Crafting in the deep winter, and news of a sale
Hello friends,
The days have been dark, and I’ve been trying not to give myself a hard time about mostly sitting around watching TV as a storm rushes up to my windows from the south west once more. I’ve also been in the studio, carefully making my way through this last batch of orders next to my heater and dreaming of the days last summer when I had to work in underwear because I was so hot.
I’ve been keeping my hands busy with other craft projects since before Christmas; a knitted hat with earflaps, another beanie, swatches for a dream harlequin jumper that hopefully will get started this year.
I promised myself that I’d make time this coming year for new creative endeavours, and in that spirit I finally finished an 8-year old quilt. It’s made with scraps from early days Phaedra, indigo-dyed in a vat back when I was only making blue dresses in my first studio. Its hung on walls half-ready, been stuffed into a carrier bag, lay forgotten, then lay guiltily remembered. After years of putting it off I pulled it out and spent a few days making it larger, adding layers, edging it. I took it home, laid it on my sofa. I began to remember its beauty as a blanket rather than some half-finished creative guilt and it feels really good.
A 2-day quilt happened just before the festive season too, a gift to my dad. It was manic and chaotic, pretty haphazard, a bit like my father’s energy. The outcome is far from perfect; the bias is wobbly, the quilting puffy and poor, fabric catching and pleating under my needle. But I love it all the same, a giant speedy splash of colour channelling sharp graphics, colours my dad can see in his colour-blindness, crop circles.
I kind of love to work on projects alongside each other, some long term, some shorter. There’s less pressure that way; my heads turns to something else for a while and when I have the creative energy that long-term project is there to pick up and turn over in my mind.
A final note to say I’m having a ready to ship sale next week, on Friday 2nd February at 6pm GMT. There’s going to be plenty of pieces; some old colourways, samples, plenty of one-off special pieces too. Some will be cheaper, some pricier than normal. They’ll be on the Sale Shop on my website, and available to preview during that day before they go live so you can see sizing and what’s on offer.