Chrissie Day
My name is Chrissie Day and I live in the bleak but beautiful North Pennines where I write, design and enjoy the outstanding landscapes I live in. Felting in my studio creating Art. Producing my own branded yarn
Living high up in the North Pennines in the UK is the inspiration behind CDDesigns and using fleece from the local sheep who share this area of outstanding natural beauty.
The fleece from the Blue Faced Leicester the Zwartbles and the Shetland provide the natural pallette of colour that Chrissie’s current designs use.
Using the fleece that surround my home is very important to me and my bi line is
100% British from Fleece to Finis
I like to know the provenance of the materials I work with and to this aim I created my own yarn range from the sheep sharing this landscape.
Using the marvellous Blue faced Leicester and all the yarn is from the same flock and same clip,this adds to the beauty of this fibre.
Zwartbles add the chocolate /peat colour to my palette and if I mix any fibre I get my lovely earth colour.
Our home is set deep into the clay bed of the hillside and surrounded by raw, stunning scenery on all sides. Across the Teesdale valley rises the moorland east of Cross Fell its heather-covered inclines glowing purple in the afternoon sun or silver as the snows fall. Above, an endless sky, one day a startling, intense blue; the next a heavy grey carpet pressing down on the landscape below with the mists rolling down and then the winds travel straight across the moors arriving here in their ferocity, leaving chaos behind them. The weather experienced here seems more extreme, more real; and therefore I feel more alive.
Here, on this exposed valley floor , we have made our home and it is here where I made my garden, planted over 80 trees, shrubs and flowers, grow my vegetables, tend my dye garden and dream away sitting outside my studio by the stream which in turn sings out the weather loudly as a storming torrent of water running through the land or genty humming slow tune trickle slowly passing over the ancient stones in the bed.
I harvest the summer and autumn fruits and forage for edible weeds and mushrooms and eco dye materials Our neighbours in this this exposed valley are the flocks of sheep, the Grouse, Pheasants ,Hares, Owls and the two Heron water voles and stoats.
The geese are common sight and after winter as the valley warms the birds arrive home for the summer.
Its Home
.