shop open

At long last the shop is open and my new blog is up and running. hope you like the new look and please let me know what you think of the shop, there are only a few items to start with but I will be adding to them over the next few weeks. All the items are one-offs.

shop
blog

moving home and shop opening

Well I'm almost set to open my online shop, just finalising the images and little details. A link to the shop and my new blog page will appear here in a couple of days, so i hope you will like the new look. I've been very nervous about this, I know its silly, but it feels like a big step and is a bit scary. I'm sure this time next week I'll be wondering what i was worried about and kicking myself for not taking the leap sooner.

I'm starting with a few items to begin with and going to build it up over the next few weeks. I have lots of exciting changes to make and I hope you will see the work starting to evolve pretty quickly. I know it seems like i haven't been up to much but believe me I spent every spare minute I have researching, planning and working on new ideas. Think of it like an iceberg, the majority of it is unseen but still there none the less. It will all start to emerge and make sense over the coming months. See you over at the new blog very soon x

where i'm up to

Sorry I've been away for so long, but I have been busy doing lots of different things and just have a bit of time to play around with new ideas and research setting up a business. So to start with the new ideas, I've been working with linen and printed cotton fabrics and using applique techniques to make a variety of items. This picture is a bit of a taster of whats to come. I have been dilly-dallying around a bit mainly because I wanted to get everything just right, sometimes I think you have to just go for it and stop thinking too much, so that's what I'm going to do or I'll never get anywhere. I'm moving to a new blog home which I will put a link to when its all up and running and I will have an online shop opening soon. I thought about putting an opening date then so I'll have to stick to it but I'm too much of a coward, it will be the middle of August, honest it WILL be. I feel at bit nervous really but I'm sure there is no need to be.

We are off on our holidays at the end of the week so hence the delay. I'm very excited we are going to the wonderful Outer Hebrides, stopping in Invergarry on the way. I am ashamed to say I have never been to Scotland before, I'm not even sure why. We are camping and taking the dog, so it should be a bit of an adventure. If anyone has been before and can recommend things to do and see that would be great.

We have been working hard at our allotment but i have to say I wish the veggies would grow as well as the weeds. But the past few weeks it has all been worth it, we have been able to eat our home grown produce and it tastes delicious. The redcurrants are great just with ice cream (a tip from a fellow allotmenter) and we made some redcurrant jelly to, next year we want to make redcurrant wine. The potatoes are the best I've ever had, I felt like a child on Christmas morning when we dug our first potatoes up, they were like red jewels in the mud. Last night we had Lincolnshire sausages with mash potatoes, home grown broad beans (yum yum) and redcurrant gravy, it was heavenly.


Now we have the gardening bug we decided to visit Tatton Park Flower show at the weekend, its a smaller version of RHS Chelsea flower show. The sun was shining, the gardens where lovely, we had scones and tea, it really felt like a great British summers day...at long last. I've wanted to grow Lavender for a while and it was everywhere at the show, so we are making a space in the back garden and I will keep you posted. I also feel i love with these beautiful flowers below - Echinacea's, they look prettier in real life.

So i will be back after our holiday with news of the shop opening and blog details, if you are in England get out and enjoy the sun while it lasts ;)

time off

I've decided to make some changes to make more changes to my blog and also update my flickr. I'm going to open both etsy and dawanda shops, each may have a different selection of items for sale. so please bear with me while I get myself organised and re-vamped and open for business. Because of all these changes i'm not going to post any new blog entries or new photos on flickr until it is all up and running. so see you all soon with the as yet unnamed blog and shop.

