Seeds

It's been quite a positive week in terms of my felting. Not that I have managed to do any. Nor that I have had any particularly positive anythings. But there are some seeds in my head that have started germinating and it feels like some very healthy roots and shoots are growing.

We had a long weekend in Lyme Regis. Fabulous food at the Town Mill Bakery. Please do go there if you are ever nearby. Then good fossil hunting. I have been hatching a plan to make a felted picture of a fossil for some time and although I don't feel the project is getting any closer, the vision in my head is getting stronger. And I sneaked out on my own and wandered into a shop and bought a felted card by Helga Starck. I had a connection with her work and said to a lady in the shop that I make similar things and showed her one of my business cards, and very gratifyingly she said straightaway "ooh like Rosiepink!" which I took to be a huge compliment. I saw some of Helga's striped rectangles of needle-felted wool, mounted so simply. That sowed a seed. And then I found a lovely textile exhibition in the Town Mill. And I bought a beautiful quilted and machine-embroidered card by K3n (Kathryn Chambers) which has helped me to have another little idea sown in my head. And for my final piece of inspiration this week I visited Claire Hall's studio in Backwell one evening this week for a North Somerset Arts meeting, and this time I saw some more wonderful simple mounting: tiny glass landscapes that had been stuck onto rectangles of MDF that were painted white, and which had a little hole drilled into the back for hanging. What a good idea. Another seed. What about attaching my little pictures to stretched canvas? I am determined to make a good productive start to the next term when it starts on Monday. Lots of felting. Lots of stitching. Lots of framing. Lots of creation. Lots to get out there. I have at least two things to think of: Clevedon Art Club exhibition at the end of November (I need something big and competent to make a splash with) and at the same time a stall at Crafty Birds in Backwell, a Christmas craft fair. Not something I would normally think of doing, but if I make a lot of small and cheap bits and pieces, little pictures, cards, maybe even the odd brooch, I might surprise myself.

So now I just have to get through the weekend before I can start...