I’ve been spending a lot of time here these days:
https://www.facebook.com/beccyridsdel
If you’d like to pop by and say hello, you might see such things as this…
…this…
…and this…
…that’s mum meeting Grayson Perry last month with some of our students. I bought a new frock specially!
You also get some great rambling posts, many of which rival these for disparate nonsense but are much more brief and slightly more ceramics-centric (but not much).
Anyway, wave if you’re passing through!
Beccy
As you might know it’s York Open Studios pretty soon (4th, 5th, 6th April and the 12th and 13th April) so I’ve been in the workshop making lots of ceramicy things.
The Tour de France Grande Depart will almost pass by my house later this year which is a bit exciting and as part of Open Studios we were asked to contribute a piece of grande depart themed work for a preview exhibition.
Here’s mine -
It’s one of my large chimney jugs, but with extra added bicycle!
I’ve also been making some little dishes because I needed to replace the ones that sold in my little shop! They start off looking like this:
And they end up looking like this:
You might have noticed a little addition to the sidebar there showing off my little shop. You know I’m not one to shout from the rooftops (but my accountant says I really ought to mention this stuff to people sometimes), so if you’d like to see more just click through and have a look! No pressure!
To be honest I’m just as excited (maybe more) about these shiny new decals I just bought to decorate my plates with – I really do love them and their pretty floral goodness.
York Open Studios starts two weeks yesterday so I’d better get my chintzy skates on!
Beccy
Oh dear, I seem to have gone a little AWOL again haven’t I? It’s not for lack of willing I just haven’t done much worth writing about.
I blame winter – when it’s grey I don’t want to do much. Oh and Bioshock Infinite, I definitely blame Bioshock Infinite!
For Christmas I only managed to make one little hat (it’s become a tradition that I always make Tracey a hat for Christmas!)
It is Meret by Wooly Wormhead and you can get the pattern free from here. In fact, if you like knitting hats this is the place to look – there are lots of lovely designs for all difficulty levels, something for everyone!
Did you guys get lots of gifts made? Is it just me? I’m not really feeling it lately. I want to make knitty/sewey things but I’m having trouble not only finding the time but also getting going. I can spend my few free hours looking through patterns but never really making any decisions. Its a bit frustrating.
In other news I have opened a little shop on Folksy and in it I’m selling these little brooches:
I’ll be adding some other things shortly but for now I’m a bit brooch mad. They are porcelain and feature my (by now) trademark vintage patterns.
Only £10, get ‘em while they’re hot!
Right! I’m only going to play an hour of Bioshock, then I might get out ‘A Stitch in Time’ for a bit of a pattern browse. I’m due volume one in the post any day now – I can’t wait!
Beccy
Lately I’ve been making jugs…
…lots and lots of jugs!
I’ve also gone a bit brooch mad. You see, I’ve got a couple of sales this month and I really needed lots and lots of work in case people wanted to buy things!
The first sale was last Saturday and was for Rural Arts at the courthouse in Thirsk and I’ve been so busy getting ready for it I haven’t had time to post about it on here!
Sadly the sale was a bit of a washout with no-one really making many sales so it was a complete waste of my time. It seems that the organisers didn’t do much marketing for the event – there were only posters outside the venue for instance but none in the surrounding area to point people in our direction.
Needless to say I won’t be doing a sale at that venue again!
Anyway, I’m doing another one this Saturday but this is a much better venue – The National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford, Lincolnshire! You can visit their website here or their Facebook page here. There will be food and live music at this one as well as the lovely handmade goodies, so lots to see and do!
If you happen to be nearby pop in and say hello – go on, step out of internetland and join me for a mulled wine!
Beccy
… I’ve been making teacups! They are slip cast and altered and they are really fun to make.
I make my own plaster moulds and the cups, saucers and handles are all separate so I can mix-and-match. When I have all the bits I want I join them together and while they are still wet I use a scalpel to shape them.
The best bit is applying the decals though. They go on last so when all the firing and glazing is done I have these beautiful white, shiny things that I get to decorate.
Aren’t they lovely? I’m a bit addicted to them, especially the chintzy floral ones. They come on a large sheet so you cut out the bit you want, soak it in water and then apply the thin film that floats off to the work. When you fire it on it’s dishwasher safe and there forever.
If you’d like to see more of my ceramic work you can go to www.beccyridsdel.co.uk or find me on facebook!
Beccy
In case you were wondering what I did with all that embroidery, here are my finished porcelain pots:
The last few photos are from my display at Open Studios. The first weekend went really well, but it was very tiring! I’ll post more photos soon!
Beccy
I’ve been trying out something exciting for my current project! You remember these little porcelain pots I mentioned in this post?
Well, those little recesses in the top are going to house fabric embroidered with lines from love letters from the war.
I scanned the letters into photoshop and cut and paste the bits I wanted onto an A4 sheet. I bought some water soluble paper from Barnyarns which is perfect because I could print the letters straight onto it. I then stuck the paper onto some old linen with spraymount and proceeded to (slowly) trace the letters using my super duper embroidery foot.
What do you think? When I say slow, I mean slow – these two sheets took five hours over two days to sew. I’ve just started two more and the first one only took just over an hour so I must be getting quicker with confidence.
When I’d finished, I almost preferred the back!
The paper just washes off in warm water, although it took a bit of coaxing out from under the stitches with a nailbrush!
And the finished pieces…
Not perfect, but I prefer it to the way a proper embroidery machine would have done it.
