I've been trying to update my Etsy shop and keep things fresh and pretty. At the beginning of the year it was looking a little bit tired and last week, after the insane order volume I was suddenly getting thanks to everyone stuck at home doing some online shopping, it was looking downright scraggy! However, I have been out and about with my trusty camera and also been working hard on creating new pieces to lift my shop and make it look lovely again, offering a variety of products to either make or purchase and that can be sent to give smiles and lift spirits of others who are finding the lockdown hard, or perhaps haven't been very well.
A couple of these new pebbles have already been ordered and sent with sweet gift messages expressing thanks for a neighbour's help during hard times, or offering a smile and a virtual hug and I am truly thankful that you trust me with these messages and think that my little pieces of artwork will provide the happy mail that someone needs. It's a real honour.
These pebbles are hot off the hoop this week and I have two Italian summer inspired large pebbles featuring the fun woven wheel flower stitches. These really are little pieces of pocket sized sunshine!
I also tried some bullion knot roses after the success of using bullion knots to create Barnacles in my rockpool experimental hoop. I like them but my favourite thing about this pebble is the three petalled daisies!! I shall have to use this technique more often I think with the white petals and hot orange middles. They really remind me of Echinacea flowers! This one is only a small pebble because it filled up a gap in my hoop among all of the large pebbles I was intending on stitching.
With so many Woollydale kits flying out of the door I have been making up lots more of them and this has generated lots of sheep fabric scraps which are perfectly pebble sized! Lots of people find this fabric charming and hilarious because some of the sheep will inevitably end up upside down, and this is even funnier on a pebble because I don't have a lot of space to choose from and am kind of stuck with whichever bit I get as the small scrap. Sometimes I'll try and get the sheep to stand up a bit more and centre them upright where I can, but other times I will just embrace the mad upside-down-ness of it all and the sheep will all be taking a nap.
Each pebble is unique and as I am also using up odds and ends of threads, there can be any colour thrown in there. It's also any stitch that takes my fancy although I must admit that I really love these fly stitch leaves as a topping. You can team them with any kind of flower; lazy daisies, french knot tapers, pistil stitches, bullion knots, woven wheel - whatever you like.
I had a fun little photoshoot with these out in the garden with the sun peeking in and out and the wind whipping the pebbles and threatening to blow them across the garden. The sheep were loving being outdoors and were frolicking all over the place and doing somersaults.....or maybe the lockdown is finally getting to me?!?!
Anyway, these are all listed in Etsy if you would like to grab one for yourself. The link to my shop is on the right hand tab of this page.
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