with the very best seasonal wishes to you all!

with the very best wishes from all to all:

have a wonderful heartfelt season and new year!

Big thanks to all who make this wee venture happen month after month

giving joy, building confidence, making beauty and cheeks aglow!

Let us grow, let us grow, let us grow..

and lets never grow up but stay small and beautiful :-)?

Midwnter Merriment pictures

It was the best party ever, it has been said!
Thank you, Sue, and everyone for making it happen!
Click here if you want to see more pics (by the new PCAA photographer!) evidencing the revelry!

Midwnter Merriment tomorrow at West Street

See you there, tomorrow, Sunday!
At 4 - 6 West Street, your lovely local community arts arts place and people!
will include snow queen in story scape,!!

All hands on deck: Christmas is coming!

'just' another of Jenni's master pieces...

This Saturday saw a beautiful commission being finished (or almost on the picture above): a proper Christmas crib! Bringing much joy to Chantalle and Sophie, who will take it to Granny in France as a gift.

Meanwhile lots of more gifts were being made, and smiles being created

as this young industrious student of Jenni has not got enough hands to carry home all that she created in one session! Thankfully mum had a hand free to help carrying ;-)

Other gifts made by clever young hands include this wetfelted picture

At same time other hands were busy cutting the prepared hand felted sheets into colourful soft decorations to be sold next Saturday at the Christmas fair in the town hall.

THANK YOU, Vicen!

Hope you enjoy watching a bit more of the hands as they move....

.... and make beautiful unique gifts - from mother nature, and (unlike so painfully much of other stuff on sale for gifts in much of our consuming driven world!) for mother nature to take care of painlessly should they need to be discarded again - you can put them into your compost!!

THANK YOU, Sarah

Snowqueen maker Alicia and story teller Jenni in full flow :-) !

  

This week Jenni and Alicia took our breath away!
To honour princess Niamh turning 4,

the central act!

the magical story scape creation of the snow queen was unveiled: nearly fully fledged story teller Jenni with first time puppeteer maker and enactor Alicia (who confessed she nearly died with terror ;-)) performed with poise and spark to say the least, - holding spellbound a circle of mums and toddlers and older kids...

After the performance - as always - the kids enjoyed to create their own phantastic stories inspired by the touch and sight of our self made magical story scape

See for yourself here in this album (click here to view album). Plus the birthday party carried on!

So lovely to see so many shining faces !

Tomorrow: all welcome to our public Making Space

Hope to see you all for our December open Making Space at West Street, Arts Centre, upstairs, in room 1. From 11.30 am - 1.30pm. We should be having the fire on again, I hope. And make seasonal gifts and decorations out of magic wool fibre!

Saying that: if you had anything you want to share making: just bring it along, and share your skills :-)

You can also come and sit and watch, or bring your knitting!

By donation for heating and materials....

Snow Queen and birthday cake in our last-of-the-year Story Scape

The snow queen is coming to visit us tomorrow on our last story scape session of the year, so I hear?
I wonder what she looks like! I heard she has slightly changed since she came along in the above garb. And that her story has changed too?
I am curious - and so are you!

Therefore: see you tomorrow between 1.30 and 3pm in the community room of the Penicuik Library for our last story scape session of the year there.

And if that is not enough to tempt you, there will be a birthday cake!
For our special little princess's 4th big anniversary day:

here she is - story telling herself!

Hushed Preparations...

shhh   -    someone is making something for story scape!

Looks like lots going on behind the scenes in preparation for the last story scape session (Friday 2nd Dec)...

and someone (you know who? ;-) is progressing nicely with the crib figures and other secret things for the sale on the Penicuik Community Council Christmas fayre on Saturday the 10th December (townhall).

and someone else has spent here a couple of hours making flat felt from scratch for ...
oops, been told to hush up - something to do with making Christmas decorations from them...

and on that theme of making things as gifts

I believe young Heather's Santa and his wee furry friends are gifts for someone..???

shhhhh


what are you making in your hushed preparations this time?

