Handmade Market – Kenilworth

I spent Saturday having a lovely time at the Handmade Market in the gorgeous castle town of Kenilworth.

It’s a brand new venture set up by Amy (of Amos Denton Designs) and Julia (of Bodkin and Bead) who recognised (and quite rightly too) that there’s not a whole lot going in in the Warwickshire craft world. Some new markets have sprung up in the Midlands in the last few years and it’s really encourging to see that they’re being well recieved.

This weekends market was the first and I was pleasantly suprised about how many people made the short walk out of the Town Centre to St Johns Church to visit. The market featured a small but really well balanced selection of makers including:

Amos Denton Designs

and me ... obviously

The markets will now be held monthly so do pop along on the 12th of March to have a look at who’s exhibiting then.

Handmade Market, Kenilworth

I’m packing up today for the new Handmade Market in Kenilworth, Warwickshire tomorrow.

It’s really exciting to be doing something so local for a change and I hope that it’ll be really well supported. Do come along if you’re about:

 

Portholes …

An idea I’m playing with …

Porthole Locket Experiment

Mineral Watch Glass

Creating the Setting

Soldering the setting

Porthole Locket Experiment

Crescent Pendant Commission

Occasionally I make things to order. Usually it’s for people I know but sometimes I meet someone at a show or they contact me through my website, we draw something up and, well, I make it.

I find that most people like the overall style of my work but want something with a specific twist that makes it more them – and it’s always interesting to see where they take the work. Sometimes a little unexpected inspiration pushes you in a new direction.

So, last week Mr W informed me that a friends birthday was coming up, he’d had a think about it, and he’d like me to make this:

Crescent Sketch

Now, obviously sketches for clients aren’t usually this informal -but that’s what he gave me.

It’s based on the form of a crescent moon and (happily) makes use of the lovely new disc cutter. The basic body of it was a fairly simple set of silver domes, cut to a crescent shape, but the slice that fits between them was slightly more complicated. It took at lot of fitting and careful tapping on mandrels to get it to the correct size/profile but it was so worh it.

Have a look at the finished piece:

Crescent Pendant - Side View

and some in process images too:

Crescent Sketch

Two symmetrical halves

Fitting the side piece

Crescent Front View

The disc cutter from Albuquerque

Albie

Meet Albie, my Christmas present to myself.

Too long have I perservered with a cheap, ineffective and badly made disc cutter which ruins a good 15% of the blanks it cuts.

Well, no more. I have finally given in and Albie, an American immigrant, arrived in the studio last week. He came from RioGrande, the Cooksons of the USA, and I had to restrain myself from buying a lot of the other lovely clever tools they have too.

He cuts perfect circles and will be assisting me soon in the making of some new Flotsam pieces, plus a few other ideas that I’ve been mulling over for a while …

Albie in action

Flux covered copper beads

Copper domes

Stamp, stamp, stamp