The Tethered Fairy Ring Quilt-a-thon gets underway ...

The Tethered Fairy Ring was Officially opened by Ruth Ferris Price out Deputy Mayor of Llanelli

And it wasn't long before Shelbyart Community began helping all the other volunteeers to hand make their patch for me Story telling Quilt 

in the beautiful NBGW

64 stunning patches

 each a piece of artwork in themself ...

Many thanks to

National Botanic Garden of Wales

Shelbyart Community

Michelle Williams

Spice Carmarthenshire Time Credits

Everyone who came to volunteer

All the material and resource donations

Everyone who came to tell us their stories

Special thanks to Michelle Williams and the volunteers who are currently making my beautiful quilt a reality putting their love and heart into

'making it sew'

Adrenaline & Fairy Dust

 This is my somewhat humble contribution to the sewing, but it felt lovely to do it!

The fairies for the outside logo circle 

of my quilt get underway

And so do the toadstools ...

 Everyone set about making patches

Many people popped in to offer love & support

While Shelbyart Volunteers very kindly showed others how to learn new sewing skills

Everyone got Spice Time Credits for thier volunteering from Carmarthenshire Time Credits which they can use to access venues including the Garden. What a great reward for their time.

Even friendly faces from my trial story runs at 

Y Ffrwnes Theatre turned up

Michelle Williams of Shelbyart very kindly facilitated & led the quilting. She is busy as I write, putting adrenaline & fairy dust into finishing off my quilt in time for the launch. S

he has a heart of gold!

You'll recognise faces from my 

People's Kitchen event in August! 

Friends from far & wide

A total of 64 patches over 2 days 

were hand- made with love for my quilt!

And you can see my finished Story Quilt at 

The National Botanic Garden of Wales 

when I launch my finished story 

The Tethered Fairy Ring: A Symphonic Poem & Ukulele Overture for the Light Hearted 

as part of 

National Fungus day on 13th October. 

I'll be in The Great Glasshouse.

Drop in & add your fairy love!

Artwork by http://slovly.com/

Bringing out my inner fairy!

 

How does a gal bring out her inner fairy?

 

Decided today to have a look at fairy outfits on line. Gosh, some of them are so expensive, but very beautiful, and then others look like ... well, just like dressing up rather than actually what a fairy might wear!

 

So I had a rummage in my own wardrobe and this is the best I could come up with.

 

Then we pootled into the garden and had a bit of fun dancing around.

 

I put the pictures on facebook and my lovely friend Helen Davies who is a story teller and author with literally wardrobes of characters, offered to lend me a fairy outfit for real! Brilliant! I'll be winging my way over to Merthyr Tydfil to the Queen of Characterisation before the launch on 13th October at The National Botanic Garden of Wales for National Fungus Day

 

Even Maisy joined in!

Telling Fairy Tales

 

What an incredible weekend at Y Ffwrnes Theatre as part of their Summer Family Festival. I can not thank Rachel Murphy from Arts Care Gofal Celf enough for including me in what can only be described as a dream team of creatives.

The highlight for me personally, other than the amazing children and parents and artists and venue ... was bringing The Tethered Fairy Ring to The Studio on the Sunday Morning.

 I collaborated with other artists, had a Story Craft area where I literally made stories and crafts with the children ... & then Rachel asked me if I would like the Sunday morning spot in the Studio .. well, I was chuffed to bits, so I decied to try out a fair few new things!

 

 

Photographs kindly taken by

Lucy May Constantini

 

First, my writer and artist chum Bríd Wyldearth had asked me about the 'good over evil' context of the story and was that what I believed, that a person is either good or evil ... NO, that is not what I believe but somehow I had put POP in the fairy ring for keeps! I've got a sneaky feeling that he maybe represents someone in my life who I would rather like to trap inside a fairy ring and make invisible! She suggested that I open up the debate, and ask the audience to decide

what happens to him.

So I did! For the first time ... I wasn't sure how they would respond, but the children and the parents loved being in control of the ending ...

 

 

I had such amazing feedback. I was so moved and excited because as a writer, I gauge my work by sharing it with others and feeling their response.

Off course I went wrong a few times,

but I hope I managed to keep my inner calm

and weave myself out of it!

I also used my brand new mood drum which I have 100% fallen in love with.

 

 

Oh, and the other thing I did which was new, and that I really enjoyed, was my opening.

 

I saw a post on facebook saying that for every new story, a fairy is born, so we welcomed in the story using my Mood drum to embrace the 13th hour, the fairy hour ... I asked the audience to come down to the fairy circle by the 13th strike ...

AND THEY DID!

 

So, all in, t'was an AMAZING experience

 

How to get out of a fairy ring!

 

A very hand thing to know should you ever find yourself trapped inside one!