The possibilities are so endless with magic wool here --- and it is all biodegradable! No burdening the earth with more fancy wrappings and plastic chunk! But fluffy things made with love for our loved ones!

hush - no rush.... but do get on with it :-)

Full of angels

one of the many magical angels made today

We were very happy to be back in townhall today as part of the annual craft fair, and to have Laryna as guest craft teacher. Her instructions as to how make beautiful wool angels and fairies were enthusiastically received, and many a beauty winged its way home in little hands.

See more of or Making Space team on stage by clicking on picture below:

check out all pics in album: #94 - #129

PCAA Craft Fair 2011

Sheena's popular knits

Some great crafters are about in and around Penicuik! To be in a hall full of them, and their precious and curious pieces made of everything under the sun - it just makes you feel good about being alive!
(Not too mention the cakes in the cafe!)

The best way to catch the feeling is of course by simply having been there. But you might just like to visit or revisit the day by browsing through the photoalbum
https://picasaweb.google.com/102152181371990623985/OurAnnualCraftFair2011

Enjoy the sight, and let us know (using the comment section here or PCAA facebook if you have bought anything here that brought you or your friends and family that joy and satisfaction that only hand made things can bring.

Annemarie and her handdyed yarns next to the fine scented herbalist stall

Krgyz style Nuno Felting

Softest white silk, and delicate wisps of merino wool, diligent soft and firmly worked into silk, only to be wildly thrown onto the table in a bundle!

Shirin and Jenni making the first cut in the ream of the silk from the orient

See for yourself in the photoalbum from picture 48 until picture 93 how the different stages unfolded.

A very big thanks to Shirin for taking us as guinea pigs to practise her facilitation skills on! It is a huge challenge to handle all the practicalities from bubble wrap buying and later drying out again, from transporting the silk from Usbekistan (thanks, Matthew!) to washing the towels, and it is so much more fun to tackle it as a group in a firelit cosy room.
Even when one runs over time but luckily can evacuate the stragglers into the smaller room #2 for the final  touches:

When the silk is dry, we still need to hunt down one or the other lady to let us take a picture of her in her new shawl!

Coming Together!

It must have been the tiger who called them in!

6 + 2 tables today room 1 in West Street were overflowing with crafting activities and of old friends and guests!  Dry felting and wet felting, intro and advanced, and play scape all going on at once....

wet felting

So very new again and again: the magic of painting with wool.

And the creatures and other emerging people for the season to come.

 There has been lots going on today in this big room you love to see..

Please visit the photo album and enjoy the stories the pictures tell there from picture 18 to picture 47

Krygyz Nuno Felting and Angel/fairy creating

check out more on Laryna's work here http://creativefibercraftbylaryna.blogspot.com/ and also search for her and Shirin in our blog. We are so thrilled to have them both back next week!

Gathering in

Gnomie family in their new autumn into winter shelter at All Hallows Eve

It has been a time of 'gathering in' this autumn, and preparing for winter.
Our lives seem to get ever more hectic around us, but there is a stillness and softness in the air everywhere, and the golden glow of autumn...

carding and blending wool

We are using up our remnant wools and see what magical colours they turn in when blend together.
And try to work out what it could be that blend wants to turn into... ?

snow upon autumn fields...

Old friends came again this Saturday - which was fabulous!
See more on photoalbum here.

Earlier this month Jen was enjoying herself gloriously: teaching wet felting to a class of eager primary 1s and 2s kids and their teachers. It is just so amazing what wool can do to folks of all ages: brings out the glow!
(sorry no pics from that event, being a school event.)


And here is one very happy girl who got lucky: the braid she had started weaving on the inkle loom during the festival was given to her - secretly being completed by Christina, the weaver

Weekend away

the family is growing!

Your Maker friends (Jen, Ruth, Vicen) are all away this weekend, So sorry, hope you enjoy crafting all the same where ever you are - and yes, it would be lovely to have you send us pics?

We'll keep you posted of our next session, and yes, Shirin is back!

Meanwhile, not just the gnomy family is growing: