The road to hell is paved with good intentions...…. welcome to a motorway!

Yea gods, it's been ages since my last blog; my New Year's resolution is obviously going to be " keep my blog up to date". So much has happened over the past couple of months, and I've lost count of the amount of times I've thought "oh, that will be good in the blog". 
So, where to begin. 
I ran a weekend workshop with the lovely Karen Walker in Essex. Tracy Marriot has a great workshop space and allowed us to use it for the two days. I taught the patchwork bunnies again, and Karen taught a hare - quite a theme going on there.
I made a big mistake; the patchwork bunny workshop is a two day workshop and I decided to do it in one day. I did it, but boy, the amount of preparation needed was immense, I was up until after midnight for a couple of weeks preparing everything so that the bunnies would be finished. I really must learn from this and not squash quite so much into my workshops. Trouble is, that's me. I squash as much as I can into everything. Hey ho, learning curve alert!
So, here are some photos of Tracy's workshop space (in case anyone in Essex wants to hire it, I can thoroughly recommend it), and the wonderful bunnies and hares that were made. I finally got to do one of Karen's workshops, In the past we've always taught on the same day, so it was a real treat for me.

After the workshop I spent a while looking at youtube videos, and relaxing a little, and found a wonderful video of making turtles by TurtleSoupBeads. I've taken a printscreen shot so you can look it up yourself, it's a sweet video, and totally inspired me to use up some of my old canes.

As you know, I work for the NHS, and our little Occupational Therapy team work hard to meet the demands of the service in a challenging time. We are a great team, I'm very lucky with my work colleagues and decided to have an evening claying with them. A couple didn't believe they would be able to make something they were pleased with, but everyone had a great time, and for me, seeing how clay worked it's magic on my friends was the best part of the evening. We all made some turtles, thanks to the TurtleSoupBeads video, and a fairy house clay evening is already in the calendar for next year.

For Christmas I decided to try my hand at making pens. My friends Aoife and Laura in Ireland make wonderful pens, so I was inspired. I bought a tutorial from Debbie Hart, and made some pens. Although I love designing things myself, occasionally I like to get tutorials from other tutors, and their wealth of knowledge can only improve mine. I adore Debbie's colours, and had real trouble giving the pens away! Have to admit, one did find its way into my Christmas cracker...…….....

Then, a few more pens had to be made. I have a friend in Brentwood who is a wonderful gardener and photographer. Every year this incredible clematis Montana flowers, and he took a photo of it for me which I have in my house. I decided to make him a pen with clematis flowers on it. 

My next projects are going to be a continuation of the vases, and a llama. I've had great fun going round the charity shops and buying lots of vases, I think I have enough now...………….

​I've already covered one with some of the zentangle canes I made for Pat the flat cow, my project for the Polymer Clay Adventure.

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I found some paintings of water drops. I know others have made water drop canes, but I'm going to do one myself as I think they would look wonderful on a vase. So, watch this space!

Right, I have a poorly husband snoring next to me while pretending to watch Midsummer Murders, and I'm about to lock all the cat flaps and keep my four legged friends safe from New Year fireworks. I must be getting old. One glass of wine, and an early night so my day off tomorrow can be spent claying.

George my ginger cat wanted to get in on the photo - I must remember not to cover him with zentangle canes!

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Hope you all have a lovely New Year, and are inspired to work on your clay dreams next year. I know I am!  I shall end the year on something that makes me very very happy. Tidy clay shelves :)