A beautiful day at the studio!

A gorgeous day today and I am at my studio in the Stables Visitor Centre at Hylands Park, everywhere looks so pretty in the sunshine, I had a walk around the park and took some photos!

 The Stables Visitor Centre, Artists Studios upstairs

Hylands House

View of Hylands on my walk this morning!

A beautiful place to come and be creative, as you can seeI! I came to the studios to hang my other felt picture this morning but had a bit of a disaster with a picture hook and hanging system, hence the walk in the park!

View from my studio window

Time now to prepare for my next workshops, Thursday evening at Make, Do & Mend Beginners Crochet and Children's Puppet Making at Hylands next week.  Tonight  I am going to Knit and Natter at the lovely Hannah's Make Do & Mend in Moulsham Street!

Time Flies

Time certainly does fly and I can't believe it's a couple of weeks again since I posted on here!

In my defence, I have been very busy at my studio at Hylands with Andrea Neale, our silver clay specialist. We have been hanging images of our work in the stairwell for Craft and Design month.  The artists at the Stables Visitor Centre take it in turns to display their work on the walls but as our items are small and do not always lend themselves to display in a frame, we decided the share the space.  So I have taken photos of my handmade felt necklaces and brooches and hoped for the best. Sorry about the flash reflection!

I had a lot of fun making some large flowers from felt and have put two of them on the wall in large frames.  I tried to make the felt lacy and fluted and am very pleased with the results, these photos show the felt in layers

And one of the flowers in its frame

In the meantime, we have had a very successful Coffee, Cake and Craft Session with delicious cakes made by my daughter Jess - Victoria sponge, lemon whoopie pies and carrot cake! The lemon whoopie pies were a big hit!

Seven lovely ladies came to this mixed craft session, some were crocheting, some beading and some working with polymer clay!  A very enjoyable afternoon with lots of chatting and exchanging of ideas!

Next date is Saturday 4th June!

Last Thursday I spent a very pleasant evening with the lovely Hannah at Make, Do & Mend in Moulsham Street, running a workshop making owl cushions, the results are gorgeous as you can see below.

Such a busy week, Saturday was spent running another workshop at the Stables Visitor Centre, this time a crochet session for some very nice ladies who had undertaken the beginners course a couple of months ago.  We spent a very enjoyable day making beaded pot covers, the results are fabulous as seen here

A few days away in Paris

 It was too much to resist for my daughter and I, a free train journey to Paris and back! The rest of the family were too busy so Jess and I set off for 4 days away, we booked a cheap Ibis hotel and set off leaving home at 4.30 in the morning. We caught the 5.45 am train from Ebbsfleet and were sitting drinking coffee at the Gare du Nord a couple of hours later.

We had a wonderful time, walking for mile after mile around this wonderful city, so much to see and four days to squeeze as much in as possible!  Above is a photo of the Tuileries.

The weather was fantastic and everywhere looked beautiful, we started with Galleries LaFayette which is beautiful with the biggest shoe department I have ever seen, and just kept walking!  You can buy an all day tube ticket for 6 euros and so we used that too.




We braved the enormous queue outside the Louvre, which moved remarkably quickly, and spent a couple of hours inside, we saw the Mona Lisa, David's Napoleon paintings and the Delacroix's and then the crowds became too much for us and went outside for a drink and a rest.

We walked from there to Notre Dame and then on to the Marais, a fantastic part of Paris, full of interesting little boutiques and second hand shops, all horribly expensive but nice to look at! We stayed out until the evening eating at a small restaurant and returned exhausted to our hotel room with a bottle of wine!

The next morning we went to the massive antique market at Clignancourt, slightly intimidating with the traders round the outside closing in on everyone trying to sell cheap tatt!  But once inside the main market, it was beautiful, full of little shops absolutely full of treasures!  There were miles upon miles of stalls and shops and if we had taken a truck with us, I'm sure we could have filled it!  The bead stalls were particularly a sight to behold.

 Once we had fought our way back through the market, our feet really couldn't take much more, we walked across the Seine and caught a boat!  You can buy a ticket which allows you to jump on and off at various points along the riverbank.

Our feet ached so much, we stayed on the boat and had a round trip, the sun was warm and it was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.

So not much  way of being creative while we were away but loads and loads of inspiration, so well worth the trip.

Starting a New Blog!

Having seen everyone else's very impressive blogs, I have decided to take the plunge and try writing my blog here! 

 Love From Lynne table

I spent a lovely Saturday at the Truly Madly Vintage and Handmade Fair in Chelmsford sharing a table with the lovely Hannah from Make Do & Mend.  The Shire Hall was buzzing and there was a lot of excellent stuff on sale from a lot of very nice people!

Make, Do & Mend

It seemed to take me most of Sunday to return my display to normal in my studio at Hylands House!  It hadn't seem to take that long to pack everything away in the first place!  For those who don't know, the studios are upstairs in the Stables Visitor Centre and are open to the public on Sundays and Mondays throughout the year.  The resident artists can use the space whenever they like and it is really lovely to have a space where I can work - instead of having to constantly clear away from my kitchen table.

Off now to hopefully be creative while I really ought to be doing some ironing!