out and about in May

Fabric Nation is joining Hilary Tranter at her Dulwich Festival Artists Open House this year on 9th and 10th May from 11am to 6pm. Come along for some fabulous art and craft, yummy cake and fine company! It would be lovely to meet you. As well as Hilary’s lovely printmaking, there will Caroline d'Auria's jewellery, Chocolate Creative’s screen printed cushions

And I'll be there with my latest Fabric Nation homewares and accessories made from vintage fabrics. The full brochure with maps and addresses can be downloaded from the Dulwich Festival website, we are number 73 on the map, so why not make a day of it and take a tour of the Dulwich Art Festival.

And at the end of May I will be taking a trip to Norwich for the Spring Clutter City, 30th May, 10am to 4pm, Norwich Arts Centre. Lady Luck will also be stepping out to join the fun, so it will be a fab day! I'm looking forward to meeting lots of Norfolk based artists and designers.

Nest

I have created an Etsy Treasuery West with a spin on the spring theme with a selection of nest inspired work from some of my favourite UK artists and a few new discoveries from around the world. I've tried to include as many UK based sellers as possible and a real nest! Embrace the spring, gather some twigs and prepare for new beginnings. Oh, and please pop over to Etsy to leave a comment!

I heart teacakes!

At Fabric Nation Towers we have a weakness for anything Tunnocks related, so I was really pleased to have come across this bag on Folksy! Part of a series of screen printed bags by Gillian Kyle.

Our obsession takes us on trips across town in an attempt to win this amazing tea towel!

And our wedding cake looked like this!

One day we will take a road trip here!

Wish you were here - Postcard purses

I've been making these purses for my shops. The fabric makes me think of postcards, so I added a little message to each one.

And added some gingham trims and candy stripe lining to evoke seaside memories of little cafes, beach huts and sticks of rock.

The weather here is lovely!

Handmade Cambridge

We did it! And had a lovely day. After an very early start from London, we arrived in Cambridge at the lovely Guildhall. Such a wonderful setting. We were bathed in pools of gentle sunlight from the huge stained and leaded glass windows that lined the hall and were overlooked by startled dignitaries from Cambridge's past. A lovely blue and gold organ dominated the top of the hall - I loved the colours of this.

We had a fabulous day, mainly down to the organisation by Deepa and co. I was very impressed by the enthusiastic goodie bag disher-outer! And met lots of lovely people. The other Handmade sellers are a fab bunch of people and I could have spent all day chatting. I had lovely neighbours in the form of Lazy Giraffe, Paper Leaf, Xtina Lamb and Cozzee Cuddles over the way. And every one's work looked so impressive. Beautifully made, inventive and original and all displayed with much flair and verve! I especially liked Made by Kate's stand.

I panicked about the table size having measured up and found that the table was 2 feet longer than my dining table, but of course not so wide! So dogs were jostling for space on my table with cats, cushions, brooches, gocco prints and purses.

I was really pleased with my postcard purses, these are a new addition along with the vintage fabric and wool backed cushions. I got lots of very encouraging feedback on these and the dog brooches were popular too. It was really inspiring to get so much positive feedback, and to see everyone else's work for real. And I won in the raffle! One of Acorn Attic's sweet cupcake bags. I was also very pleased that Timmy the dog was adopted by the lovey Sarah from Lapwing Printworks.

Work I had admired online looked even more impressive on display, and it was so good to meet so many lovely people and hear about their work. The visitors were all very enthusiastic too, and many older ones reminisced about some of my fabrics! I took a few pictures, but couldn't stay away from my stall long enough to snap everyone, so for a complete photo show, have a look at the Handmade and Twinkly Spangle flickr sets. Pictured here are Helena Carrington, Hannah Chan and Xtina Lamb.

I loved Xtina's gocco bunting, and this summed up our feelings when we got home after a very long day...

Thanks Deepa and co for all your hard work!

Looking forward to seeing you all again at Handmade Winchester!

Giveaway winner...

And the winner is... after allocating a lotto number to each comment, turning them upside-down, mixing them up, and then picking one at random (we are very hi-tech here at Fabric Nation Towers!)...

is Beady Pool!

Well done. I shall pop over to your blog to get your contact details.

And the winner is...

TIMMY! He will be donated to the Blue Cross stall at Handmade Cambridge this weekend. Minnie was second and Betty and Kitty were joint runners up! Thanks for all your votes and lovely comments. I'll pick the giveaway winner later today as the adjudicator is fast asleep!