Friday Folksy Finds - Autumn Choices

I want to share five Friday Folksy Finds, these are gifts or jewellery or just simply lovely items that have taken my eye over the last week on Folksy.  I am going to try and do this most Fridays, pick a theme and look for gorgeous things in the Folksy Marketplace. As a maker it does you good to look at others work, to give you inspiration or just good colour combination.  Sharing it with you all will make me look all the harder. This week I wanted to find Autumn picks because walking through the park this morning, its still so warm and we still have the most amazing colour up here.  The beech stands are just glowing, so with that in mind here are my five finds.


A delicate delight by Indie-Pendant

I don't wear jewellery but the pendant is so sweet and such good colours for this time of year.  The rich colours give it vintage feel and the name of the shop is wonderful.


Pretty Autumn Leaves by Oh My Craft

The leaf mats are so delicate, you wouldn't to use them as doilies for ornaments they are too lovely to place anything on top of them.  I would like several to scatter on an old reclaimed bookshelf we have to add a little interest amidst the chaos of the books and wooden pieces we have.  The colours are really good.


This is so scrumptious by Penny Jane Designs

 I am completely in love with this scarf, it looks so warm and so stylish as well.  I like felted gifts, I have been given a few and have made a few myself.  Wet felting is a very therapeutic if hard on the hands and lower back, but warm wet soapy wool is lovely to handle, the smell is pretty good too.  I think this scarf is gorgeous, bright orange against the warm moss green is so autumnal, the scarf seems to glow.


Wonderful quilled leaves by Victoria Brewer

Quilling seems to be making a come back, with modern designs and vibrant colours these leaves are really fun and very contemporary.  I think one or two hung at windows in the sun, the little shish mirrors just catching the sun would be a lovely touch to any room, particularly my work cabin which get all the morning sun!


A foxy whiskered gentleman by Seaforth Designs

I think this fox cushion is just great, love all the muted tweeds setting off the burnt orange of his face, all Seaforth Design cushions have a good combinations of textured fabric to give a really robust country look.


 If any of these gorgeous hand made gifts takes your fancy they are all to be found by the shop names attached to each picture.        

Astley Park Autumn Embroidery

I am just getting ready to start a new batch of orders and am spending so much time behind my sewing machine that I am making the effort to walk for an hour each day.  This has made me so in touch with my local park in autumn and I have come to love the rambles through the woodland and visits to the exhibitions there, they even have a great coffee shop that does a wonderful cappuccino, a real treat after a brisk walk.  The warm autumn weather has made such an amazing colourscape that it has left me breathless at times just in love with the woodlands again.  Having really missed contact with the wider natural world I have spent this weekend just playing with autumn coloured threads and canvas making an embroidered woodland path through Astley Park.  I find free embroidery really relaxing, you cannot do it wrong, the needle and canvas just responds to your mood and with a vague outline you can follow the threads.  It allows you to play with all those gorgeous threads that you have in your stash that can only by used in free embroidery and couched and pinned.  I started this little embroidery with a piece of Quaker Cloth and painted it with gouache, I then overlaid fly stitch, chain stitch and knots to raise the surface and make the textures.  The design is to represent a path through the woodland as well as an outline of the layout of the park.  We are so lucky to live so close to such a great resource, our garden backs onto the park so we literally have to step out of our garden gate and after a quick walk we are into the heart of the park.  Our local borough have made huge improvements over the last few years and if you are in Chorley I can heartily recommend a saunter through Astley Park and the lemon curd cake at the Cafe Ambio .

 

Lovely Photo of Astley Hall by John Cobham

Ancient Rag Doll and a Grand Day Out

Hello to everyone, I have had a busy few weeks, I am on top of my orders now and getting ready for Christmas.  Both Becca and I needed a day to ourselves so we took advantage of cheap tickets and went to the British Museum in London for the day.  Wonderful to spend the day just wandering from amazing room to amazing room, saw lots of fascinating things but this little doll in the Greek and Roman Life room (Room 69) made me hold my breath.  She is a cloth doll from around 100 to 500 AD and she has survived all this time.  Most fabric decays and falls away but to find a little girl's plaything from so long ago is quite lovely.  She is Egyptian made and is formed from coarse linen and stuffed with papyrus and rags.  There are vestiges of wool still attached, so maybe she had an embroidered face and little blue beads that suggest there was hair ornament.  She survived because she was in a particularly dry place in Egypt, which helps preserve organic materials.  When I looked her up on the website, it explained that dolls were as popular then as now and that childrens' play doll could be made of cloth, wood, bone and fired clay.  But cloth dolls are close to my heart and I was very pleased to find her.

