Cardboard City

This week, I have been helping out at the Imagine children's festival at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank. The guys from Land of Kids have put on a pirate school and a cardboard kingdom workshop and a couple of days this week I was part of the team overseeing the children who are making the cardboard architecture in their half term. 
It all started with a stunning red routemaster, the creative genius Sarah Waites of The Bungaloo, who has been running the workshops, and has grown since there into a beautiful, imaginative, inspiring installation which all the children seem to love being part of. 
They like looking at it and spotting familiar landmarks like the London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Wembley, London Zoo, even Willy Wonka's chocolate factory! I think it is fab that lots of children have included their own homes. They also love playing with the cardboard pieces, especially the vehicles and boats on the Thames, which I realised after resurfacing the napkin road what seemed like hundreds of times while continually rescuing sinking ships!

If you have children, get down to the Southbank this weekend and add to the city, become a pirate, colour in the walls, see shows and hear stories, all completely free! Here are some pictures from the cardboard kingdom - wish I could have taken pictures of everything.

 

baby shower

 Life has a strange way of running away from you and as I have a new(ish) baby, and a new challenge time seems to be flying by lately. I have neglected the blog and my own work terribly recently, so will be aiming to post about all I have been doing since I was away soon to catch up.

Firstly, a very Jubilant baby shower, coinciding with the Queen's Jubilee earlier in the year. There is a bit of a baby boom amongst my circle of friends at the moment, and it is Felicity's second gorgeous little girl, so there were baby bumps and adorable babes galore present at this one. And come to think of it, loads of girls, not one boy amongst us, unless it transpires that the two bumps are...we shall see!

Apologies in advance for the baby food picture Felicity but it is hilarious, and the girls eat it, so it can't be that bad can it?! (although I do recall one bowl was spinach apples and swede...)

Enjoy the scary queen mask, cute podgy babies, cake, oh and a little bit of knitting! After the blanket we made for Felicity's little Grace was such a hit, she has decided to give sewing up the blanket a go herself, so will let you know if it ever gets finished in between two sets of nappy changes, feeding and general baby madness!

experimental handknitting

My first class of the year at City Lit was an experimental class, where we all basically sat around and played with yarn, stitch and colour for six Friday evenings! I had some very creative students who even had the chance to have a great week making their samples into felt with Heather Belcher while I was away in Florence. Here are some of the fabulous colours and strange yarns and fibres they put together.

Some beautiful samples made from yarn, ribbons and other oddments, plus the string saved from a well known veg box - that is what I call recycling with style!

west dean vintage knitting

Huge apologies for my lack of posting in February, but I have been unbelievably busy. Now a few of the pressures are off, I shall catch you up with everything I have been doing.

First, I spent a relaxing weekend in West Dean teaching a new class - adapting vintage knitting patterns - which is the perfect place to begin to learn how to design your own knitting patterns.

Had another great view from my room this time....

Stitching and Knitting

I have finally found a free moment to fill you in on what else went on at the stitch and knit show at Ally Pally this year so here are pictures of some of the things which inspired me most....

Of course the students' work was my first port of call, as I love seeing

what the fresh young designers of tomorrow will be creating. This year I was mainly looking at crochet, following the trend that I seem to be following lately and for a change there was quite a bit of it!

Grace Hamilton's very wearable statement jewellery was my favourite as it was unique and exciting yet practical.

Emma Philpot's knitted and crocheted sculptural dresses were not new to me as I had first noticed them at her graduate fashion show, but it was great to get to see them up close and personal and they did not disappoint.

I was on the Kal Media stand all weekend, which was fabulous as I got to meet loads of people who I had only got to know virtually, and the new issue of Inside Crochet was really well received, which was lovely.

This is the Artyarns stand, which was a magpie's dream - all sparkles and glitter with heavily embellished luxury yarns glinting in the artificial light. Their yarn is also the one in the top picture, which just demonstrates what a fabulously vivid colour palette of yarns they stock.

Finally, (as I could go on forever, but bedtime calls) here's a glimpse of Mrs Moon's store. I have not yet managed to get down to the relatively new yarn shop in south London. It looks adorable, with pretty candy coloured yarns and decorated with girly printed wallpapers.

spring into knitting

Another incredibly busy few weeks has seen me teaching knitting all over the place. This bank holiday weekend brought me to my favourite place of all; West Dean College in Sussex and it just so happened to be my favourite time of year to visit too; the lambs were gambolling all over the front fields, ducklings paddled in the pond and spring flowers bloomed everywhere. The food was divine as usual, using all the local spring produce and of course, as with any time of the year, the company was excellent.

I had a rather more art based collective of students than usual, which led to an interesting, fun and inspirational weekend, fuelled by very different creative personalities. We also had a Kiwi taking a stop gap travelling the world and an Oz based Brit, making us a very cosmopolitan group, which also added interest to the colours chosen, as the ladies who saw the sun a little more often were more daring in their palettes than those of us more used to wet, grey days!

Most of the experimental pieces made at the weekend looked like they should have been at the bottom of the sea, as part of some great, vibrantly coloured coral reef - perhaps it was the antipodean influence. Whatever it was, it made a typically grey bank holiday weekend much brighter and the oddly shaped jewels, beads, flowers and art pieces all served to inspire and intrigue.

This weekend, there were two other jewellery craft courses occuring at the same time as mine, a felt making workshop run by Heather Belcher and a polymer clay workshop with Carol Blackburn. Both looked like great fun and I always enjoy watching Heather's industrial carder at work. She also had fabulous colours on display in her unspun wool hanks, it seems that, just like me, she cannot resist a rainbow! I wish we had all realised beforehand we were all doing jewellery at the same time as our students could have bartered over each others colourful and unusual beads, creating a truly unique necklace out of it.

Next time at West Dean, after my taster days teaching beginners knitting and beginners crochet, I shall be doing a vintage fashion and knitting patterns inspired course. Keep an eye out for more details soon.

french knitting

The Easter hols are done and dusted and that means the next thing I am looking forward to is a trip to the South of France to teach some lucky folk how to adapt patterns and even design their own. Here are some pictures of the last class I did there.

If you are free from the 13th-17th May and fancy some sun, sea and some fabulous knitting along with great food and company, come along! Check out the fabulous Les Soeurs Anglaises site for this and other great classes. I fancy the Tango myself....

artreach craft workshops

Here are some photos, courtesy of Joy, from the workshop with Artreach in Northwood last weekend. We made crochet flower necklaces and simple floral corsages, while other groups made hand sewn brooches or painted silk greetings cards.

Here is Susie Johns, who it was a pleasure to meet again, showing her groups how to paint beautiful designs onto silk.

And here I am reintroducing a mother and daughter to the delights of crochet.

Lots of fun was had by all and I have since begun a series of mixed media workshops with the group, aiming to create a colourful textiles wall piece, or 'quilt' around the theme of snow days. Will post pictures here when it is completed in a few weeks time.

artreach craft workshops

This weekend I will be running a workshop in Northwood alongside one by the lovely Susie Johns. I will be bringing along some crochet hooks and a big mystery bag full of lovely fabric, yarn, buttons and other assorted fabulous bits and bobs. We shall be learning basic crochet chains and sewing techniques to create simple flowers and cute necklaces.

Must get my camera fixed before then so I can post pictures next week!