I love the reference to going to the cinema to see ‘Major Barbara’ and having to walk home during the black-out!
It was really important to me that I not only used the content of the letters but also the actual handwriting too. It makes it more real, and although it was a lot of work I think it was worth it.
Shame I’m going to cut them up really!
Beccy
I’ve been working very hard to make things for York Open Studios – I’ve pretty much got everything made and fired (bar a few stragglers!) but I still have to do all the decoration.
Once my work has been bisq and glaze fired, there is one final step – adding the decals. Decals are water-slide transfers that fire on to the glazed ceramic and become a permanent feature. The decals that I use are all reproductions of vintage images – I’ve even seen some of them on original vintage plates! – that I buy from a family company that has been producing them for a long, long time.
They come in a large sheet which you cut up then soak in water to release the decal from the backing paper. Then you slide it onto the glazed area and fire it in the kiln. Aren’t they beautiful? I must admit I can’t resist buying them.
I realised yesterday that I had about forty things to decal!
Half of them need the vintage decals and those little pots in the foreground will have custom decals that I’m waiting for (shouldn’t really have ordered them during the Week Of Bank Holidays!)
Well, I’ve managed to get the vintage ones done this morning. Tomorrow I’m going to make some little wheels for my little houses and as soon as the custom decals arrive, I’ll be applying them like mad! Then it’s all fire, fire, fire.
I got some gorgeous packaging delivered this morning so I need to brand that too.
It’s all go round my house!
Beccy
I managed a bit of sewing this week! In a good cause of course – no frivolous sewing for me (well not much!)
This is sewing for the project I told you about last post. My plan is to copy lines from love letters onto fabric using my shiny embroidery foot and then setting the fabric into recesses in the top of my little porcelain pots.
I’m not sure which fabric I want to use – something off-white is as far as I’ve got. I haven’t got a clue which fabrics could work so I rummaged through my stash to find different weighted fabrics to have a play with. Best way is to just have a go I always think, and this is what I came up with:
Regular thread on an old felted jumper. The bulk of the thread made it hard to get this through my machine without a fight.
Metallic thread on the left and regular on the right sewn onto dress net. Interesting but hard to get any definition.
Metallic thread on stockinette. Way too thick to get through my machine! Thought the stretchy nature of the fabric might make for interesting results. It didn’t.
Freehand writing with regular thread on synthetic silk. Doodling really. I like this one but I need a bit of practice!
I also had a go at accurately sewing my own handwriting which is frankly as hard as it sounds and didn’t give much better results:
I’m on the way but I’m not there yet!
Beccy
So, I had this idea and I wasn’t sure if it would work, or if it was even possible with my level of skill.
I’ve made a few prototype porcelain pots that look like this…
See those recesses in the top? Well, the plan is to fill those with embroidery. Specifically embroidered writing.
You see, I’ve always had a thing for love letters. Not ones I’ve received because, well, I haven’t received any. And anyway when you don’t know the back story or what happened next, a love letter becomes a fantastic, romantic story in itself. Did they live happily ever after? What happened next?
Love letters from the war are beautiful things. They are a strange mixture of sentiment and everyday banality. As though they'd love to write more of the sentiment but they need to pretend that everything is normal, everything’s ok.
I’ve bought a few from a lovely man on Ebay. I got quite obsessed with one couple for a while and had him scouring through his amazing collection for any letters between them. I’ve got about 20 from Vera to Fred between 1942 and 1944. Here’s one of them:
You should be able to to click to make them bigger.
My plan is to have some of the more everyday lines from the letters embroidered on the lid of the box, but something more loving printed onto decal and fired to the inside of the pot, like a hidden message. Both will come from the same letter and I might even include a copy of the letter with the box.
What do you think? I have wanted to combine my textiley hobbies with my ceramics for quite a while but it needed the right project and this could be it.
I’ve ordered some water soluble stabiliser and scoured my stash for some nice fabrics to practice on (pics to come later this week…)
If you’d like to see any more of my work you can visit my website here: www.beccyridsdel.co.uk, or my Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/beccyridsdel.
Well, some more letters just fell through the letterbox and they start “My darling treasure…”. Think I’m going to cry reading these.
Beccy
So it turns out that lately I’ve been missing in action. I haven’t had time to do any sewing for weeks, and I’ve been far too tired for my normal evening knitting/crochet time.
So what have I been doing?
Looking longingly at my pile of potential, probably easy, refashions?
Yup.
Picking up my hook and promptly falling asleep?
Yup.
But mostly I’ve been making ceramics for my upcoming Open Studio. Yep, it’s that time of year again, where I work like a mad thing for weeks, spend days clearing out, re-arranging, displaying (and cleaning) the workshop, then throw open the doors and try not to look too worn out for a couple of weekends.
Here are a few things I’ve been working on.
Lots of little jugs – two firings down, two to go. I like to make things complicated (and time consuming!)
Some new things – I made nine of these today, gotta get a move on if I want to have enough to show, they are only a couple of inches across.
They are clear-glazed porcelain boxes and will eventually have some embroidery set into the top. I’m going to get to do some sewing again! Very exciting.
Lots still to do though – I’ve got to actually do the embroidery (free-motion foot to the rescue!), have some decals made, actually finish something so I can take photos for postcards. Oh, and make enough work to have something to sell – and all before the middle of April. Lawks, think it might be a bit quiet around here for a bit.
If you’d like to see any of my finished work, you can pop by www.beccyridsdel.co.uk.
Beccy
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