A new blog for the New Year...

and here is what it's looking like...

I can hardly believe that I have been blogging here for 3 whole years and had some 26,000 views from around the world, which is something I find quite astonishing!
 
Each week and sometimes more often I have found things to say and share, I have met and mingled with some wonderful people and their inspiring blogs and thoroughly enjoyed being out here sharing bits and pieces and some of the joys and challenges of life, I feel I have made friends around the world and if I met you in the street we would all have lots to say!

I have loved being part of a crafty creative network and of a wider community too, I have had so much encouragement and lovely feedback which has helped me on my journey as a maker, and I have loved sharing what I make, even just taking a photo of my work aids my creativity

but, after much procrastination...which is tricky to say let alone spell...I have taken the leap to create a new blog in my own name...it will make it so much easier to follow other people and make comments and I will be able to be ME!

so I am clearing the decks and starting again...I feel a little sad to be leaving this faithful old blog, which has indeed been a friend, but it will sit here quietly, unobtrusively...whilst a new sister blog gets going

I would be more than delighted to see you all over there ...click the title image at the top or here...and I look forward to sharing some new ideas and thoughts and bits and bobs with you

...and it will take me a wee while to get all my following of your blogs sorted out, but I will be there as soon as I can!

 

love and blessings to you all in 2014

Emmaxx

life is simple

if you just let it be...

since we came back from the Isle of Mull my mantra has been 'do less'...why do we find it so hard to actually 'do' nothing? 

how can I ignore the jobs that just seem to be so essential and let go? even a little letting go makes life so much more pleasant...

Rather than waiting for the magic moment when everything will be finished and perfect (ha ha!)I am trying to just be in the moment and enjoy whatever that is, whether it's chopping carrots, doing paperwork, cleaning the sink or sorting the piles of washing...sometimes I can't help a little frustration that I would rather be in the studio...but by practising being in the 'just now moment' of mindfulness I feel so much happier and content! mind you 'practice' is the word...or maybe remembering as it's easy to get caught up in the nonsense of things we think we should do! 

I have been reading The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh a small and simple book but full of wisdom and I've found it really helpful

so outdoors I simply try to appreciate the beauty around me, not striving to improve anything, not worrying about how the garden is really weedy and plants not always where I'd like them to be...I haven't gardened much this year and somehow the garden has managed to be beautiful without my intervention...by looking at the loveliness and not judging anything as good or bad, I am more peaceful

and I do get lots of time for being in my creative space...

which is just as well as it's C-art Affordable Art Fair this next weekend , Sunday 3rd November I'll be at Rheged near Penrith with lots of other fantastic arts and makers...do come and see us if you're around!

nature has shown her strength this week, and we must respect her...I do hope none of you out there has been affected by the storm in the south of the UK...I am thankful that so few were hurt, though it has been tragic for some and my heart goes out to them. A reminder again that life is precious and NOT to waste it on nonsense...

Have a peaceful week Emmaxx

Friday night and I'm loving...

the cold weather, strangely, with air like a cool refreshing drink, real weather for October, no longer the warm Indian summer...the garden and hedgerows turning slowly to brown and bare, stripping everything for the winter's rest...

that being snug indoors is so welcome...after a blustery walk in the wind which clears your foggyness and gets the blood singing

that my studio is tranquil again after sharing for C-art with my oh so welcome friends and visitors, but now it's all mine to arrange how I wish, finding all my treasures after they were hidden away...and clearing out the bits and bobs I don't need or love any more ...so much easier when they're all neat in a box than spread out around all my tables...

that I had a workshop yesterday with 2 lovely ladies, helping 
them to be inspired and tap into their creativity, to get confident with free machining and playing with fabrics...and didn't they do well? 2 beautiful landscapes slowly emerged...

(please note usually an embroidery foot is used for free machining, but as neither had one they carefully stitched without a foot at all, obviously you must keep your fingers out of the way! also this doesn't go well with thicker fabrics, so they then used normal stitching witha foot on)

 

and it was a beautfully sunny day too with wonderful views over the fields and hills outside and inside a lovely view of art in the making!

