shock of being somewhere different brought out some new ideas:

Which will be moving towards finished things soon …

I stayed out in the fresh air for the first 3 days of the Trail before being driven inside by some truly British Bank Holiday rain on Monday. Which just goes to show that you can’t plan everything. Still, the sun came out in the end (thankfully, just in time to pack up) and I bid farewell to Blue Ginger – and their adorable kune kune’s:

Making Bunting … Part Two

Bunting is addictive. I had been warned (by Jenny at Junky Chicken) but clearly I didn’t listen and now I have five meters worth of the stuff! It’s going to make my stand look lovely next weekend, plus, it was lots of fun to make:

Pinning it all

Through the sewing machine

Bond-a-web on the ribbon

Ta-da!

and I even had enough fabric, time and creativity left to do a little machine embroidery and make some envelopes for my letters too:

The beachcombing silversmith …

Well, everyone has to get their materials from somewhere.

It just so happens that my latest range [flotsam] means that I have to scour the odd beach looking for the perfect component. Of course, with weather like today’s it’s no hardship at all!

I went driftwood hunting in Aberaeron, in West Wales, a town where I holidayed as a child. It’s great to think that the work I’m making now is somehow tied to the landscape that’s inspired me since I was small. 

I gathered quite a stack of wood that’ll become handles on spoons, pots and pouring vessels in time for a show at the end of May, at Bleneheim Palace.

Busy Bank Holiday Monday

No sitting around complaining about the bank holiday weather for me, oh no.

Instead I was to be found sanding Tenby Street castings in preparation for Treasure in a couple of weeks. It’s a retail show that’s part of the giant, monster celebration that is London Jewellery Week 2009. It’s exciting to be involved, but since I only found out about the show last week it’s going to be something of a mad scramble to get everything done in time.

Today’s job was to get my rough castings clean and ready to have the findings soldered on tomorrow. It took a little longer than I’d hoped it would but my perfectionist streak comes out when I’m cleaning things and I start to image stratches and dinks where, to a sane person, it’s clear that there aren’t any.

At the end of Treaure-prep, day one, my bench looks like this:

Lots of lovely little castings, lined up during cleaning