Wednesday 30 December 2015

Getting Back to Making, opening an Etsy shop and being creative again

After the illness it took a surprisingly long time for my creativity to return properly, and at one point I thought it never would. The thing that helped me the most was just getting back into the garden throughout the summer; even though our summer was a poor one, it was just wonderful to be strong enough....and to have the motivation to clear certain things, dig new beds.....make another herb garden and grow some vegetables.....there is nothing like nature to put us right again, mentally.
I had so missed doing these things and have been able this year to really bring the garden on and see such great changes......I think that being creative and almost childlike in my enjoyment of gardening triggered my creativity again by giving me the desire to stitch and make.
I still struggled a bit with the more serious art work that I would need to do, as I am a member of EAST ( East Anglian Stitch Textiles), and we exhibit seriously, as with the WW1 exhibition that I think I put on here last year, my suitcase with the rats......so I decided to make small things just for the pleasure of making....both decorative and or useful, and decide what to do wih them afterwards!

My dream for next year is to be able to clear out and get rid of an old metal shed and replace it with a greenhouse.....for this I will need physical help and finance and this is one of the reasons  why I recently decided to open an Etsy shop.....it is a small beginning for me with fabric pictures, cards and needlebooks at the moment, but I have lots more ideas which I shall aim for soon, all being well.

I also want to re-do my Blog page and try to make it more interesting, so please bear with me if strange things happen as I'm not very experienced in this.
I also started a Facebook page specifically for my art and craftwork, and I shall now endeavour to add those links here....one way or another

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/EllenDevallArtwork?ref=hdr_shop_menu

https://www.facebook.com/Fragments.by.EllenDevall/?ref=hl

I think I did it :)...now for some photos.

Some textile Pictures/Collages...now all mounted but unframed, Needlebooks and Cards 


Some Cards...which can be framed as mini artworks.

More Cards....the one on the left is made from 19th century Toile de Jouy & has been embroidered with the words " Love is all"

More cards and a Needlebook.....these are not in the shop until later this week as they're bot quite finished.
Work in progress.....a tiny Victorian wool crepe petticoat to be worked on.

 

4 comments:

Penelope said...

So glad to have found your blog via your comment on mine - thank you :) Creative rebirth is an exciting time, the muse is still creaky and confused but she sure knows what she's doing..! I love your quilt fragments and your quest to keep the ruined ones back to being admired; that's a central theme in my work too! Looking forward to what new works come and I'm sure you'll do fine on Etsy!

Sandies' Patch said...

Welcome back!
I hope your Etsy shop does really well and you can get your shed gone and your greenhouse up!
I have a polycarbonate Greenhouse, still in it's boxes in my outside store, I can't put it up by myself and can find no-one to help me. I DID lay some slabs on sand but, it absolutely wiped me out physically and they are higgeldy-piggeldy with grass/weeds/self sown plants coming up between them! I do hope I can get it up this year and get on with producing more of my own veg/fruit.
Here's wishing you a very happy, healthy, peaceful New Year.

Ellen said...

Thank you Penelope.....my quest started back in South Africa when we were too poor to buy new clothes or anything else, and reworking lovely old textiles just became part of me...who I am....I am grateful for those hard times, for all the values I learned.
Glad you are back!

Ellen said...

Hello Sandies Patch,
Your greenhouse story sounds very much like my life!
Friends relined my pond in 2014, whilst I was going through chemo.....this year I managed to lay about a third of the border with crazy paving slabs and cobbles, but that's as far as it got as I was also wiped out physically afterwards! and then lost the motivation I'm ashamed to say......I'm promising myself to actually get on and finish it in the Spring.
It can be very frustrating when help is needed can't it.....I also dream of growing more vegetables in a greenhouse as I have to grow mine in containers as my garden has lots of trees and is too shady in general....here's to getting things done in the new Year.
May yours be peaceful and fruitful too, best wishes, Ellen.