photo: pages from my weekend sketchbook
Hello again, hope you are well.
Last weekend was a special sketchbook weekend - the basic challenge being to fill a sketchbook (any, of the artist’s choosing) with work that embraced playfulness rather than perfection. A fine group of us managed to produce a wide variety of sketchbook pages. We are now sharing the pages as a private, supportive and friendly group - it is a delight to see what everyone else accomplished over just a weekend. I am quite humbled by this group of artists and what they have enjoyed making and sharing. A public thanks to all who signed up and worked in your sketchbooks.
I hope there may be future sketchbook events and more details will be shared here.
meanwhile, here are a few more glimpses at the small book I made last weekend:
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The Velvet Saga - it sounds like an Agatha Christie or Daphne du Maurier book that never got published. All I can say is my story is not so fanciful or mysterious, but does lend me the opportunity to say a bit about the need for the right thing.
I should begin by explaining that a few weeks ago I found a box of cat bodies in my cupboard. The cat bodies were sewn in black velvet (no real cats harmed) and had been left ‘for another day’, a few years ago. I chanced upon them and it seemed like just the time to complete these soft, curious characters. So I did just that - you may have seen photos on Instagram/ in my shop. They received a very good response from people, so much so that I have been asked to make more. (I was going to have to make at least a few more, because I sold all the cats and needed a few for myself.)
And so it was that I went about getting more cotton velvet. Now, the original cats began their handcrafted lives at least a few years ago, but I thought to myself: just search your emails and find out where you ordered the velvet from. Got it. A store I buy from often. But now: they had no stock, no velvet at all. Oh dear, but black cotton velvet is - black cotton velvet, right?
I ordered fabric from a different supplier. It came swiftly. It was not what I would call velvet. Sort of velvet, maybe. A kind of suede-ish, moleskin-ish stuff. I could make cats with it. But they would not be the velvet cats of my dreams. Disappointed but determined, I went to yet another supplier - read their description of ‘luxurious, rich velvet’ and spent more money.
Photo: recently sold cats.
Yep, you know how this story is going. Days are now going by. No velvet. More velvet ordered. Well, plenty of velvet actually - but not the right velvet! I was not at all tempted to make cats, no. I went to my local bricks-and-mortar store but they had no black velvet…
To me having the right materials is crucial. Does not matter if it is the right paper, paint, glue, thread, cloth. It needs to be the quality I want to use. Not only because I like to work with the materials that feels right in my hands, but of course I want to offer my customers the best too.
It has been a little daunting, but I am happy to report a package arrived about coffee time Friday and it contained just the right black velvet. My son was home and acted as quality control back-up - yes, he said, that’s cat fabric. And then by the time my daughter was home from work I had a cat (yet to be stuffed) to show her and she said: yes that’s a cat, finally!
I am now glad to inform you that cats are coming. There will be a few in my shop next Wednesday and more as and when they are ready. (You can’t hurry a cat.) Whilst waiting on the right velvet, I was given the opportunity to design and make new cloth dolls - and these are still coming together but will also arrive in my shop as they are ready. So, in a way, the delay in cats has been good for other things. I am very happy with the new dolls and look forward to sharing them with you. And the less-than-cat-worthy velvet will get used for something else, or returned.
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Daily Drawings - A few days ago I started a new series of daily drawings. These will be added to my shop at midday each day. I’ll also be posting to my stories and/or main feed on Instagram. There may be many days when I share a new drawing on paper, but I am also including stitch drawings now and then. Indeed, there will be a stitch drawing as today’s daily drawing! I am going with the flow of ideas and will see how this series develops. Thanks always.
Photo: today’s ‘daily drawing’ - is a small portrait in stitch, made using my sewing machine as a drawing tool - will be in my shop at 12 noon.
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A few small stories from the past few weeks
It does not take me long to realise I am sitting on a nest of tiny spiders. Somehow or other I think, in this moment, they will scurry away and no real harm done. Knowing I have probably been the cause of a major baby spider incident, however unintentional, is not a good start to my drawing session. I’ve come outside with my drawing kit and pad, thinking twenty minutes of fresh air and pencil work might just be a good thing as a prelude to stitching on my sewing machine. The baby spiders are teeming across my drawing pad as I attempt to work. I shake them, gently, from the spiral binding. I watch one and two and three make an escape along my arm. Where they have come from (the pillow on the chair?) I am not sure. I shake spiders on to a near by pot of herbs. They don’t return.
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Early morning walk and summer sun lends a dreamy calm before the day gets started. The wild blue cornflowers along the path remind me, once again, I would like to grow them in my own tiny garden. A young deer is prancing about on a front lawn. He looks at me, as if disturbed from its dance routine: indignant. Good morning, I say softly. He keeps on dancing.
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Thanks always for reading here, for your kind comments and support. If you would like to buy me a coffee this is always much appreciated.
Cats definitely deserve proper velvet ☺️
I had a similar experience trying to find decent felt a few years ago.