Folksy Celebrities:: Gail Griggs Photography

Anyone who visits my blog will probably realise that I have a lot of love for Folksy!  It’s been quite a while since I’ve been visiting the site regularly and now that I’m back ‘in the hood’ it’s fascinating to see how much has changed lately.  The site’s looking really professional and shiny…make take me a wee while to wrap my head round the changes!

Due to my extended absence there’s been yet another gap in the Folksy Celebrity postings but I hope to get back on track with this too as so many people took the time to answer my questions and some of their work is so fantastic.

I usually post one a week on a Wednesday but will do it more regularly until I have caught up! Should you be interested in a feature then follow this link to fill in the form, do bear in mind however that there’s a bit of a ‘waiting list’.

I’m really excited about this week in particular because I truly love this shop!  She filled out the questionnaire in MARCH 2011 so has probably forgotten all about this.  Without further ado….

Name: Gail Griggs

From: Cheshire

Occupation: I’m a photographer by trade and do family portraits, weddings, corporate events, but my arty prints have been taking up more of my time recently.

Favourite colour: Green

Favourite animal: Chickens

Favourite book: Tricky … at the moment it’s The Gruffalo!

Shop / Business name:  Photography by Gail Griggs

What you make: 

Vintage style prints using an original 1940s camera. I use a technique called ‘through the viewfinder’ (TTV), where you take a digital image through the viewfinder of an old camera. My images are also available as greetings cards which are handmade and signed.

How did you know you were crafty / artistic?

I think I’ve always been encouraged in that sense so I don’t think there is a starting point. My mum does a lot of sewing and my dad is always making something for the house.

What was the first thing you ever made?

Photography wise, I first did a photography GCSE at school in the early 1990′s but I only started taking and selling TTV images in 2010.

Do you have any formal training or who taught you what you know?

I have GCSE’s and City and Guilds qualifications, and I also ran a family portrait studio a few years ago which gave me loads of experience.

How did your craft business come about?

Like may others, it became more tricky to balance long shoots when I had my first child so I had to find something I could do more from home.

Where and when do you do your crafting?

Whenever I have time and in a tiny study at home. Though more often than not I take over the dining room table.

Tell me something surprising about yourself:

I’m currently trying to take one photo a day as part of a 365 project in an attempt to take more photos, more regularly. It’s hard work … it’s only March and I’ve got 68 photos already.

Which Folksy shop can you not get enough of?

I love this style of jewellery from Silk purse, sows ear. (This is one of my favourite shops too! – Konnie)

Is it just me or is crafting really hot right now?

I think you’re right! I think (and hope) that people are valuing handcrafted and unique quality items more, rather than cheap and cheerful mass produced high street items.

Ok you’ve got me convinced! Where can I find you?

Website

Facebook

Folksy

Sew far so……good?

Following on from my post the other day about the beginning of my ‘sewing career’, I thought I’d share my next project with you.

I was due to attend a wedding and wanted something amazing to wear, realising though that I probably wasn’t ready to make a dress I called my wonderful friend Jenny and she agreed to come over and help me.  Jenny is a tutor at The Life Craft and runs her own craft business making these fab cushions.  Jenny is such a great teacher, I really click with her style and she was quietly encouraging to the extent that I got on much better than I expected with the toile for my dress.  (More about ‘the dress’ another time…)

I know it was ages ago but I’m kind of living in the past here in blog land!  There’s been much happening and no time to write!  So anyway, Hallowe’en (told you!) is a big time of year in a fabric shop.  The staff at Mandors were encouraged to dress up and especially to make our own costumes.  In fact, there was a competition.

I was initially very daunted by this, I don’t normally do Hallowe’en and certainly have never made my own costume…but I couldn’t be a spoil sport now could I?!  I got myself a pattern which I initially found really intimidating but realised that if I just remained calm and read the instructions properly.  I had a little vision of Jenny appear above my head and she said “you can do it!”

“I’ll try Jenny.  I’ll try.”

It took me many hours and much unpicking and resewing but this was the result…

I didn’t win the competition but it was all about the taking part anyway.  I was followed around by many children that week who wanted to talk to Snow White!

You can see some of the other costumes on Mandors’ facebook page.

Sew here it is!

A strong interest in sewing has been developing in me for several years now but I was a bit apprehensive to try and I didn’t have access to a sewing machine.  Then in September last year I landed a job in Mandors which is a family run fabric shop in Glasgow.  It’s a very special shop and one you don’t find too many of these days.  Miles of dressmaking and curtain fabric, haberdashery, buttons and wallpaper make it somewhere for people with craft in their bones to get lost for days!

