Size.............

The size of things.....important-yes.
For many different reasons.
With how I naturally work I like to make things big and when I say this I mean I like things where possible to life size or in a size where its on the boundaries of being believable.
I like a bird to be the size if a bird is what I'm saying.
Working small has always been a challenge for me and I mean that. I read of artists who struggle with the opposite and find it hard to make work bigger.
I suppose its all about adjustment,again in many ways.
As of late Ive really tried to reduce the size of my work and for one main reason really-they get heavy and cost more to ship. I know this shouldn't be a compromise but it is.
When sending larger stuff out the postage can really kick you in the teeth.
Selling on etsy showed me this.
Obviously there are other perks to smaller work,less materials being used make things quicker etc.
Well you see this is what I thought,ill be able to make things quicker -not necessarily that true.
When making things smaller you still have to sew,turnout,stuff,sew,finish off etc and stuff something smaller is often more fiddly to do.
Here's an image to illustrate the difference in size from old to new work.

That's a big difference and its almost more obvious to me now that I see it in an image.
There wasn't a huge time difference in making these two wolves.

I know this as I time myself when making things and see if I become faster at making things.
As a business which it is I have to be savvy with time.
So as a test,and I love to test myself I reduced some of my patterns down to see how small I could go without having one of those granny tapestry anglepoise light things.(sorry if you have one!)
And here is the result........

 A miniature sleeping fox,Do you know it was like having one of those light bulb moments.
Its like I got 'it' hard to describe but something understood the working small thing.
So smaller things are realistically more of a gift,love token and a thank you. I don't know how long this phase will last if will last at all! I'm going to go with it and see where i end up.
So for all you crafters play around with scale even in a small way see what happens.
I remember a scene from one of my favourite films 'The witches of Eastwick'.
Cher is a sculptor who makes small booby dolls for a local shop,the devil in disguise Jack Nicholson says he loves them but tells her the scale is all wrong.
She looks dismayed.
"The scale is all wrong,you need to work bigger,let yourself go" hes say
 Wisewords.
I know that im working smaller but its the same principal.

   Sarah @ pings and needles I may have some sleeping foxes in my etsy shop soon.........!