Monday 30 August 2010

Still here

I've been really busy over the last few days but wanted to drop in as I have been trying  to keep up on everyone's  posts. I have been working on setting up my etsy shop. I have registered a name and set up a paypal account, and now I am working on my 'blurb'. Then I have to take photographs Those of you who already sell on line have probably have got all of this down to a fine art, but I am great procrastinator and sometimes need to have  a bit of a boot to get me to make decisions. However today I thought I would go to the craft fair at Wrest Park for a bit of research and inspiration.
Wrest Park is one of my favourite local  venues. We used to visit years ago when it was owned by Silsoe College and paid 50p for a magical day in the rather run-down grounds. However it has now been taken over by English Heritage and although the grounds are now better kept, but it costs rather more to get in!

Queueing at the garden gate.

The house is still in use by the college.

The pavilion at the end of the lake, viewed across the croquet lawns.
Entertainment from a string quartet.

The orangery glimpsed through some of the magnificent trees in the park. 
I have lots more photographs of the park here on my flickr site. If you like lovely gardens - Capability Brown designed these - do take a look.

I had a wonderful chat to one lady in particular - Maxine Owen who is a textile designer whose work really inspired me. You can see her work here. I felt very reassured by her style with lots of wild stitching and wonderful fabrics I wanted to rush home and start stitching. She also had some incredible journals and altered books, I could have spent ages there. I did buy a couple of her pieces - I will have to photograph them another time.

I have been doing some myself stitching - I have been working on a couple of zipped purses and a paperback-book cover in patchwork, and I have decided to start stitching on the leaf book cover I started way back.


I am hoping to get the shop going in the next couple of weeks and hopefully some of these will be there.
 I also want to get my September calendar page made - quite honestly I am not sorry to see the end of August - what a washout!