The Naked Hedgehog Project

Photos by Lou


This is your chance to join in with a fun summer project - The Naked Hedgehog Project.

We've printed lots and lots of hedgehogs, but they need your help, they don't have prickles...

...you can make prickles any way you like - sewing/painting/printing/sticking/college - the choice is yours and then you can make your little hedgehog into a toy/cushion/clothing/bunting/a bag/anything else you can think of...we've made ours into little hedgehog shaped cushions...

In the Autumn we are having a window display of hedgehogs at Papervillage in Bristol as lots of regulars to the shop are joining in (as well as a local Brownie pack) but there is also a Naked Hedgehog Project Facebook page and it would be amazing to have a collection of hedgehogs living there together.

If you fancy having a go and joining in you can get hold of your naked hedgehog here (they are £3 each) or if you are in Bristol pop in to Papervillage.  

I'm so excited to see what everyone does and can't wait to have a Naked Hedgehog Project Facebook page populated with lots and lots of happy, prickily hedgehogs!!

Would you like to join the Naked Hedgehog Project??

summer

The hardest part of my week this week has been thinking of things to do with black currants.  We only have two bushes.  That should be just right for a family of black currant lovers.  This year they have been in bumper, berry overdrive.  Which is good.  But now the freezer is filled with frozen berries, there's a line of jars of jam in the cupboard and a bottle filled with yummy black currant cordial in the fridge.  And there are still berries on the bushes... oh, and the red and white currants too...Can I open an urban pick-your-own farm?

In other summer holiday news I have already spent a day sitting in a 'playbarn' for about 2000 tedious hours with my arms sticking to the top of a plastic table.  My plan - get it over with on day one and then force the children to potter about in nature for the entire rest of the time, or if there really has to be an alternative to nature we could make something out of paper and glue and glitter.  We have done the 'playbarn' already this summer and so do not need to return.

the squirrels are coming...

I've had a great run of commissions recently, this one was fun and I really want to visit now.  It's on the Isle of Wight so in this glorious sunshine it would be a fantastic little outing for me.  I had to include squirrels as the lucky owners of this house have red squirrels as frequent visitors to their garden - I hope you can spot them lurking in the trees...

If anyone else living in a beautiful/exotic/beach facing location would like to commission a lino print just let me know before the weather turns and I will be straight over!

Fabric printing - happy fish

Printing on fabric and then filling it with stuffing is very satisfying and also very distracting.  Other work I should be doing is struggling to compete with the thrill of stuffed animals.

I'm sure this fish is very friendly and to me he looks like a happy fish, but several people have commented on his very sharp teeth - it's not his fault and he promises not to use them on your fingers, he really is happy, you see.

I made him in one of those blurry moments of activity when you suddenly think "I'm going to print a bright green fish NOW, even though I should be helping my children with their spellings, and nothing will stop me, even a house with not one inch of clear space to work or the fact that there is nowhere to dry them...it will be done".

Because these are prints I can never stop at one, or even two and now I'm going to spend the rest of the summer sewing up the other members of the shoal (and all his hedgehog friends, we have a LOT of hoglets in our house at the moment - more on that later, because you can have one too...)

But for now I'm going to have to stop printing animals and get on with some REAL work, because the summer holidays are coming, (hooray, hooray) and I have two commissions to finish first. Maybe I'll just sew another fish first, because I have got some really nice watery fabric that will make a great back...

Angry hedgehog!

At the moment we are busy working away on an exciting print project that we want lots of people to join in with and this funny fellow is one of the first hedgehogs to emerge ready....I think he looks a bit angry, but he's very friendly really!

I really love printing on fabric, it is such a satisfying surface and gives a really great quality to the image because of the texture of the image.  I also like the smell of the ink, so maybe that is part of the reason too!  In the next couple of weeks I am planning to print the first 100 hedgehogs ready for our project and I've already enlisted a Brownie pack to help me (they love hedgehogs so were really keen to join in - yipee).

If you like hedgehogs/sewing/painting/crafting/joint projects then you'll have to pop back here at the end of the month to find out what we are up to and how to join in and also see more great hedgehog images...