Open House

Every May and December, Brighton and Hove hosts the “Artists Open Houses” festival. Homes, gardens and studios across the city (and beyond) open their doors to the public over the weekend to show a huge range of arts and crafts produced by local people. This May, a staggering 243 venues opened their doors to passers by.

To be honest, I find it a mind boggling exercise to choose where to visit. Houses often show a number of artists work including paintings, prints, needlework, sculpture, crochet and knitting, jewellery and much, much more. The quality does of course vary and not everything will be to everyone’s taste. But this is part of the appeal and is a welcome change to mass produced, mainstream crap stuff that you often see for sale elsewhere. It’s a bit like having walk in Etsy stores with the added bonus of getting to look around other peoples homes!

So last Sunday I went to the shop and gallery of the Sussex Guild at Southover Grange in Lewes, having been seduced by the prints of Annie Soudain. I ended up buying three cards of her prints - but I would have loved to have taken home a full size original (one day!).

Annie was actually manning (womanning?) the shop so I managed to have a chat with her - a lovely and talented lady.

Southover Grange is a beautiful 17th century building with wonderful gardens. Across the lawn is a gateway into a floral garden through which runs the river Ouse.

It reminds me of The Secret Garden. I hadn't even known this place existed before and will definitely visit again (when the weather is nice).

I did take a couple of flower pictures, but they didn't come out too well, so I'll leave you with one of my favourite flowers:

 

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Crafty shopping

Hello! I've recovered from my mega shopping trip in London yesterday. Like I said in my earlier post, I ended up spending waaaaay too much money! But then, I knew I would, heehee. That said, after uploading the photos it doesn't seem a lot. But ohhhh what fun it will be to play with these. I also made my first mosaic - hope you like it.

 So....what do we have? (Don't forget that you can click on the images for a better look!)

Working left to right along the top row - I got myself some new tools that I've been wanting for a while.

Two Clover soft touch crochet hooks (4.5mm & 5mm); a yarn cutter pendant - also by Clover; a silver coloured scissor chatelaine (for embroidery) and some AB beads for an unfinished project (more about that in another post).

Then there are some new buttons

(now living in my Cath Kidston button tin).

Then we have three new stitchy projects with everything included in the packs.

First off is a little boxy zipped bag kit - I thought this would be good to keep projects on the go in. Then, the most gorgeous seahorse silverwork embroidery kit. It doesn't show up well in the picture (theirs or mine!) but they had a sample on display and it was truly beautiful! When I get started I'll post pics as I go. Then there's a crewel work kit of a pink rose. All three of these projects will introduce me to a new thing - inserting zips, silverwork and crewel work.

Along the bottom row is - a stack of colourful felt squares fron Blooming Felt.

These are pure wool and approximately 4mm thick. I've been wanting to do something with felt for a while now - but aren't they just pretty to look at stacked like that with a bow around them?

Then quite a little hoard of buttons from the button company.

The two little bags were pic n mix, then there are some lovely coconut buttons (top left), cute little gingham printed buttons, pastel shades of a larger button and colourful flower shaped buttons. Irresistable!  

So it will be porridge and beans on toast for me now until Christmas; but that's alright because I've got plenty to do!

Ally Pally

Today I went to

The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in London.
It was hot...
and crowded...
and I spent too much money....
And now I'm exhausted!

I'll unpack the bag and show you my goodies tomorrow when I've got my energy back!