Saturday 31 May 2008

Highlands Open Studios Week

HOS'O8 starts today - 31st May and runs for 9 days. If you are in the Inverness area, do drop in and visit. More information about the event can be got from the Open Studios website - http://www.highlandsopenstudios.co.uk/
I will be working in my "studio" in my garden along with painter Liberty Bligh. This will be an opportunity to indulge myself and concentrate on the textile art side of my work rather than the more routine things. I have a selection of our "Anna Macneil" range of products on display as well as many one-off pieces.
Visitors will have the opportunity to play chess or draughts with my large tweed & felt sets. Also on offer is the chance to try your hand at needle-felting or simply to watch me at work.
Today I am planning to weave the fringing for a stole commission. The fringe is constructed using a miniature peg-loom weaving technique that allows me to create a bullion style fringe that matches the tartan used for the stole - in this case, the Orkney tartan.
For more details of my ecclesiastical work visit my website - Ecclesiastical Embroidery.
So I am off outside now (a cold damp, misty start to the day - let's hope it improves!) to set up the signs to direct people to my studio. Do come and visit if you can. If you can't manage to visit in person, visit the relevant websites to see my work.

Friday 9 May 2008

Visit to Australia

In September I am going "down-under" for 3 weeks. My nephew is getting married and I am using this as the excuse to travel .

However - it won't be all play. I am in the process of creating an itinerary for giving talks and workshops. If you would be interested in hosting me to give a talk while I am there please get in touch. At the moment I have firm commitments in Adelaide for two talks and a workshop over the weekend of 18th to 21st September. I will be in Sydney for the week 8th to 12th September, with the wedding on the 13th, so if you know of a group in that area, let me know. So, at the moment, the available times for traveling beyond Sydney are 14th to 18th and 22nd to 25th, then on 26th it is homeward bound and no doubt back into the rush of orders for the run up to Christmas.

For more information about talks and workshops that I offer visit the website. For those in other corners of the world, or indeed much nearer home, if you want to book me to do a talk, I am open to offers - but for September, the offers have to come from Australia.

Filling orders

Well....... The Aviemore Trade Show has been and gone. It was a successful event except for one thing. The threats of petrol shortages caused by the strike at Grangemouth meant that buyers stayed away in droves. Still, those that took the trouble to come were serious and placed good orders with the very varied selection of designer-makers exhibiting at the show.

Our new floral designs proved popular and the corset belts were a huge success. My waist is considerably wider than it use to be, but even on me, it was enough to attract a lot of attention with a couple of bespoke orders as well as some orders for shops.

Now we are busy filling all those orders we took at the show and there are going to be several more retail outlets selling our things. As we get the orders out to shops I will add them to the "shops" page on our website. New venues include Aultbea in the north west and Banchory and Braemar in the east. A consignment of belts has already gone over to Belgium, another order is being delivered to a local shop tomorrow morning and I envisage it being non-stop work from now till the end of the summer!

However, just because we are busy shouldn't prevent you putting in an order - 24 hours a day is a flexible concept!