Whittard Blog

It felt an age ago that Hannah from Whittard of Chelsea came to visit us, but it was only May! Since then we have moved premises and generally been busy making and creating.

Here is a little piece from the blog, to read more please go to http://www.whittard.co.uk/articles

The Whittard Blog

We went to meet Jan Ollis, owner and founder of Chi-Chi Moi and producer of our hand-made tea cosies. Based in Wells, her studio is a craft heaven – with endless balls of wool, ribbons, a vintage sewing machine, pretty crocheted flowers and tailor’s dummy. We put the following questions to her, whilst sipping tea, munching on cake and exploring her charming studio:

Tea Cosy competition!!!

What a fantastic opportunity to have a tea cosy you have made judged by Kaffe Fassett and Lyn Edwards (renowned Quilter) The competition will be included as part of the Wells Food Festival taking place on Sunday 12th October. A wonderful event and well worth visiting.

Please pass on this information and don't forget the deadline is mid September.

First post for over 6 months - How embarrassing!!

How emarrasing - 6 month's since my last blog.....however, above is one of the reasons. This is the 'Ruby' tea cosy one of a range of six cosies I have designed for the lovely Whittards of Chelsea. They asked us if we could keep our knitting a secret until the cosies were available to buy on their site and we have! Whew. Of course that is not all we have been upto in the last six months, we had the busiest ever Christmas with Not on the High Street, made some lovely quirky tea cosies for a talented Interior Designer and moved premises, it has been a busy time. So now, hopefully, I will get to blog more - possibly even about the last six months!.

Jan

x

Finished display

Here is the finished display now being exhibited in Somerset Art Weeks at Thornreed studio, Godney. As you may of guessed it was a LOT of work, but I am so pleased with the result and this great photo taken by Jess Coombs.

Slow but sure

This has been a busy week, the flowers are 'growing' quite nicely - but slowly..  However, I am really pleased with this little jug full of 'spring' flowers. I found the jug with some pretty vintage teacups in a brocante shop (again in Wells, we are so lucky) I think it is an 'Empire Ware' Crinoline Lady, probably from the 1950's. I had not heard of 'Empire Ware' and this is the second piece I have bought recently. This is the other piece, a rather fabulous & over the top vase.

Beautiful St Ives

We have just returned from a lovely week in St Ives, Cornwall. The weather was great, spent most days eating too much, sitting on the beach and browsing in the shops. So many things to do and see there, my favourite shop has to be Kudos, situated in Fore St  www.kudos1.co.uk/ one of the most unusual shops I have ever been in Kudos St Ives Shopping - The Upstairs Shop, just fabulous.

Did get a little crochet done whilst there, but now really need to get cracking only 5 weeks till Somerset Art Weeks!

crochet polyanthus and flower pot

Well this one really has taken a while, but at last I have finished a polyanthus in a flowerpot, infact I have nearly finished another using discloth cotton, seem to be on a roll.....

Sew Vintage flower making drop in sessions

I have been overwhelmed by the response to my two flower making drop in sessions held at Sew Vintage,
Wells. Above is the first one last Wednesday, it was such a lovely day we just had to sit outside. Yesterday I had 13 ladies turn up! Took me by surprise and I was woefully unprepared, but what a fantastic morning, with lots of flowers and leaves made and more on the way. Thank you to everyone who came.

Dilemma

The top peony is my new take on the original peony printed in my book, it took me about 3 days to make & then write the pattern, but I am not sure whether to submit it as a replacement or not, I quite like the simplicity of the original peony - dilemma!

Would you like to make some flowers....

Hope you don't think I'm cheating, but I will be running a couple of drop in sessions at Sew Vintage, Wells www.sewvintagewells.co.uk to make flowers for my Somerset Art Weeks installation. Jules and myself thought it would be lovely to invite people along to her gorgeous shop to make some flowers. You will need to be able to knit or crochet, but hopefully it will be a lovely way to spend a couple of hours and there will be cake (homemade of course).
The jam jar posy is just one more idea for the installation, flower ideas are coming thick and fast now....promise to add more images soon.

Glastonbury Festival 2013

Have just had a fabulous few days, on Saturday we went to the amazing Glastonbury Festival , one perk of living close is being able to go in for only one day & not feeling to guilty, as it is only a 15 minute drive away. The Sun shone, Rolling Stones played and everyone had a good time.

One highlight for me was also seeing my 'Crochet Daisy' image on a 100 metre banner for Somerset Art Works, great idea by SAW and hopefully an annual occurrence.

Here is an image of the banner, not the best I'm afraid as it was taken on my phone, but as you can see - 

No Mud!

                                                                  

It's been a while............

Lots of new projects have been coming my way lately and it has been hard to fit in time to create anything for my installation, but here at last is an idea inspired by the lovely little Sylvac basket vase that I bought in 'The Trading Post, Wells' which for anyone who has been there, knows is veritable treasure trove of goodies.

The 'wood violets' are all crocheted and took most of yesterday to make, but what a lovely day to sit in the garden crocheting, even got a bit of a tan.

Sun is still shining, so hope to be out in the garden crocheting away again very soon.

Knitted Lily

Here is my first attempt at creating a lily, as a first go I am pretty happy with it.  I can see where to make changes and hopefully improve on this one, think that the yarn I chose it perhaps too thick & stitches too loose, anyway more trial and error no doubt. Although the white is pretty good, feel that a yellow or orange 'tiger lily' would be more dramatic, I have tried using fabric as well, but with no success as yet.

I imagine putting a group of 'tiger' lillies in the blue and white vase, think it could be quite dramatic.

Flea market booty

What a wonderful bank holiday weekend, the sun shone & I headed over to the Bath & West Showground. What an amazing Flea market, I went with purpose & was very pleased not to be too distracted, my plan was to buy vases & jugs for the installation & here is my 'booty'.

Not quite sure what flower to put in the Murano Glass fish vase yet, but am sure inspiration will strike.

Now it's funny what things suddenly come into my head, last night I couldn't get to sleep and I started to think of my crochet flowers... and how they might look much better in their natural habitat so to speak. Today turned out to be a lovely sunny day, perfect for putting my plan into action.

I am really pleased with the result and am now visualising fields of crochet daisies, poppies, a wild flower meadow.......

Thought you might like to see my spectators, they think that they have a very strange owner.

This week the sun actually shone a few times and I was inspired to create something 'summery' I love daisies and they remind me of hot summer days, so here are some crocheted ones in my find of the week - a vintage milk bottle from Wells Trading Post (http://www.wellstradingpost.com)

Love that the milk bottle says L & D Slocombe, High Street, Street. The bottle top even said unpasturised milk!/

Funny what I spend my days doing, this week I have been covering flowerpots in crochet. Quite like them, but think they look a little too normal. The chunky knit is quick to knit (about 2 hours) but the double knit is twice as long. Like the way this is going and will persevere. My plan is to make a primula for each pot, probably a mixture of crochet and fabric. Would welcome any comments.

At last!

After many hours, I finally have a (small) bouquet of roses that I am happy with, thank goodness it is 6 months till Somerset Art Weeks! After muchg deliberation have decided to use knit, crochet, fabric and 'objet trouve' in the flower installation.

Slow Start

Oh Dear, a very slow start to my Installation piece, managed just two petals in two hours......

but I will persevere!!!

Flower basket tea cosies

Have been busy knitting these flower basket tea cosies for a local hotel, think they might be a good addition to the 'Flower Tent' installation, my original plan was to use crochet only but guess it could be a combination of knit and crochet .