Craft Stall debut at Moira Furnace Folk Festival

I like a challenge and there's nothing like a deadline to keep you motivated, and putting together my first craft stall at Moira Furnace Folk Festival, as well as being involved in putting together a creative textiles exhibition provided both of these.

Having just got back from the TSG Summer school, I then had just over 2 weeks to complete my exhibition pieces and to prepare for the craft stall.

So first off I needed to make some items to sell ! - so I had a very intense couple of weeks dyeing calico shopping bags, fat quarters and threads; making brooches & cards; and printing off some knitting patterns.

Next I had to think about how to display it in a 3x3m gazebo and here's the result:

After all that prep & set up I could settle down to enjoying the event. It was lovely chatting to customers who dropped by for a colour and yarn fix. As is usually the case when fellow textile-o-philes get together, many were also very generous in sharing hints' tips and techniques. One lovely lady even demonstrated her rag rugmaking whilst holding on to my gazebo to stop it blowing away in a gale - and that's before entertaining us all with a spirited performance in the national spoons orchestra! - A big thankyou to 'Ballast' Jean - you know who you are :).

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Fast forward to fall

Well that has to be the fastest summer ever! I've been a very busy bee over the last 6 weeks or so, hence the lack of blog posts. So now I need to play catch up......

For a number of years I've been promising myself a 'creative summer' where, rather than go away on holiday, I use my holiday leave to immerse myself in all things creative - and this year I did precisely that.

At the end of July I spent a week at the Textile Study Group's Summer School at Harper Adams Uni in Shropshire. These summer schools are excellent so if you ever get the chance to go I would highly recommend them. They have 3 courses to chose from each year run by exceptional artists/tutors who are   Members of the TSG and leaders in their field. This year I opted to study with Sian Martin working with every day throwaway fragments, bringing them together to make beautiful surfaces to stitch on.

My 'efforts' made in the class

It was a very intensive week, I learned a huge amount, plus it was great to catch up with a few people I'd met last year, such as the lovely Judy Alexander, plus I met some lovely new & very talented folks. You can see some of the other students' work on Sian's blog.

So I arrived home fired up and exhausted at the same time, with just a moment to catch my breath before launching into preparing for the rest of my creative summer events - 2 'firsts' for me: a craft stall at Moira Folk Festival; and the launch of the Stitches Coven exhibition in Swansea, which I'll tell you about in my next post or two.