Please do pop over to the Crafting for Courage blog to find out all about a very special event that begins tomorrow, all of the proceeds will go to Save the Children to aid their work in the devastated areas of northeastern Japan. There are some very special items available, here are just a few…get clicking!

I managed my first market after 2 years of making-hooray for me! I need to tweak my ‘look’ a little, too much going on all at once, but it was a happy experience. I am currently in bed with suspected glandular fever- not hooray for me! Back into things again next week with luck, emails, photo shoot and guests. Thanks for stopping by.

Thankful to have help from my sister Ali & her boyfriend, Mark. Can you tell that they have hangovers from the night before?

Thirsty work!

Ishi’s craft fair face, he really hates them you know. Don’t forget to pop along to the Magpie Market if you are in Edinburgh tomorrow, fabulous goodies and a few bits by LL&O on The Spider & The Fly stall. Details here.

Being a rather tardy fellow, things that should be written up sometimes get overlooked, I am catching up with a couple of things today.

I was so happy to be asked to contribute to Issue 2 of Spoonful zine: a happiness companion. If you haven’t grabbed yourself an issue yet, get on it! My contribution appears in the Objects of Affection section:

Each issue, we choose a random object that makes us smile. Here Creatives have interpreted…the Mountain Goat…

How wonderful to be featured alongside some of my favourite artists and makers: Abby Glassenberg, Luci Everett, Jackie Bos, oh and so many more (go buy a copy!). Thanks so much for asking me to tag along Thea, I can’t wait for issue three.

I adore the fabric covered dining chairs above.

Next up, can you guess? Wherever there is bunting you will usually find a craft market, this particular event being The Morningside Makers Market here in Edinburgh. As I am setting up shop here on the 4th September I thought I would pop along to have a nose around and pick up some goodies (I confess this trip occurred in May!). Three stalls in particular grabbed my attention, really lovely work on each and super nice makers too.

Cherith Harrison is an illustrator and designer, I fell in love with her sweet birds and rabbits, they pop up everywhere, screen printed onto cushions, tea towels, bags and exercise books, oh and prints too. I bagged a yellow bunny tea towel, love, love, love!

The Night Owl aka Ellen Munro designs and makes accessories & home wares that are oh so folksy. Pop over and check out her Etsy shop, the egg cups get my vote for sure! Ellen’s stall was beautifully arranged with some inventive touches, a clothes airer used as a display for textiles, very cool.

Nicky Orr heads up Frugal Cool, a sustainable design business which promotes work that is ethically produced, re-used, green, vintage or fair trade. There was such an array of wonderful things on the Remade stall, check out the little felted hare in the image above, just so lovely. Frugal Cool are running an Eco Market during the Edinburgh Festival, go here for details.

Image heavy post alert! We visited The Spider & The Fly today at 65 Bread Street, Edinburgh, oh my what a wonderful space. Emily (Lost in The Forest & Magpie Market) has done an amazing job, the shop is packed with incredibly special handmade goods and has such a happy energy about it, a little parlour belonging to a lady with incredibly good taste. The Spider & The Fly is a welcome addition to the string of independent boutiques, galleries and bookshops that run from the top end of Bread Street, along the West Port up to Victoria Street and Candlemaker Row. You must pop along for a visit if you are in the area, I discovered some new to me makers and designers & even snatched up a couple of items. I was very remiss and didn’t take down the details of all the treats that caught my eye. Gives me a good excuse to return next week for a full list of vendors. There were many more favourites that I can’t include in this post as the light was a bit tricky and the pictures didn’t turn out well. I hope you enjoy the small sample of goodies I did manage to capture. There are loads more images here too! Owl Embroidery above by Angharad Jefferson , bear by Alice Gabb.

Hmm, did I forget to mention that you can see (and buy!) some bits and pieces by Lou Lou & Oscar too!

It was wonderful to see some of the embroidery work of Cathy Cullis in person, truly exquisite.

I bought this bird pillow by Heart Zeena & some notecards by Alice Gabb, upon who I have a pretty serious craft crush!

Above and below some new pieces, yay oval and metal hoops, I made for The Spider & The Fly. Speed along to check them out if you please.

I finished my pieces for Plush You LA last night, there were almost tears and an actual cat plush decapitation. Oh, the drama. But that is for another post. Kisses kittens.

You can read a mini interview with me over at Calm Air All Ice ahead of the exhibition Fifty Two. I have just worked out that ‘Calm Air All Ice’ is an anagram of the names of the two curators, Claire and Camilla. I feel a little dense now!

I love this sad ghost guy by Marcel Dzama.

I love 100000 Years of Revenge too. I may never have discovered the work of Canadian artist Marcel Dzama if it weren’t for an exhibition I am taking part in next month.

