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The Month That Was September...

Lee May Foster-Wilson / September 30, 2022

Well, hello Autumn! It’s arrived with a big crash landing in our part of the world. After those incredibly hot days of Summer (a Summer which weirdly felt long and short all at the same time) the shorter, cooler days, dramatic skies and leaves falling seem to have arrived from nowhere. It has made it easier to be inside though, knuckling down to client work which is taking up most of my time at the moment.

September started with a fun bang though! My gorgeous cousin Chloe and her lovely boyfriend Alex got married in a little coast guard hut near to here and then brought all of their dearest over to ours for the reception in our field, and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. Not just the wedding day itself but having family and friends here for the build up and aftermath was like a big hug of special times. It was a DIY affair on every level (I was entrusted with making the confetti, see the image above, deadheading the garden has never been so enjoyable!) and it worked so well. My cousin’s vision for dressing upon the 70 year old US army tent, borrowed from my brother’s wife’s family, was stunning…Shells, Gypsophila, hand dyed linen and Army tent, turned out to be a winning combination!

Since then, flower and vegetable harvests have still been going strong and we have had our first few blackberry and apple crumbles of the season. My daughter loves to help me crumble up the fat and flour, nothing fancy, we love a simple crumble recipe like my mum makes it (180g of flour, 90g of fat (we use Flora because my husband has to avoid dairy) crumbled together and then 90g of sugar stirred through) and it all bubbles and crisps up in the oven beautifully. My favourite way to eat it, a warm and fuzzy childhood reminiscence, is to serve it with milk *chefs kiss*!

So the big news this month, have you noticed the new look in these parts?! My lovely husband has been working hard to bring this new website to life, it still needs a few tweaks but I hope you like it all…Please do let me know if you find anything broken or not quite right but I hope it all works properly.

Lee Foster-Wilson New work

On the art front I have completed another bird for the series, these little Sparrows (watch them come together in my latest YouTube video where I also talk about how I started out on my creative career) and I have released some new cards, the Song Thrush and Pied Wagtail finally found them selves as greetings cards as well as the Words to live by…I have also realised that I have yet to share the latest pieces I have had licensed with my art on them…

The first are the new pieces in my range with Shruti. I was particularly excited about these as this time there are some for kids! I have long wanted to put my artwork on items for children and this little moneybox, mug and plate set, bunting and height chart are such a treat. The ideas all came from Shruti and I just had to supply the artwork. The mug and plate set and the bunting were made from existing art and I designed the money box and height chart especially. The height chart is screen printed and it was a really nice to work with that in mind, layering the flat colours and getting the balance across the piece correct. It works so well! It’s a meter and a half long so also incredibly hard to photograph effectively but I hope these pics give some idea…

Bonbi Forest and Shruti Height Chart

Bonbi Forest and Shruti Kids Homewares

The rest of the range is just as pleasing. The bottle vases are really sweet and there are a couple of new mugs. I am so pleased with the bowls too, they’re so big and bright and cheerful! And I really love the Thermos too, it’s not huge so ideal for popping in a bag on a cold morning..plus this blue and pink is perfect I think. There’s a tea towel  and lunch bag too (lunch bag not pictured) which is made from recycled cotton, in fact, all of the cotton pieces, the bunting and height chart too, are recycled cotton.

Bonbi Forest and Shruti Homewares

They are all such nice additions to the existing range which can be shopped HERE. Honestly, as an object magpie, seeing my work applied to homewares like this never gets old!

So alongside those I have also had three embroidery kits licensed with Bothy Threads! They feature much of the same artwork on some of the Shruti pieces but as is the nature of licensing, as long as there is no product or territory clash then the same artwork can be licensed over and over. I think that is what I like most about licensing, when a piece of art is successful it can really work hard for it’s money.

Lee Foster-Wilson Bothy Threads Embroidery Kit

Bothy were lovely to work with, I just had to make a few adjustments to the art to make room for certain stitches, beads and sequins and they put the kits together…I’d be so interested to see finished pieces if anyone decides to make them? You can order them HERE.

Well, that’s about all the news for this month, I will be carrying on with my client work (which I hope to be able to share here before too long) and tomorrow I am off to another wedding, my third of the year…

I’ll leave you with these Autumnal pictures…it’s all about the conkers here and check out this handful of golden Autumn raspberries. A flavoursome sweet treat indeed.

See you next time!

Lee

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