Galleries

What with my blog anniversary and last week’s Blog Award, there hasn’t been much stitching to show. To be honest, between work and getting things ready both for a new stockist and an older one, there really hasn’t been that much stitching full stop.

At the end of last month I was delighted to get a place in the gorgeous Bricktree Gallery in Caistor, a lovely little market town on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds. The gallery is home to dozens of local artists and makers and my little corner of it is a shelf unit created from a stack of vintage apple boxes! It’s the biggest space I’ve rented yet and took quite a bit of pre-planning to sort out what I could fit on the various shelves while making sure everything would still be visible to customers. It all looks easy to see from this angle, but I’m crouching down!

The ‘back stories’ on the cards have proved a very popular feature. I’ve found that the sort of people who are interested in upcycling like to know where the various components of their jewellery come from and for the brooches, it provides a sturdy display card into the bargain.

I used vintage doilies, place mats and napkins etc to dress the shelves just to give a bit of a theme and also soften the rough wood of the apple boxes. This shelf is blue themed.

And these shallower shelves are ideal for displaying my clock hand earrings. They are a pain to get to sit neatly on the story cards!

Lastly, the bottom shelf. As it’s the most difficult to see under normal browsing circumstances I went for a few more brightly coloured pieces which I put nearer the front.

Fingers crossed they do well. The gallery is really well curated with a great range of items and although it’s a little bit out of the way down a windy little historic lane, there is a great sense of cooperation among the small businesses in the town and they all try and put business and customers each others’ way.

Then last week I was in Cleethorpes again for my monthly shift at Arttopia. I think it was about the only gorgeous day in the last fortnight and as I was a little early I walked down to the front for a look at the sea – well, estuary really, but it was lovely anyway.

I have a much smaller space – a single shelf – at Arttopia…

…so it’s a challenge to fill it as efficiently as I can.

I was over the moon to have sold two pairs of upcycled earrings since last month and while I was there I put the finishing embroidery touches to a silver and felt bead bracelet I’ve been working on.

It started as a sterling silver bracelet with a damaged filigree bead in the centre.

I removed the bead and carefully wrapped some fleece around the chain between the smaller silver beads which are soldered in place.

A mixture of wet and needle felting firmed it up into a flat cuboid shape so it lies nicely against the wrist and then I added the lazy daisy flowers.

I love turquoise/teal and it goes as well with silver as it does with rusty tones. Available shortly in my Etsy shop .

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Trash to Treasure

Nothing big this week – instead the focus seems to have been on taking the old, broken and unloved and breathing new life into them. The vintage postcard to which I gave extra autumn colour with dozens of French knots gradually went from this…

…to this – with the help of numerous podcasts…

…and finally to this:

I combined a 1970s watch strap and a broken brooch to make a statement bracelet which is currently in my Etsy shop here.

And some jasper and art glass beads and vintage clock hands to make some more statement earrings.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the starting point for this pretty little pendant, which had the longest journey of all.

It literally started off a small chunk of a much larger broken brooch and I only knew that because it still had the hinge and pin, which was twice as long as the flower, attached. It was filthy, missing all the stones and had a couple of bits of metal sticking off at random angles.

After removing the pin, tidying up the shape and drilling a hole for a jump ring so I could turn it into a pendant, I gave it a thorough clean and polish before resetting it with tiny blue vintage paste stones and a vintage pearl with a wire attached which went into the hole I discovered in the middle of the ‘bell’.

That really was treasure from trash!

It should be in my Etsy shop shortly. There is nothing quite like turning literally a piece of rubbish into something that hopefully will be loved and cherished for years to come.

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