Interview with Grace Du Prez

 It was difficult to walk past Grace's booth and be able to ignore it, filled with bright neon colours and geometric shapes, it definitely stood out from the crowd. Grace works with an embroidery machine to produce unique jewellery and accessories from her own design.

To see more of Grace's work then you should visit her website: http://www.graceduprez.co.uk/#
She has some amazing skulls for sale on there, which can be used to hang jewellery from and if I had the funds then I would definitely buying one for myself. It was a pleasure chatting to Grace about her work and her business and I wish her all the best for her future projects.

Interview with Alix Swan

With a taste for the eclectic we moved on and was drawn to our next interviewee Alix Swan. Alix's work is probably the trickiest to define as she manages with great dexterity to blend fine art, paper, carpentry and fiction to create her representations of a fairy tale world. I was particularly impressed with how Alix crafted the boxes herself from wood, demonstrating her skills to work with a number of materials.  

Rachel pointed out this fabulous piece as her favourite based on Alice in Wonderland.

If you are interested in taking a closer look at some of Alix's work then you can have a look through her facebook page or you can buy some of her pieces through her Folksy store.

Interview with Katie Almond

Katie Almonds designs are beautiful and eclectic, she works in ceramics and paper to create fantastic one off pieces inspired by "nostalgia, old paper ephemera and vintage textiles".  I tried to take better pictures but was really difficult as she had so much interest from customers, be sure to snap up her work before everyone else does.

Katie welcomes commissions so if you wanted something specific then you can contact her through her website: www.katiealmond.co.uk I personally have my eye on a few of her creations.

Interview with Sue Lowday

Our next interview at the GNCCF was with the lovely Sue Lowday, who is a metal and leather worker.

As Sue is multi-talented and can work expertly with both metal and leather, she can design and make a variety of creations from stylish and unique handbags to quality belts in a rainbow of colours.

If you would like to have a further look at some of her work or would like to buy something then you can visit her website: www.suelowday.co.uk and follow the links to her shop

Knitted Kittens Poster November

Here is the new poster for Knitted Kittens Craft Club (artwork by Sophie Daniels). This group will used in order for me to get a deeper understanding and be involved in DIY creative communities of practice.

Interview with Anna Wales

The best way to describe Anna Wales' work in is her own words: "It features a combination of felt and silver, or of oxidized silver with polished precious metals which are arranged to form stark contrasts or subtle transformations throughout a singular piece". Anna spoke with great depth and passion about her craft which was only reflected in her skillful work.

More details about Anna and her work can be found through her website: http://www.annawales.com/

Interview with Sarah Allen

Our second interview of the day was with the very talented Sarah Allen, who not only weaves her own textiles but then goes on to create beautiful accessories from her specially made materials. Just look at the wonderful purses that she had for sale, I personally love her use of colour.

You can find out where to buy Sarah's pieces from her website: www.sarahallenweaving.com

Interview with Charlotte Verity

Today Dr. Rachel McLean and I went to the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in order to conduct interviews for my research and collect data for a paper that we are in the process of writing together. I have had such an excellent and rewarding day, we met loads of talented and interesting people and got some real quality data to work with.

The first interviewee of the day was with Charlotte Verity who is a "designer-maker of contemporary art jewellery, specialising in silver and small scale hot glass techniques", although we caught her off guard as we hadn't quite worked out our spiel yet, we found Charlotte to be very friendly and professional, a great first interview of the day.

 
As the photos which I have taken really didn't do her pieces any justice, I have taken a picture from her website to represent her work (as seen below), be sure to visit her website to find out where to buy her jewellery or contact her directly: www.charlotteverity.com

GNCCF 2011

Just got back from my trip to New York and although I had a fantastic time it was purely for a holiday so nothing research related to report, but although I have only been back a few days I have hit the ground running and will be conducting interviews at the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair over the next few days.
Although initially I was going to visit and try my luck with interviews without permission, I was lucky enough to bump into one of the organisers of the fair at an event a few weeks back and she has very kindly given me her permission to chat to the stall holders (plus has agreed to be interviewed herself after all the madness of organising the fair has calmed down, which I'm really excited about). If you are around Manchester over this weekend and want a unique shopping experience to find high quality hand made goods for yourself or Christmas presents then you must visit the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair. I will hopefully get a few interesting interviewees to blog about over the next couple of days (fingers crossed) plus it will be great to get out and about for my studies.

Voltaire

Apple

"Follow your heart & intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Stay hungry, stay foolish" Steve Jobs 1955 -2011

Red Mittens

These are a pair of red mittens I made for our lovely friend Stacy who lets us use the pub that she runs (The Ape and Apple) for our knitting group. For any knitting geeks out there they were made with Debbie Bliss Fez, which is 85% merino wool and 15% camel, it's beautiful yarn which is very soft.

In regards to my research - I've started my methodology section, which I'm actually really enjoying. I was looking forward to writing this section for a long time as I teach Research skills with Dr. Gill Green and couldn't wait to start applying what I've been doing to my research. Obviously I've been contributing to this section throughout my study but now I'm getting the opportunity to really focus on everything and it's coming together slowly but surely, everyday is a learning curve. I've also got lots of cool things planned for the future which will really benefit everything that I'm doing so lots to look forward to.