Another toy that caught my eye was this wooden cat with a movable mouth. You pull the string up and down, there are even little bronze teeth!  Again he is Egyptian and can be seen in Room 61.  For anyone like me, a child at heart, along with exhibits of great significance and with heavy meaning there are puppets from all over the world, toy theatres, tiny doll's house furniture and incredible kites of all things.  I can heartily recommend the little cafe in the wonderful atrium, they do a very good cuppa and a nice lemon drizzle cake, not too expensive either. 

Sylvie, a little pink miss.

 This is Sylvie, she is one of my Rhoda dolls and this time I have tried a different outfit for her.  I went for a jeans and tunic and I am quite happy with the result.  The denim fabric is wonderfully soft and comes from the Tilda collection and I got it on sale, even better.  Her pigtails and hat were great challenges.  I made so many plaits until I got two that matched it was quite incredible, you would not believe how hard that was!  Her hat was quite a challenge also, I am not the worlds best crocheter and I wanted it to go to a point but not too much to a point, that took several goes as well.  But, hey I am happy with the result.  Her little leather bag was fun to make and it sits quite well. I am just on with a sister for her before I start a fairy tale project for November.  Hope you are all well and enjoying the autumn colours and darker nights.  I have made pumpkin soup for tea with bacon balmcakes and a rhubarb crumble, it just feels so right. Enjoy the leaves!

A great day out at Ruthin Craft Centre, North Wales

What a lovely day we had, I went primarily to see the work of Julie Arkell, it was a huge collection of her dolls, well over 100. The exhibition is entitled 'Away' or 'ymaith'.  I love her idiosyncratic work, they are so beautifully crafted and this time she has created many original dolls rather than using just found dolls.  Nearly all were embroidered with quirky little comments and many had knitted components or wonderful Welsh hats.  I fell in love with her Welsh crows, in all different sizes, some quite large which is unusual for her.  If you can get to North Wales it is well worth a visit, its a great day out.  I can heartily recommend the cafe, which sources local Welsh foodstuffs and has a really interesting menu.  Not too expensive either.  Also on show in the gallery is an exibition entitled 'Is it wood?' or 'a yw'n bren?' This exhibition was so good, some of the pieces on show were just amazing, artists on show included Peter Archer's glorious vessels, the turned pieces of Eleanor Lakelin and some delightful insect forms by Louise Hibbert.  Rebecca fell in love with the work of Wycliffe Stutchbury which was so very dramatic and imposing.  We are lucky we are just over an hour & a half to Ruthin and make the trip to see most of the exhibitions.  If you can manage to get there do try it, it's really worth.

Thank you to the young man who let me take a picture of the gallery.

Tilly, a rag doll for grown ups.

This is Tilly, she is a tall girl at 16 inches, she is dressed in an old quarter of quilting fabric and has recycled knickers, underskirt and stripy legs.  The dress fabric was a gift from an elderly lady who was shutting down her work room, I think it is from the 1980's but I am not sure. It made a pretty dress anyhow, the collar is from a tiny piece of cotton velvet I had left from a stumpwork piece of peas.  She is holding a little stripy bird and has shell buttons as an embellishment to her dress. This is the last of my stripy shirt fabric, it has been great and so versatile but sadly the rest of David's shirts are ok so I will have to wait. As always she has a hand painted, hand embroidered face and her hair is hand stitched wool tops.  I am loving this colour, its from a range of wool tops by Trimmits, it comes in a tiny bag and is not expensive but has a wonderful range of colours.  This candy pink is my favourite, I just can't get enough of it. It gives the dolls a wonderful warmth to their faces.

Ada and Ida

I would never normally show a customer order because not everyone wants their order on show but this little lady is for my Aunty Eileen and she won't mind.  A few months ago they bought Ida, the name of my grandma and Uncle Stan's mother.  He asked if I would make Ada, Aunty Eileen's mum to sit together with Ida.  This is Ada and she had to have glasses because Mrs Mawdesly always wore glasses her whole life. I wanted to share her with you because I just love the glasses.  After several abortive attemps of my own I asked my awfully clever daughter to help me out.  She just had a quick look at the doll and turned out a wonderful pair of silver glasses made of wire that just fit so well.   They show her eyes off and don't diminish them in any way and they provide such a neat solution, I am very happy and Aunty Eileen loves her.  She is going to sit with Ida in her bedroom. I used a complementary fabric range to the previous doll, using the very pretty Japanese rabbit print but decided to make a different pattern of doll to Ida again so that they complemented each other and didn't match.  I think they look quite good together.