London, back to nature and Arts Week

It's been another busy few days. After nearly a week of being stuck in with chicken-pox-ridden girl and no holiday, we went stir-crazy on Good Friday and booked an apartment in London for the weekend. How different from the shopathons I used to do in London before children! Instead of trying to look cool and not catching anyone's eye on the tube, we had to talk about every little detail of our journey with two fascinated children. All the sights and then the Natural History Museum. But offering treats for children who tried lots of new foods, we managed to get a hint of the old London trips: dim sum in Chinatown, a lovely Bombay-style breakfast in Dishoom and, most enduring in my memory, after children's bedtime, takeaways from Wahaca, burritos, tacos, guacamole and salsa vibrant with flavour and texture and colour and freshness. A new Mexican cookbook and an authentic variety of different chillies and Mexican condiments requested for my birthday treat as a result.

An early but proper birthday treat today from my dear friend Laura: a huge wodge (is that the proper collective noun do you think?) of 4 different natural coloured Shetland wools for felting. We wrestled with thoughts of dragging our children out into the bitter wind to the park but after a while we realised that we were the only ones in need of something to do and we succumbed to our felting urge. The colours of the Shetland wool made me think of a book I have seen by Andrea Hunter with wonderful monochrome felted pictures almost reminiscent of charcoal drawings. I was thinking a lot about her wintry trees. Someone a while ago suggested I did trees but I wasn't sure how until today. Here is what I produced...

I am quite pleased with the dark tree but need to think about what to do with the all too sparse background. A little stitching here or there might go a long way. The Shetland wool is rather endearing too; it felts well, and has a very authentic sheepy smell. Bizarrely after cooking dinner and several hand washes, my hands were still smelling of lanolin and were dramatically well hydrated and smoother than normal. Can I find a way of felting with my face?!

North Somerset Arts Week is going great guns; brochures have been printed and I picked up 28 boxes (1120 brochures in total) this morning to circulate to the other artists; 27 more boxes tomorrow with luck. And the other day I got my cards back from Moo to sell during Arts week:-

I am really pleased with them. And the backs:-

Just a little bit daunted now - the brochures are out with my name in, no backing out now! Not so much Arts Week as Judgement Week...