Experiments and Mushrooms

This week I'm trying new things, including with my newsletter!

I’m trying a new thing!

Welcome to The Green Bean on Substack, the new home for my newsletter which I am hoping will become more regular, maybe?!

If you’re receiving this by email, it’s because you previously subscribed to my newsletter (thank you!). While I still intend to share updates from my shop here, I’ll also be chatting about happenings in my studio and some of my favourite recent photos from my camera roll. I know not everyone uses instagram, and even those of us who do are seeing less of the content we want over there. I’m hoping adding these to my newsletters means more folks will get to enjoy my joyful Dartmoor images, and that making my news a bit more chatty and informal, perhaps I can send it out more often...

So it becomes sort of like a blog, from the old days of the internet? Special thanks to you if you’ve been following my work since the days of my original Green Bean Studio blog back in 2008… Time really does fly!

This week in my studio, I’ve been deep in editing a video about a box that I made to house my Hansen Crafts MiniSpinner. I’ve almost finished it, it’s 42 minutes long and I’ve no idea whether anyone will really be that interested in watching me cut and glue cardboard for three quarters of an hour, but I’ve enjoyed the process nonetheless.

The video is available now on Patreon, and will be published on YouTube in a week or so.

That video is part of my larger experiment with changing up the way I do my podcasts. I’ve published one other episode so far in a new format, which was a deep dive into the process of making my sheep boiler suit. The plan isn’t always for these videos to be so focused on a single project, that’s just how it has shaken out so far. I’ve got lots of ideas for this new format, which mainly came about through considering how I could respark my own interest and excitement for making videos, rather than keeping the same format I’ve had for four years.

I did, however, also publish a video for patrons recently in my more ‘traditional’ format. After a break, the familiarity was comforting and I feel sure I want to continue with both kinds of video-making.

In other news this week, I’ve been painting mushrooms, sketching a comic, knitting a new sock design and preparing my little shop for an excursion to the John Arbon Mill Open Weekend, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at South Molton Town Hall. If you’re even vaguely local, I really recommend this event as a fun day out. There will of course be yarn and fibre from John Arbon Textiles (including lots of one-off specials), gorgeous books and notions from my friends Fay at Provenance Craft Co. and Rachel of Daughter of a Shepherd…and, last but not least, CAKE.

This week on Dartmoor has seen both rain and sunshine aplenty, and some intriguing mushrooms popping up after one damp night. I had my third cold swim of the season, and despite living here almost nine years we found some previously unexplored (by us) mossy woods late one evening. Jack and I thoroughly enjoyed scrambling around the magical mossy trees.

That’s all for this edition. Thanks for reading and for your interest and support for my creative work. I’m so glad you’re here.

Katie :)