 

first choose your fabrics, cut and lay out, pin then stitch...

hills and fields awaiting definition and detail...wait and see!

I do love a creative mess...fabrics, threads, books, samples, ideas, scraps...getting out the boxes of fabrics instantly brings life to the studio...making it a working space once more...

 

after a day's hard work here are Jennie and Sue's beautiful textile landscapes...  sorry don't think my photo gets the lovely dark blue shades of the velvet here so well, must be the moonlight!

hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Emmaxx

feeling creative...

back home after holidays and all seems golden for the first few days...then all those things you have to do take over again...but this time I am determined to try and retain the feeling of tranquility and peace I enjoyed on Mull. Perhaps by doing less...after all when you're away from home you manage to fill your time quite easily and pleasurably without any stress!

everything seems so strangely unfamiliar when you've been away, home has existed in a parallel universe...or has it?  

back to abundance in the veggie patch...how many courgettes are now marrows?? don't you love the ruby chard against the greens?

a trip to the north east and I spot these beauties, the last of summer...

and then back into my studio...where reality really does await me...whereas the house is now primped and cleaned after months of neglect...the studio is more or less untouched after the busyness of earlier in the summer...and C-art is now only a couple of weeks away...

but somehow I get sidetracked by the lovely things I bought or collected on holiday, and a creative playing session takes over any desire to tidy or sort...but this in itself is valuable, as I haven't made since Artfest... and this will now get my creativity restarted...who knows where it will take me?

I love my 'new' camera soo much...playing with the focus so you get subtle changes...can you feel the hints of autumn? I'm loving textures and colours, sea-blue mug and rough greys and browns...fingers itching so I think it's an afternoon of sorting then some fabric and stitching time...

hope you too have a happy weekend! Emmaxx

changes...and work in progress

don't panic, you haven't come to the wrong place, I am still here...but as part of my shift in my work to being more art based I am busy creating a website (ta da!) and so a new look blog is coming too...but the essence will be the same..but with a tweek here and a tweek there...to make it more me, as I am now! so please "bear with" I hope you will keep me company as I travel along this new road

 ...and in the meantime I'll share a little creativity, out with the threads and fabrics...

 

a little taste of Cumbria and the views of the countryside in summer...which has been fantastic this week! hot and sunny and utterly blissful to be outdoors, so I hope it's been good where you are...

see you soon

Emmax

getting crafty...

oh I do love magazines...they offer such inspiration when you live in a rural place where the only things passing the door are chickens and sheep...I love where I live but it is great to connect with the world out there...

this Prima special really appealed to me on the newstand as I browsed...somehow the colours and the ideas of spring led me astray...but it has some great ideas inside for all sorts of tastes and abilities...

 

mmm... all round yumminess! 

this weekend I had a small local craft fair...and despite the pouring rain we had a lovely day...here's a peek at my new needlecases which I loved making, the upcycled felted blankets were so soft and tactile to work with...and I was pleased with the finished stitchy result...
 

 
Sunday was a BIG day out with a friend and fellow artist travelling to Yorkshire and back, leaving home at a very uncivilised hour...to go on an inspiring course where I learnt about how to present your work at a show, and how to define and refine what you do...I met some other wonderful artists and it was led by Victoria and Emily from The Art Market... fantastic art and craft shows in Holmfirth, Yorkshire...do take a look here... and go if you can! 

and isn't life amazing...I sat next to a lady and we chatted and it turned out she writes Hippystitch...a lovely crafty blog you can take a peek at here...the latset post is some fantastic community yarnbombing!

so back at home now with a poorly daughter exhausted after walking in pouring rain with a heavy rucksack for hours on her weekend DofE expedition practice...

it's pottering for me too after a mega busy week...perhaps a little house loving wouldn't come amiss after several weeks,ahem, months of neglect...

wishing you a lovely week...hope it's really crafty!Emmaxx