I took Friday off to have a good look round Abingdon Crafts for Christmas. I go every year but this year I knew that Vikki Lafford (now Vikki Lafford Garside) and her amazing machine embroidery creations would be there. I had to find her! I first came across Vikki’s work in the Cornerstone in Didcot, we were Read more about Abingdon Crafts for Christmas Fair[…]
This weekend I completed my second stained glass class under the expert tutorage of Sarah Glover. Before going to the class I was unsure what I wanted to make, at my first class I was convinced that I wanted to do an owl but this time I was torn between a mythical dragon (I blame Read more about Second stained glass class[…]
We are off to a wedding on Friday as Jam’s cousin Adam marries his Fiancée Vicki (all the best people are called Vikki you see 🙂 ). Nanna O.B (Jam’s nanna) has picked a very sparkly outfit for the occasion and mentioned to me a while ago that she would quite like a fascinator to Read more about My first foray into facinators[…]
At the weekend I set aside some time to do the final big process on my wild boar puppet. The labour intensive needle felting was complete and all of his body was of the same stiffness and the metal core that the wool was built around had all been sufficiently hidden. The last big part Read more about Piggy progress[…]
I bought the wood for my puppets a couple of weeks ago, but we’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to start carving them. With the puppet challenge finishing at the end of this month now would seem a very good time to start! First order of the day was to create a scale Read more about The beginning of carving in earnest[…]
I’ve been squirreling away at my desk these past few weeks which is why the blog has been a bit quiet (that and I’ve got a few gig reviews to put up but they are somewhat still ‘coming together’ & so far all I can say about them is that they were awesome, must try Read more about Just like that my first lot of made things heads out into the world[…]
This week at work I was lucky enough to attend an event as part of the World Literacy Summit held in Oxford. It was the UK launch of the Jane Austen foundation and a talk by Jane Austen’s fifth great nice Caroline Jane Knight. Caroline spoke at length about growing up on the Chawton estate in Hampshire as Read more about Austen and Easter break[…]
This weekend at the Ashmolean was the last viewing of the Henry Moore and Francis Bacon exhibition that has recently been held there. While that exhibition was drawing to a close however a selection of bejewelled loveliness created by renowned goldsmith Kevin Coates was just opening. Zoe and I headed along to see the pieces. Read more about The bejewelled world of Kevin Coates[…]
Before Christmas along the corridors of work I started noticing small blue and green posters asking if I had plans for the New Year? At that point I knew that 2014 was going to be an epic year but I wasn’t sure how exactly that was going to happen. Enter stage right the New Years Read more about Time for a few more resolutions….[…]
A new year and time for a new challenge! Just before Christmas I saw the call for participants in the puppet challenge over on Clive Hicks-Jenkins artlog, a puppet challenge being curated by Peter Slight, the theme of the challenge is fairy tales, folk tales & myths. I was thinking I might come across inspiration in my new Read more about The puppet challenge – the beginning[…]