Next up in our maker interviews we introduct Poppy Darling who will be joining us for the first time on Sunday 24th May at Brighton Open Market. Find out more about them and be sure to say hello to them on the day…
Please introduce yourself and your brand….
Poppy Darling is made up of myself Annie, and my lovely mum, Elsie.
Started in Nov 2013, we create felted and crocheted, fun, playful gifts for almost every age range for the more quirky among us! Mum focuses mostly on young children, and my efforts are concentrated on the young at heart, with a sense fun.
How would you describe your style and your creations?
We don’t take ourselves too seriously, so our collections are often classic, simple designs but with a nod to our own quirky personalities. We love colour and try and inject it into everything we make. We are slowly evolving into a fruit and vegetable stall, with many of our pieces focusing around foods and increasingly subjects of nature. Our very first piece was a Felted Ladybird and Bumble Bee Brooch, closely followed by Whole Apples and Cherry brooches! Now we have started to experiment with more complex pieces, like our landscape brooches, that we like to describe as ‘Window’ Brooches with a scenic view of some imaginary place, we would love to go to. During the Seasonal months, our range extends to Christmas Baubles and Easter Eggs, so we are not continually making the same item over and over again…can you tell we get bored easily!?
What do you enjoy most about your work?
I love the fact we don’t work from patterns and from this experimentation, there are a lot of happy accidents! We start making one thing and it turns into something else that we hadn’t necessarily thought of. The freedom to be creative is something we are both grateful for. We each have a bag, one of yarn, the other wool roving specifically put aside with all the ‘wrong’ pieces that will one day find a home in another creation. Nothing goes to waste.
What can we expect to find on your stall at The Fairy Tale Fair Brighton this May? And are you looking forward to taking part?
We have mostly done London fairs, so we are really excited to escape the city and come by the sea. Brighton has always been a place of fun and happy times for us, so we are really happy to be showcasing at our first Fairytale Fair. We will have an exclusive design for the Fairytale Fair, celebrating the Bank Holiday and the start of Summer but don’t worry Brightonians will get to see our staple range of Ladybirds, Bumble Bees and fruit brooches!
Do you have any plans or ambitions for the future?
Oooh, we have so many designs and ideas we want to try and hopefully perfect, good enough to showcase and sell but we are still fairly young in the development of our little stall so we remain open minded! I hope one day we can focus our efforts on felting kits and to finally launch our website, that we have been agonising over for eight months and counting! I would also love to start working on some animals, birds in particular! We really appreciate everyone who comes over to our stall, comments, suggests and even criticises, (believe it or not, we listen to everything) We try very hard to take on board suggestions our customers have, so developing our staple range is definitely in our plans. Maybe a little bright, light studio where we could leave everything, instead of working off the kitchen table that gets tidied away, every time someone needs to eat! Well, that’s the plan anyway!
Do you have a motto or inspirational quote?
I have a plaque that reads ‘ A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there’, It is a scary thing to do, but necessary to keep moving forward, and this has never been so relevant to us as it is now. You never know what is round the corner but if you don’t try, you will never know if a happy accident is about to happen!
How can we find out more about you?
We have started working on a website and hope to have it live soon (provided we can make enough in time!). For now you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @poppydarling01.