This blog is not an advert for Mandors, they haven’t paid me to write this but apart from the fabric, the staff are what makes it such a fab place to work.  They are all so talented and I’ve been pumping them for information ever since I got there!  It’s been a great confidence boost as the job involves a bit of making for displays etc as well as knowledge of patterns and fabric and everyone has been very encouraging.  I was very nervous the first time I was asked to dress a dummy (in a kimono) but really pleased that I seemed to pull it off!

No one treats you like a noob or laughs when you get something wrong (well, they do a bit).

With my confidence blooming would you believe my luck when my dear friend Carol said her mother had a machine in the garage which had been there for several years and wondered if I might make some use of it!  WOULD I?!

Carol brought it round for me in September (everything happened in September!) and it was love at first sight!  It’s a Singer 507 and the receipt tucked away in the manual informs me that it was purchased new in 1978.

After it had been for a wee service I put it straight to work and hacked up an old duvet cover to attempt my first ever item – a skirt.

It won’t be appearing at London Fashion Week but I’m off to a start no?

Made in Scotland Magazine

I met Emma, aka Cookie Boo at Gin in Teacups vintage and craft fair in Chambre 69 back in September.  She came round the tables with flyers looking for people who would like to advertise in her new magazine celebrating the best of Scottish creations, people, places and events.

I took to her instantly and we spent a long time chatting about the magazine, I admired her commitment admitting that I would love to do something similar but lack the discipline and confidence.  It seemed we had quite a lot in common and I mentioned to her the column I’d been writing for the Folksy Blog (now replaced by Frankly Magazine).  One thing led to another as they say and before she knew it (hypnosis but don’t tell her) Emma had a columnist for her magazine called Konnie Kapow!

I am very proud to be a part of such a fantastic magazine which features craft fair listings, features and advertisements. My first article is about Scottish Crafts and the recent ‘trend’ for crafting.

The magazine launched in December 2011 with a fantastic feature on Gillian Kyle and is a bargainous one pound and fifty pee!  For a list of stockists ‘like’ Made in Scotland Magazine on facebook and look in the ‘notes’ section.

You can also follow on twitter: https://twitter.com/MadeScotlandMag

The Circle of Life

Back in August I wrote about my dear friend Ben who had been our family sheepdog and pet since I was in High School.  We didn’t know how old he was when we got him and can’t remember when we got him but I suspect it was around 1998/1999 and that he was at least 2 or 3 then.

I think you know where this is going.  Yes, sadly Ben had to be put down a few months ago.  This was a loss every member of my family and the friends who knew him all took quite badly, he was a tremendous dog.  Handsome, gentle and quiet, he never barked, he wouldn’t eat if you were looking at him (we didn’t abuse him honest but suspect someone did in his younger days), he loved nothing more than to pee on car tyres and a nice free range egg.

Collies have a reputation for their intelligence and our Ben, love him as we did, let the side down a teensie bit in that department.  He was always tripping over himself and falling off things.  He was incapable of stopping once he started running.  He would jump over a barbed wire fence and get himself stuck on the barbs, best case scenario was he’d jump and not look at what was the other side….more than once I had him land on my head.  I’m sorry to say that (although this suggestion deeply offended my Dad) he wasn’t very good at rounding up sheep.

He loved my Mum and for many years it was just the two of them on the farm while we all (including Dad) were at school, it was her who made breakthroughs with him like getting him to eat a treat and even sometimes (but rarely) while you were looking.

He was my Dad’s best friend, they did everything together.  Ben could reduce my normally quite emotionally reserved Dad to a gibbering fool dancing around and playing with him.   I also remember many a time in my teenage years when I was feeling troubled and I’d go off on my own to sit at a tree not far from the house where my sister and I had once had a den, Ben would find me and in his quiet way come and put his head on my knee like he understood and was saying “it’s going to be alright.”  (good grief I’m actually welling up here, hard to see the keys!)

Anyway, I wasn’t there when it happened and when Mum tried to explain why they’d had to do it I didn’t want to hear the details, preferring to remember him as I did.  The last time I saw him was the first weekend in October which was my Dad’s 60th birthday party.  It was one of the rare occasions that we were all home, my two sisters and I, Mr Kapow and Cath’s boyfriend Dave.  We all knew Ben hadn’t been well and the difference in him was visible.   On our last day we went for a walk and we, as always, took Ben but for some reason he wouldn’t come.  This was unprecedented.  He was unsteady on his feet so Claire took him back to the house, he seemed better though when we got back from our walk.

This is the last picture taken of Ben as we were driving away, he died a week later.

A farm however cannot function without a sheepdog and after several weeks my parents made the very difficult decision that they would have to get another dog.

While nothing could ever replace Ben, we met Gail for the first time at Christmas and I think she’s going to fit in just fine.  In the age old tradition of my family owning ‘unique’ dogs, she certainly fits the bill.

