A bit of making at last

A creative urge has come upon me since half term finished. Well it really needed to; three people asked me, in the week before, how my preparations for Arts Week were going. Arts Week? Nah, ages yet.  May? Oh no, not so long... um, er... OK better get making. North Somerset Arts Week is happening from 1st May to 10th May and I need to get enough beautiful buy-me buy-me things made to fill around half my lovely friend Laura's studio in Nailsea and convert what was a garage into an extravaganza of lusciousness, along with her ceramics and beautiful felt. A few weeks ago I had about one and a half pictures to sell but things are looking more rosy now. For a start there is this:

It has beading aplenty as well as some lovely Kaffe Fassett fabrics appliquéd on and some swirly embroidery.

Then I made a smaller one along similar lines. I was thinking about cow parsley when I did the embroidery and beading for this one...

Then I had a sleepless night. Something unknown made me completely awake at a time when no human being should be awake. It went on. And on. And in the middle of it, Monet's waterlilies came to me, and I started wondering how they would be translated into felt. So the next morning I set to work...

I am still not sure if it's finished. 

I've started on some beach pictures to become my trademark long thin "beach windows". I tried to take a picture for you but the cat sat on them. The cat seems to enjoy sitting on damp cold felt laid out to dry on the kitchen table.

And yesterday I started work on a new one. It's far from finished but I actually rather love it just as it is. It's very very loosely based on this picture I took of a daisy my youngest picked one day on the way home from school with a friend:

Before I started with the hot water and soap, it did look pretty similar:

But it changed a bit in the felting process, as they always do...

Lots of machine stitching and it will be transformed. Is it me showing my age or does it make you think of The Good Life? I was trying to work out why I had that theme tune in my head earlier...

And that's not all; this week I've been sorting out all my very best photos and getting them mutated into some very posh postcards, a few canvas prints and some large prints which will be for sale mounted. Look out, coming soon to a garage - oops sorry, a studio - near you in Nailsea. Here are a few examples to leave you with...