Saying Yes

 Today I will start to show you the commissioned snugs that I have made. I have talked before about my commission process in relation to the Threadbare Bug Collection. The Snugs really lend themselves well to commissions. They are a practical item plus they can be made in any colour (well, any colour that is available in wool) and they can be personalised in many different ways.

Within a week of making Greg, my sister asked me to make a snug for her friend’s birthday. Then her friend asked me to make a Snug for a friend of her family’s.

This is Kitty. She was commissioned for a couple in honour of their family pet. At the time it was an odd request for me because I had been making all the fantastical creatures with hats, bustles and flowered petticoats. This was much more straightforward and with minimal embellishment. I have to admit that I was a little afraid of it. But generally in life I have found that if you are afraid of doing something, then if you can at all, you should try giving it a go.

Kitty is nothing at all like the other Snugs but I am pleased with how she turned out. At this time in my life it kind of became a policy to try to say yes to all different kinds of commissions. When I said yes, even when I wasn’t sure how things would turn out, it challenged me to come up with something new. Saying yes led to more experimentation and led to me improving my skills. Sometimes it led me to patterns or imagery that I would never be naturally drawn to myself. Saying yes made me think outside the box, it forced me to really think hard about a design and sometimes to get over myself about what I think makes ‘good’ art.

What you will see in the next series of posts is some commissioned pieces that were in line with what I was already making and then some commissions that were very different and specifically tailored with a person in mind. In the end, they are all tea cosies, they were all made by me and every one of them holds not a literal but a stylistic signature of my work.