She has some sort of deformity of the tongue which means that she can’t really fit it all in her mouth and constantly sits with it hanging out.  She also has the most enormous bat style ears I have ever seen.  She’s already fallen head of heels for my Dad (how does he do it?) and has wormed her way into the house where she is on his knee every time he sits down.  I don’t imagine this is very good for sheepdog training but she’s very very happy.

She’s also incredibly hard to photograph but here is Gail!

2012 : A fresh start

It’s been almost 5 months since my last blog post and for Mr Kapow and I, 2011 was a trying and worrying year.

Sad Robot Get Well Soon Mini Card by kOodles

Anyone who’s read my blog will know (and probably be fed up hearing!) that we had to move out of our flat after the landlord sold it (without telling us) and then found a new one just accross the road which we fell in love with and were told we could ‘put roots down in’.  Alas this was not the case and although we still live there have twice been asked to leave and twice given a reprieve.  Understandably, we’re not quite as settled here as we should be.

All of this was made even harder by the fact that I was forced out of a job in February and Mr Kapow was made redundant in May.  We had been on Job Seeker’s Allowance for a few months struggling to find jobs.  The thing is though, they won’t take what you actually want to do into account – only what you’ve done before.  I put myself through University working part time in a call centre selling personal loans (and yes, RPI) for a high street bank and had for the last 3 years been an admin assistant for a charity so these were the only jobs I was allowed to look for!  I had been suffering a bit from anxiety and probably a bit of depression (we both had, wonder why?) and was forced to apply for job after job that I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t last 5 minutes in!  We’re both creative people but this was dismissed by staff at the job centre who assured us that we’d never get ‘creative jobs’ because there aren’t any.  One woman when I told her I liked writing and had experience looked dumbstruck, “what do you mean writing?  We don’t have writing?!  There isn’t a category for that.  Are you a book writer?  There aren’t any book writer jobs.”  Gah!

I'm with stupid pendant by Funky Art

We had no real income so couldn’t really look at moving into a private let and due to the fact that we had no children and the severe lack of Council Housing, would have had to wait until we were actually homeless before being forced to move into some high rise or something.  It looked like our time in Glasgow was over and to be honest neither of us minded that much.  We had spent much of the summer on my parents’ farm and my childhood home in the Inner Hebrides so decided to try making a go of things there.

Time after time however hurdles were put in our way, where we would live was a problem.  Unbelievably when I contact the Housing Association in the area they said as I was not considered to have a ‘local connection’ I would be rehoused in Glasgow.  I grew up there, my family live there, I went to school there but because I have not lived in the area in the last 3 years (it’s more like 10 actually) I am not considered local.  We found nowhere and were concerned too that we might struggle to find work, particularly in light of the fact that neither of us drive and public transport links are not brilliant.  I frantically took up driving lessons again (I failed 2 tests in Oban aged 17 and haven’t driven since) with a view to passing my test before we left Glasgow.

Home Sweet Home Owls Giclee Print by Papercuts

I started a clearance sale in the Konnie Kapow shop, I had a lot of stock and at this point we were moving to a caravan where there would be no internet connection and I’d have little chance to get to the post office and did a few local craft fairs flogging cards at half price and it looked like we were off when suddenly everything changed…I got a job.

I got a job in Mandors Fabric store in Glasgow and I love it!  We’re staying in Glasgow for now and I can’t wait to tell you about the changes I’m making to Konnie Kapow!

Here’s to a better year!

Feeling sheepish…

Mr Kapow and I have been living quite a strange and transient existence for the last few months furiously job hunting, selling off our excess stock in preparation for a move to…we don’t really know where yet! and… agricultural labour!

This week we were helping my parents on the farm which meant rounding up all of the sheep and waiting for dry weather so we could clip them.  It was something of an adventure as the faithful and beloved family sheepdog Ben misjudged his footing while we were gathering and fell over a drop of about 30 feet.  Luckily he was just shaken and a bit winded but it was a heart-rending moment.  Poor Benny.

Poor Benny's ok thank God!

With Ben out of action temporarily we had to gather sans dog which is a lot harder than you would thing as human beings simply don’t have the speed to get out and around of sheep at full tilt.  I think we all went ‘through the wall’ at some point during that exercise!

I’ve got a lovely Blue Leicester fleece for my friend Vonnie to spin from when she’s finished moving her house and shop and can’t wait to see what she does with it!

Anyway, in light of this little adventure and the fact that I loved Leopard Print Bee‘s sheep bangle from my last Folksy Celebrity Post, I thought I’d have a wee look for my favourite sheepy items on Folksy…

Cute sheep earrings by Giggles Animal Gifts

 

Sheepy Soap by Miss Poppy's Lovely Soap Shop

 

Wee Black Sheep by Quernus Crafts

 

Amazing Black Sheep Dress by Wonky Woolies

 

Super Cute iPod / iPhone / MP3 Case by Minifelts

 

Gill's Sheep Notecards by Mr Kapow! (Currently half price!)