Calm Air All Ice are curating the exhibition entitled Fifty Two which will run from 28th of March- 3rd of April at Room 212 in Bristol. I am so excited to be taking part in my first show based in the UK! The premise of the show is quite ambitious, Claire & Camilla have invited Fifty Two artists and makers from around the world to take part. Fifty two, that is going to be a lot of work to hang, especially as the gallery is the smallest in Bristol! I read the mini interviews with some of the artists taking part over on the Fifty Two blog and clicked a link to Dzama’s work. I confess that I haven’t written my interview yet, soon, soon. Pop on over to Calm Air All Ice, you may discover a new love too.

I had some postcards made of the fish boys and the two wall hangings pictured above and below. It was so exciting seeing my work in a new format, I think I am going to make some prints next. Oh yes!

Two giveaways in one week, has the world spun off its axis! Click on over to Kenziepoo for your chance to win a Lapin de Lune and a hand embroidered wall hanging made by me. The giveaway is open internationally, get clicking!

You must all have heard about the amazing craft market lovely Mathyld has organized. If you will be in Paris on Sundays the 6th or 13th of December get yourself along to Supervente. There are so many wonderful artists taking part including Encore Petite, Resurrection Fern, Hibou Caillou Chou. Check out the flyer above for some more names. Oh, did I forget to mention that I will be there too, well, my work will be! Supervente will be my first craft fair, I am nervous and excited all at the same time. You can check out some of the offerings in advance via the link above, Supervente also has its own Flickr group here. I would love to do all of my Christmas shopping at the event, here are a few of my picks from the show.

I was lucky enough to see some of the work in person when I visited Mathyld last week, photographs really can’t do it justice, stacks of beautifully made animal silhouette cushion covers like the one above, rows of pretty owlettes, necklaces, brooches, all manner of gorgeous things. If I had a pair of ruby slippers I would click my heels together and wish myself in Paris. Of course I am building up to blogging about my visit to the French capital, I have a weeks worth of hoops to make and then I am taking a little time off to prepare for Christmas, visit my lovely K and her new baby (who isn’t actually out in the world yet!) and, yes, get all of the Paris images off the camera and into the computer. Phew! There will be a few changes at Lou Lou & Oscar in the new year, including price rises, this makes me so sad, but I need to start charging more realistic prices and taking the exchange rate into account (come on dollar rise against the pound!). I feel that LL&O needs a little freshen up for 2010, new photos, a more coherent feel, the depth that comes with a little extra experience. My most recent work has streamed itself into two ‘collections’: Natural History and The Stars Down to Earth (thank you Mr.Adorno!). More about this tiny development soon I hope. Paris was so inspiring, I can’t wait to share it with you. I am going to leave you with a couple of images to whet your appetite, sources of inspiration for the Natural History collection.

So, the In Stitches Embroidery Showcase opens tonight at Renegade Handmade in Chicago. I wish I could be there to marvel at all of the wonderful artwork in person. The work of many of my stitching idols will be on display, including the wonderful and lovely Jessica Marquez aka Miniature Rhino. Jessica is pretty much the reason I began to try my hand at embroidery, her work is always such an inspiration, full of beauty, and oh, that neat, super-crisp stitching. Thanks Jessica! I have fallen hard for the work of Jennifer Porter, who goes by the name of Porterness. Scarily good! Check out some samples of the amazing work on display above, or even better, if you are in the area, get yourself down to Renegade Handmade. I still haven’t had a chance to get the images of my submissions out of the camera but you can see some pretty awful scans here. I have been sewing like a demon today to get some work ready for Supervente, neglecting husband, son, friends, siblings and email. Paris reporting will have to wait a little longer too, I have some exciting news to share when the time is right, it is good to be so busy, but why do I always leave things to the last minute?

I received an email recently about a very exciting new ‘pop up’ shop and gallery organized by textile designers Hinshelwood de Borman. The event will showcase textiles, homeware, antiques, taxidermy, artists books, paintings, prints and more from emerging and established British artists, illustrators and designers. The line up of artists involved is impressive to say the least, I wish I could attend, I may have to send some spies on my behalf. If you are in London this is an event that shouldn’t be missed. Check the flier below for more information. Get thee gone kittens!

Caitlin Hinshelwood

Rose de Borman

Hannah Waldron

Jazmine Miles Long

Cornelia O Donovan

Alice Stevenson

Susie Cowie

My apologies that things have been so quiet here for a while, I have been working on my submissions for the embroidery show at Renegade Handmade next month. You can see one of my embroidered collages below. I need to get some proper images up soon, that poor deer needs her legs back, how embarrassing!