#Silent Sunday

That Friday Feeling...Bees

Yet again I'm apologising. This time for the lack of Friday Feeling posts that I've been doing. I seem to have lapsed badly and haven't done one of these for nearly three weeks! There is an excuse though - I've been a really busy busy bee recently and don't feel like I've touched the floor in the last few weeks. So as a homage to how busy I've been, I thought today's theme should be about bees. There are some seriously cute items on Etsy if you search for bees but I thought I'd go for some fun and happy items I liked this week. What do you think?

Bumble Bee Bunting by SewSweetViolet - how cute!

Awwww! I want some bumble bee booties by funkyshapes

And these bee magnets by themosaicgarden are super sweet too! 

What little snippets can I find for you this week?

• Honey bees have been around for nearly 30 million years.
• No other insects produce food that man eats.
• A honey bee visits between 50 and 100 flowers in a single trip to collect nectar.
• In its lifetime the average honey bee only makes about a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey.
• Baby bees don't know how to make honey - they get taught how to do it by experienced honey makers.
• A bees wings beat about 11,400 times a minute, they travel at 15 miles an hour and can fly up to 6 miles at a time. 
• A queen bee lays her own weight in eggs a day and can lay about 200,000 eggs a year. Despite that, honey bees are endangered due to man's interference with their habitats. 
• Male honey bees are called drones and all they do is mate with the queen - they have no stingers and do no work.
• Which means, yes, all the worker bees are actually female, albeit sexually undeveloped females.
• The Dance of the Bumble Bee by Rimsky-Korsakov has to be this week's YouTube video. At the school I used to work at, our 'Flying Club' used to do a gymnastics routine to this music. It was pretty impressive. 

Weekend Excitement

Continuing in the busy bee craft extravaganza I've a jam-packed weekend this weekend. Not one but two craft fairs this weekend at different places. I'm quite excited about both of them as I haven't done either of them before and I think both could be quite good.

On Saturday I'll be at the opening fair for the Vintage Craft Carnival. It's organised by some lovely crafters who I've met at A Glamourous Affair and it's going to be lots of fun with face painting and goodie bags for the first 50 people coming through the doors. All the stall holders have donated something towards the goodie bags and in addition there are the 'bank of frippery' vouchers that can be redeemed at any stall. They come in different values from 50p to £5 so it's a lucky dip as to what you get so definitely worth while getting there early!

Where: The Priory Tavern, 250 Belsize Road
When: Saturday 22nd September, 12-6

Then on Sunday I'll be at the Pop-Up Market which I'm also quite excited about. I can't remember where I heard about it before but I seem to come across the Pop-Up Market all the time. It's a fortnightly event so if it goes well I might try and return a few times... fingers crossed! There's music starting up in the evening as well as various events in addition to the craft and vintage fair. If you're free either day then come along and say hello!

Where: The Abbey Tavern,  124 Kentish Town Road
When: Sunday 23rd September, 2pm - 7pm

So it's busy busy busy this weekend! And that's on top of a full working week this week. Luckily I'm off to the Isle of Man next Thursday for a few days so I'll get the chance to breathe then! Anyway, if you are free this weekend, please come along and say hello!

Busy Quilting Bee

What's happened to all my craft projects? It would appear that I have totally neglected them over the past few weeks. But that's not actually the case - I just haven't been blogging them very much recently. I've been working on lots of textiles, of the quilted variety. You might remember that after my nephew was born, I made him a quilt out of some gorgeous fabric by designer Dan Stiles (you can see it here). 

So I decided to make some more! I've found some gorgeous fabrics over the past few weeks and have really enjoyed putting some of the colours and patterns together. Some of these have already been listed in my new online shop (click here!) and hopefully the others will be listed in the next week or so. What do you think? 

Love the little elephants on this

Possibly the most traditional one I've made - baby blues

OWLS! STRAWBERRIES! How cute are these fabrics? 

And as I loved the first Marine quilt, I thought I'd make another one... 

I seem to have caught a bit of a quilting bug at the moment... at the last count there were six new quilts and I definitely have plans for more. But I might have to take some time out of quilting for a few weeks because sadly it's time to get started on the next projects... I'll reveal more soon! 

By the way, if you are in London this weekend why not come to the Library Bar on Upper Street, Islington on Sunday? It's time for A Glamourous Affair again and I'll be back with some of the others from 12-5pm. And they do Thai food...

A craft-astic weekend

Well I've been very lapse in the blog posts recently but that is definitely because Trouble HQ has been super busy the past few weeks. As you may have noticed I've been posting up about different fairs that I've been at so thought I should give you a bit of a run down on last weekend's fairs.

I was at Tootopia Festival down in Tooting this weekend. It was a two day event although there were slightly different vendors on the different days. It was lovely to see Emma from Emma Barrett Designs there - she is a lovely crafter who I enjoy chatting with and it's always great to see her. Emma works wonders with beads and also makes the most beautiful bunting possible.

Click on the picture to go to Emma's website

I also saw the lovely Mic from Dagaz Designs who was selling her vintage jewellery and designs. We've bumped into each other a few times and there was a lot of laughter for the time that we were sat opposite each other... mostly due to my clumsiness I think but I'd like to think it was more to do with bubbly personalities...

Click on the picture to go to Dagaz Design's Etsy store 

And I met Nikki of Nikki Stark Jewellery who was absolutely lovely and makes some gorgeous silver and gold items. I was really impressed with her work and also the fact that she's just been featured in Vogue! Wow!!!

It was an interesting (and tiring!) weekend. The weather was beautiful which kept lots of potential customers outside in the sun instead of in the Tooting Tram and Social with us, but even so it was quite a productive weekend, and it's always great meeting new people, chatting with people about your work and seeing what people are interested in. I got a lot of enquiries about my quilts although I didn't actually have any orders. I'm going to be listing some of them this week though so keep your eyes peeled for them!

I sold a number of pendants including the lovely Daisy Daisy pendant to a lady who actually put it on there and then and wore it around the garden for the rest of the afternoon.

And another lovely customer pointed out that some of my cufflinks match some of my pendants and bought a pendant and pair of cufflinks as a wedding gift for her friends - subtle enough for both to wear at the same time but matching so that they are a complete gift set. I hadn't actually thought of doing that before so quite excited about the prospect of doing some more matching designs.

Lots of little penguins are flying off to new homes (have fun little guys!) and some cards and cufflinks have gone as well so all in all I would say I've had a fairly successful weekend. Hooray! I'm back at A Glamourous Affair this weekend in Islington if anyone fancies coming along to say hello...!

Toot-Toot- TOOTOPIA!

This weekend is going to be super-duper busy for Creating Trouble. Not one event but two are going on and this is in the week that I've just started work again! Anyway, I am really excited about this weekend because

a) It's a whole festival of fun on Saturday and Sunday!
b) Fi, who organises it, is absolutely lovely
c) I know some of the crafty folk who will be there and they're great
d) It's a whole new area of London that I haven't explored fully yet...

If you haven't heard of Tootopia then you need to go and look at the website to find out more! It's the Tooting Festival and is going to be taking place over a number of different venues with all sorts of activities going on over the weekend, live music in the evenings etc etc. I'll be at the Tram and Social on both Saturday and Sunday and would love to see a few friendly faces!

When? Saturday 8th September and Sunday 9th September 12 - 6pm

Where? A few different venues but Creating Trouble will be at: Tooting Tram and Social, 46-48 Mitcham Road, SW17 9NA

#Silent Sunday