You are currently browsing the monthly archive for September 2008.
I’ve just found out that I’ve been invited to take part in the first paper n stitch online exhibition, I’m very excited. The exhibition is due to be up and running around 15th October, but I will keep you informed. If you would like to be part of the next exhibition then check out the blog, even if your not the blog is well worth a visit anyway. In the meantime I’m busy working on new pieces for the shop and also found out that Manchester Craft Mafiaare having a Christmas market again this year, so hopefully I will get a stall and have lots of lovely things to sell. One last thing, don’t forget Jamie Oliver tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.
At the bottom of the blogroll is a new section for new blogs and sites I find while browsing the Internet. New discoveries will stay there for about a month after which they will be moved to the appropriate list making room for more discoveries to be made. At the end of each month I will do a post on what I like about them, giving each site its own little space.I also intend to revisit sites already on the blogroll and rediscover what it is I find so interesting about them. Below is the first of the new discoveries posts.
I just love this photo, it reminds of being a child again. The colours are just yummy. This discovery is two fold because I found they are inter linked, Amy is a party planner in New York (where else would have such wonderful delights) and Gemma is a photographer. Both sites are worth checking out simply for eye candy as Amy puts it on her website. Absolutely scrumptious.
wooden spoons
Live Wire Farm is a lovely website with great pictures of wonderful timber products and honey. The hooks are great to and they also have their own bees for making honey. I really like sites with great photos, probably because I wish mine looked the good to.
Lizzy House is a student who is about to graduate from a printmaking course. She is just getting a collection of fabrics together and this is a sneak peek. Her blog is a wonderful read, she is full of energy and keeps you captivated. Lizzy also has an etsy shop here.
INTO knit
Papa Stour is a site that promotes and sells Scottish art and design of a very high standard. I found it difficult to pick just one item to showcase, it is full of beautiful well made work from all over Scotland. The picture I choose is a bag by INTO, I love the colours, the pattern and the shape of the bag, its just gorgeous. We recently visited Scotland for our holidays and just fell in love with the place and the people. We stayed mainly in the Western Isles and came across an amazing amount of creative talent, I think it must be the landscape, you can’t help but be inspired by its beauty.
Jamie Oliver is back this week with a new series and book called the Ministry of Food, its all about getting everyone cooking and passing those skills on. You can sign up to be part of it here I already have and the first receipe I’m going to share with you is my Grandmas chocolate cake, this was passed on to my mum who passed it on to me. I made it last week for my husbands birthday and this is what it looked like, it was yummy. I will post the receipe later in the week. You will soon discover I am a big fan of Jamie Oliver and how he as got everyone interested in cooking again, expect more entries about him and his receipes.
grandma's chocolate cake
This is a new post I am going to start on a regular basis, showing new designers, blogs and other interesting finds.
detail of mountain love 2008
Well its been a week almost since I started the new blog so I thought I’d give you a taste of things to come. Firstly, I’ve been working on a new piece, that will eventually part of a series, that I feel brings together everything I love about textiles and embroidery. I love the evidence of the process and hand-crafted work so most of my work is hand stitched. You can find more images of the work in progress on my flickr page, just click the link at the side. I thought I would start by giving you a bit of background information about my ideas and work.
I first got interested in stitched textiles when my grandmother started teaching me to embroider, I think i was about 9 or 10, then in my teens I discovered Samplers and this was the beginning of wanting to produce my own work. In my late teens I started to design my own Samplers but staying true to the tradition of there design, I have never really cared for the contemporary samplers you find in many cross stitch magazines. I began to do a lot of research into American school girl samplers in particular, it was something about the colour palette and design that first drew me in.
During my degree samplers took something of a back seat as I began to discover more and more about comtemorary art. Suddenly I saw no place for this way of working in my new work, which I really struggled with becasue I still loved the design of samplers so much. I began to look at the work of Sol Lewitt, Agnes Martin and Joseph Kosuth, minimal and consceptual was the way forward I thought. Their work is still a major influence on my own work, the seriality of Lewitt and the evidence of hand in Martins work. I have always been interested ‘the everyday’, the repition of life and how we document it. Because of the influence of minimalism I wanted to document this in its most basic form, simply the passing of time – like prisoners marking notches on wall for each day that passes. The repition of stitches on a surface creating a space to lose yourself in, like in Martins paintings. I also became interested in artists that use the diary in their work, in 2007 I did a work exploring all the ways of working that I like, as a means of getting somethings out of my system and hopefully finding some clarity to how I should work in the future, ’31 days’ was documented in my old blog here
This year I have been reassing my work, which I tend to do every year or so, i have gone back to the samplers and looked at how I can add a contemporary twist to the old schoolgirl embroideries. Samplers of the past documented a family history, births, deaths, marriages etc and often included a religious phrase. I still wanted to use the sampler has a document, but more like a diary. This new work is the result of these explorations and I have to say I am very happy with the direction the work is going, I do tend to be very critical of my work and this sometimes prevents me from moving forward. Hope you also like the work.
Hello and welcome to the new Ness Donnelly blog. Its taken a while but I’ve finally taken the plunge and got my new blog and shop up and running, it wasn’t half as scary as I thought it would be … phew. So why the new blog Ihear you ask, mainly because I’ve started to use my own name instead of the name Folk (basically because I found out this was already being used) and I wanted everything to be connected to the same name rather that a bit of a mish-mash. I also thought it would be a good chance to change a few things and get more committed to my blog, like when I first started blogging. The first change is obviously I’m using wordpress instead of eblogger, I feel I have more control over how my blog looks and can do more with wordpress, so we will see if this turns out to be the case. I want to talk about more things that are happening in my life and not just my craft work. I love cooking and food is one of my great loves, up their with sewing, so expect lots of foodie talk and the odd recipe. I also love finding wonderful and talented crafters all over the world, so I’ll be introducing my finds to you. My other other passion is music, so I’ll keep you posted on gigs I go to and what I’m listening to from time to time. We have recently taken on an allotment, so I’ll post on the ups and downs of growing your own veg when you haven’t got a clue about gardening, any tips most welcome. Finally thank you to everyone that reads my blog, I really do appreciate all the comments and will try to reply to everyone that leaves a comment, hope you like the new home.
