It’s a bit of a grim time in UK politics, and making beautiful things in response is not (only) a welcome distraction, it’s also a mode of resistance. Audre Lorde wrote ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare‘. I’d add that small acts of caring for others, including making things.

Maybe that’s a somewhat self-important way of introducing these two needle-felted creatures, made for my mum’s birthday. They’re made from naturally-dyed and undyed British fibres, and I’m rather taken with them.

Blue tit shawl pin made from undyed (white) Suffolk wool and dyed with indigo (blue), hawthorn (yellow), hawthorn modified with iron (green), Hebridean wool (dark brown) and alpaca dyed with indigo.

Sleeping fox brooch made from undyed (white) Suffolk and dyed with madder (orange), and Hebridean wool (dark brown) and Herdwick wool (grey).