Embroidered hand felt and new beginnings.

Hi all. Here as promised is my latest piece of embroidered, wet felted...felt. Would you like a closer look?

I nearly didn't finish this piece. Although the wet felting went to plan,

I wasn't overly pleased with the garden bench in the centre of the picture.

Maybe I'm just being a bit picky though, probably because I found this part particularly difficult to do. My sewing machine objects a little when it stitches over the same spot several times, which is a bit of a pain when you're machine embroidering!

It's growing on me though. I particularly like the two small bunches of dark pink flowers in front of the bench and the fallen rose petals on the path.

There is quite a lot of machine embroidery on this piece.

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It's then finished with lots of hand embroidery, each little pink petal is cut from silk which I space dyed myself and then individually stitched in place.

And this is it's new home (not for too long I hope). This is Chapel Gallery in Hawes in Wensleydale. A brand new arts and crafts gallery offering craft workshops, coffee and of course MarmaladeRose goodies.

The new owners Anne and Tim Smithies kindly let me take a few pics to share with you all.

I think Anne is hoping to fill the gallery predominantly with art and crafts from local Dales artist but there is a sprinkling of fabulous work from farther a field.

Don't you just love these luscious ladies sitting having a chat. These are by the very talented Anna Mercedes Wear.

Anne herself is very gifted. She works in more mediums than I can list here, but in these pictures you might spy her handmade glass decorations, beautiful patchwork quilts, machine quilting DVDs, hand drawn cards, cuddly toy bunnies and art dolls, not to mention handmade ceramic and glass buttons! That's right ladies I said BUTTONs and we all love buttons, lol.

Turned wood bowls, coloured glass bowls, leather purses, and ceramics.

More beautiful wood, needle case-cushions, a couple of my felt brooches and fat owls, and some lovely little round angels.

On the bird table we have...well...birds and underneath are growing some of my crochet flowers.

Here are the beautiful sparkly class ornaments Anne makes. Dangling and...

standing to catch the light.

Buttons, buttons, buttons, drool!

Bunnies, bags and bowls. Glass, ceramic tiles and lavender hearts.

And last but not least a stunning exhibition of photographs of 'the locals' by Richard Hanson called The High Life. . Click here to see the photos in close up and more of Richards exciting work.

I hope you enjoyed our little day trip. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of Annes pride and joy...a very fancy, all singing, all dancing coffee machine! And I couldn't resist this last picture, lots new lambkins skipping about our fields. Aaaaah :)

Giveaway results and what's coming next!

 Hello from my corner of the sofa. Actually the whole sofa is mine, Wonderful Man has is own at the other side of the room (His corner is nowhere near as interesting as mine though). I'm sure you would have guessed that this is my corner anyway, I think the half made bunnies and baskets of wool are a sure giveaway, lol. This is just how I left it when I got up to go to bed last night and I just thought you might like to see it. Maybe we should have a 'my corner' post now and again and all share our respective comfy places and all the junk that goes with them.

 Now before we do the very important job of revealing the winner of my bunny giveaway I just want to tell you that next time you visit we will be climbing these old stone steps and exploring a brand new arts and crafts gallery that has just opened here in Wensleydale.

 I'll also be introducing you to my latest piece of embroidered felt which, funnily enough is now for sale in the above gallery. See! It's not just thrown together this blog, lol.

 So without further ado, bunny and I have counted and recounted and then counted several more times all the way to 91 skipping the comment that I left and a couple of duplicate entries from folks who forgot to leave their names the first time or hit the submit button twice. I do like everything to be fair and above board, lol.

 The winner is the lovely Sandi from Sandiart's Blog. 

Congratulations Sandi I'll be emailing you for your address shortly. To everyone else who took the time to tippety type me a lovely comment, thank you so much. I read every single one of them and wish I had a bunny for each of you but that would be a heck of a lot of bunny ears to stitch on (my least favourite part). It was lovely to hear from you all and especially nice to hear from a few of you who've been reading my blog for a long time but never left a comment, that's it now you know, there will be no stopping you, now you've done it once, lol.

Thank you all. A blog is nothing without it's readers.

