Monday 26 November 2012

Fairs & Markets

After deciding to really go for it with fairs and markets this winter, I'm slightly regretting taking on so many, as the schedule is rather chaotic and I'm running out of stock - and the time to make it!

But the upside is meeting so many new customers, assorted otter-fans and sending lots of jewellery, purses and otters off to loving new homes.

Here are a few highlights so far.

CHELSEA TOWN HALL
Got to be honest - disappointing footfall and sales, but check the building!

Chelsea Town Hall

How beautiful is Chelsea Town Hall?!

LANDMARK ARTS CENTRE
One of my favourites.

Ahhh.  The radiant light.

Reams of wreaths.

The Landmark Arts Centre

I absolutely fell in love with these amazing hand-felted bootees by Diane Higgins at the Landmark.  They are absolutely exquisite and I so wish she did them in a size 6!!!  You can contact Diane here

Beautiful Bumble Bee Booties!

Badger Booties
Perfect pandas

THE FAIRY TALE FAIR
Such kudos to Claire Montgomery for all the organisation she put into this.  She's so on the ball with marketing and publicity and the fair was full of lovely touches - and justifiably very popular!

A sweet welcome from The Fairy Tale Fair!

Super busy.

DULWICH COLLEGE GRAND FESTIVE FAIR
My first time here - and I've never seen so many people at one selling event!  It was relentless!  The train travel on a Sunday was challenging to say the least, but it was worth it.

South Cloister,  Dulwich College
And there's more to come!  See website for details.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Otter Country

Some of you may well have twigged by now that I'm rather partial to otters.


Yesterday I thought it would be really nice to combine them with another one of my favourite activities - shopping for beautiful things for Shark Alley.

So up I travelled to London to trawl the fabric shops around Oxford Street and Soho for lovely big prints on pale fabrics to make into fox & otter purses.  Unfortunately, I didn't find as many as I'd hoped, but I did stumble across this little gem in John Lewis.  Yum yum!

  Detail - Loulouthi Summer Totem in Grapefruit by Anna Maria Horner
After all this retail excitement and a hastily consumed rubbish supper of crisps and a flapjack, it was off to Waterstones in Gower Street to attend a talk on otters. This featured otter expert Dr Daniel Allen interviewing author Miriam Darlington about her book, Otter Country, which documents her quest to see UK otters in the wild after being obsessed with them since childhood.

Love the beautiful illustration on the front by Kelly Dyson

The three extracts she read were very evocative and sometimes moving, especially as she described carrying the heart of an otter in her hands whilst attending an otter autopsy.  Her descriptions of being alone in the countryside and encountering wild otters were incredibly vivid - so much so that all day today I have had the strong sensation that I have recently been in the countryside myself.

One of the other joys was meeting so many other otter afficionados.  Thanks to the wonders of Facebook and the internet, I have connected with otter-lovers all over the world, but it's always nice to meet face-to-face.  Daniel Allen is a friend-of-a-friend many times over, and I feel quite sure we could have chatted all evening.  I also had the privilege of meeting (albeit very briefly) Daphne Neville, who has cared for otters for over thirty years and is the author of a book about these experiences - 'Bee - a Particular Otter'.  Having had a brief online exchange with her daughter Sophie in the summer, it seemed quite a coincidence to meet her. She was incredibly lovely and let me have a signed copy of her book.


One of the more amusing aspects of the evening involved sniffing an otter spraint - or poo.  Before you recoil in horror, it's definitely NOT what you imagine and turned out to be quite fascinating as each person was asked to describe what it reminded them of.  The answers were unexpected and diverse - 'prawns', 'newly-mown grass', 'citrus', 'musty' and my favourite, 'a church crypt'.

Sniffing the spraint!
After a rather harried and stressy day dealing with London crowds and rude people, I came away feeling very uplifted and happy to have spent time in the company of such friendly and similarly-obsessed people.