I found this gorgeous pincushion on the mogwaii website and just had to share it with all of you, enjoy.

a simple life

Well its been a while since my last post, so firstly I would like to say thank you to the people that have left comments and I haven't had chance to reply to. I have had a look are your blogs and recommend people to check them out via the links on the comments section. So why the long break? two reasons really, I seem to have been very busy with all sorts of commitments from getting the allotment sorted out to work and catching up with people I haven't seen for a while. Also, I've been doing some quiet thinking about my craft work and what I need to do to move forward. I hope I'm not alone in my feelings of self doubt, it makes for a very unproductive period of time in terms of physically making but more beneficial in terms of thinking about where I am currently and where I want to be in a year, 5 years, 10 years. Can you tell I've been doing a lot of reading on the subject? I'm currently reading start your business week by week and can recommend it for anyone thinking of setting up business, its very easy to follow. I've also read Craft, Inc which is recommended on lots of craft blogs and very useful. I should backtrack slightly, I was supposed to go on a one day craft business workshop in April, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to lack of numbers. I was very disappointed so decided to start doing lots of research myself. I am a bit of a research junkie, I love it and probably explains why I never get anything done but have lots of information on how to do it. So back to where i am now, contemplating the future and where its going to lead. My husband and I are thinking of a big life change brought about firstly by the fact he will be made redundant at the end of June, like so many people in the current economic doom and gloom. so we see this as an opportunity to change our lives completely. I really want to run my own small business be it making crafts or something a little different and possibly in another country, France, Spain and Italy are the main contenders at the moment. So my blog is going to change slightly over the coming months as I document the life changing journey we are about to embark on. the one thing we both agree on is we want to escape the rat race and live a much simpler life in a rural community, hopefully near a mountain ( i love mountains).

So back to my craft work and how I see it progressing. I don't want the work to be about a certain style or trend, its about making objects that come from the heart. One off pieces that stand alone rather than being part of a collection. I am constantly inspired by what I see around me, as my environment changes so does my work and my ideas develop a life of their own. this is what has stopped me opening a online shop in the past, I felt that everything had to match or have a certain look, but I know realise this isn't me and doesn't have to be the way I work. I see the result being an eclectic mix of objects. the idea of producing the same thing over and over again doesn't appeal to me and I think I would get bored. i don't like everything to match perfectly in my life, I love to mix old and new, so I don't know why i thought i couldn't apply this to my work, it is a reflection of me after all. so I will leave you with what I am currently working on and look forward to reading your comments.

I'm also dropping the Folk title, I've discovered a knit wear designer that also uses the name folk and it is already a registered business name. I've been trying to think of a different name but had no luck so far, so I've decided to use my real name instead, ness donnelly.

pin cushions

Well I've been keeping busy making pin cushions to go with the needle cases for my soon to open etsy shop. I'm also working on a few more bits and pieces and some one off works. I'm planning to open the shop in a week or so, I'm got a week off work and thought this would be a good time to get everything sorted out. Last time I put work up for sale at etsy it was a bit half hearted and the photos weren't very good, so this time I want it to look right. Below are a few images of what I'm working on, trying not to give to much away.

the allotment

We have recently acquired an allotment to grow our own veggies on. its all very exciting and neither of us have done a lot of gardening so we thought an allotment would be ideal, we can learn from all the other gardeners and there will always be some one to ask if we're not sure. We already made a few friends who are giving us lots of advice, we are quickly learning that everyone has their own way of doing things and they're all different.

above is the allotment before we started work on it. in the top left corner is a redcurrant bush which apparently has lovely redcurrants and in the middle of the back are raspberry stems, so we are hoping to get lots of lovely raspberries in the summer. the weather hasn't been great for gardening recently so we haven't been able to spend as much time as we would have liked there.

Below is the allotment after 3 hours of digging with Andrew and Tess pretending to be working hard :)

we got up nice an early on Saturday were digging by 7.30am and two sore backs, sore legs, blistered hands and 3 hours later we had turned over half of the plot. enough space for our potatoes and onions in one section and new seedlings in the other. We are having a go at growing anything we like to eat to see what actually grows for the first year. so far we have seedlings for courgettes, sweetcorn,broad beans, salad leaves and lots of different herbs. We are also hoping to grow potatoes, onions, peas, peppers, aubergines, carrots and spinach. I'll keep you up to date with our progress.