See you next time for our day out at the new gallery.

love Fi x

Thank you giveaway.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

 Hello all. At last it's giveaway time. YAY! It's my way of saying thank you for taking time to read my little blog and especially for leaving all of your lovely comments. Don't underestimate the power of a kind word, I don't share my 'down' times on my blog as this is my happy place. This is the only little corner I have any control over and I like to keep it as rose-tinted as possible but recently small parts of my life have been unfairly 'overcast', so to tippety-tap into blogland and have such lovely feedback from you all has been a real tonic. I appreciate the time you take out of your busy day to say a few kind words that make my days so special. Yep, you make me smile, you make me chuckle but most of all you make me feel that my craft and artwork has value. Thank you. 

So I've made something especially for this giveaway.

One of my most popular 'makes' but this one is a little different.

I hope you like her as much as my normal embroidered bunnies. She's made from the most gorgeous Sanderson fabric. I discovered a small piece folded up in the bottom of a basket and quickly snaffled it up as if it was a Faberge egg at a car boot sale.

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning this pretty bunny is to leave a comment at the bottom of this post. Simple, just let me know you'd like to re-home this bunny. There are no hoops to jump through.

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Best be sharpish if you fancy your very own Easter Bunny!

I'm not telling you how long you have ;)

Once again thank you all.

love  Fi x

Hens-a-Helping.

Hello once again from beautiful Yorkshire. I love this view. When I see this view I relax as it means our journey is almost over and our little village is only a couple of 'bends' away.

 Today I wanted share a bit of Springtime sunshine with you and see who'd been helping out in the garden. Yes today the stars of the show have to be our hens!

They're very conscientious and hard working, helping to turn over the soil in the veg beds.

 They think nothing of giving the shed the once over to make sure all is in order.

Whilst all the time putting others needs before their own. This is Cluck who has very kindly put her dust bathing in damp mud on hold to spend some quality time with Wonderful Man and make sure he's not over doing it in the garden.

 Here she is having a little cuddle. It's a good job he doesn't mind a bit of muck! Grubby, muddy hen.

Times up! That's enough. Must get back to work! Now just for that tricky dismount...

 Whoops! lol.

 As for me...well I was busy too. More pretty bunnies taking shape.

These two are now somewhere deep in the USA.

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I haven't forgotten my little giveaway. I still haven't decided what it will be yet. Easter is fast approaching though so that just might make up my mind for me.

till next time

love fi x

Hi all, there's been much bustling about in the attic this past week.

 I've had orders for vintage linen bunnies.

I made these two from some beautifully embroidered linen

 There are some very delicate stitches.

 And some very pretty colours.

 With co-ordinated buttons.

 And gorgeous floral Liberty fabric ears.

It's a little bit sad they won't be staying together, but I know they'll both be loved very much in their new homes. Now they're finished I shall turn my attention to mulling over a little giveaway. 

Till next time and results of my 'mulling'.

love Fi x

A magazine article and an owl...or two.

Hello all. It's been an odd week this week. Some good days, some productive days, some really crappy days, some very hectic days, and some relaxed family days. Very much a mixed bag. 

The little dumpy owls are the result of my productive day. 

 Evolved from my fat birds which everyone thought looked like owls anyway. I decided that I better go with the flow and actually design them to look as much like owls as I could instead of a owlishly looking bird. Let's hope they as popular as their predesessors!

 So with a bit of tweaking and adaptation I've created a snuggly little handful. They're filled with wheat which gives them a little bit of weight and the option to gently warm them in the microwave for a comfort cuddle. 

They're a quite addictive.

 and take over quite quickly.

On my good day, I received a virtual copy of the March issue of Bustle and Sew Magazine from Devon Bear who had very kindly asked if she could write an article about MarmaladeRose. The result was a lovely little piece featuring little old me as her blog of the month. Thank you sweetie. 

Gosh they get everywhere those owls.

Till next time

love Fi x

PS. I'm going into the kitchen now for a silent scream. It's taken me hours to write this post because Blogger it appears has been tweaking too. Why can't they leave things alone AAAARGH!