Some photos from the weekend – Lantern making and weaving workshop in Cumbria

This weekend I organised a craft tent for Penrith Scouts jubilee celebration, which took place on the Saturday near Blencowe. Scouts enjoyed a day of activities, a hog roast and then camped over night.

I managed to take photos in the lulls whilst the kids were off climbing, cycling, baking bread or firing arrows. At other times I was inundated with questions about weaving, lantern making and requests for selotape. A very industrious pair of girls came back time and time again, managed to complete all the activities I’d set out and went on to make their own creation ‘Mrs. Kipling’ which I didn’t get a photograph of because they were too occupied poking it over a wall at people..

Click for panorama! 

Hoping to get some more photos soon of lanterns lit at night.

Free For All, Wigton, Cumbria

I’ve been experimenting with some materials that I picked up in a scrap store in Wigton, Cumbria.  “Free For All”  is a volunteer run scrap shop, open every Saturday until 12.00pm. I picked up a load of coloured cellophane as this is made in the local factory and the offcuts are readily available.

Was really impressed with the scrap store, as although it is tucked away in the back streets of Wigton, it was absolutely jam packed with people looking for scrap items. It was also run by some really cheery and helpful volunteers who were generally awesome.

Contact details of Free for All:

DDENNISGRAHAM@aol.com / 016973 44919

MAP

As I will be leading some craft workshops in Cumbria during the first week of September I have been testing out various methods of constructing lanterns, using driftwood, cellophane, PVA and tissue. Could get quite messy…

V. Impressed with recent lantern making in Kirkcudbright for the Queens Jubilee.

Lantern research…

I’m doing a spot of research in order to spark more ideas for lantern making workshops.

It’ll be useful to get an idea of what materials people will need to save up until September… click on the images for the sites I’ve been looking at and more instructions.

www.eea.org.uk

I want to recycle as much as possible – Hopefully parents will be able to save up loads of paper, plastic bottles, jars and possibly twigs until then!

New Website!

I’m not sure if I ever announced the launch of the new web shop yet as I haven’t added all my stock to it, but HERE IT IS! More stock on the way…

I’ve been very busy undertaking whole weekends of pretty intensive learning on a permaculture design course over the last couple of months amongst other things and thangs but I managed to get up to Cumbria last weekend. I met up with a local ceramic artist and we are in the process of designing a workshop that will take place there this September for the ‘Scouts Jubilee’.  The emphasis is on recycling stuff, and making lanterns, as it is taking place on a site where families are going to camp over. Apparently I get a yurt to do it in – woop.

At Glastonbury last year I was part of the Bhopal Medical Appeal recycling crew – the charity had their own workshop space within the festival and were making amazing bottle/fabric lantern people with paper mache heads:

See the Bhopal Flickr album

I think this is a nice starting point although I’m not sure if we would have access to a generator to light them up… I might be better to make smaller lanterns along these lines…

We might have access to clay, so I want to do another activity which involves making up your own animal, foraging around for things to make it out of using a clay base, and then thinking about it’s habitat/food and how long it lives for etc. I think this would probably appeal to kids? At least I hope so….

Woop!

Web making was a success yesterday! Every one managed to make webs, especially impressed this brown blue and white one that a lady called Cissy made. The giant ball of white wool did get thrown across a table and almost broke a vase at one point, which made me wonder if I should be organising a P.E lesson for these ladies rather than a sedate crafting hour, but if been asked to come back next month anyhow. I’ve had requests for something paint orientated so maybe we could paint Christmas cards or something. Hmm.

On Thursdays for the last couple of weeks I’ve been attending a furniture course in the evenings but it’s half term this week so it’s not on tonight. We’ve been making different joints so far – the dovetail joints are my favourites!

This is my fairly abysmal first attempt at a dovetail and I haven’t really whacked it into place properly yet but I am hoping to improve during the course! I need to think  of a piece of furniture I’d quite like to try to make during the end of the course. A friend of mine sent me a good example of some fun furniture that she saw on www.presentandcorrect.com  –

HOUSE DESK! This is made by Ninetonine

Wool web workshop planning and more

Hi! Good news; the decorations I’ve been making are now available to buy from Unexpected Boutique

This week I’ve been making changes to some felt bracelets I made a while ago by embroidering ribs on to them. I think it makes them look a bit more exciting. I might try to adjust the design so it has a metal mount and clasp but I havent quite worked out how to do that yet.

I’m also going over to Normanton in West Yorkshire tomorrow to do a craft hour in a care home. I’ve sort of come up with a Halloween theme – hopefully we will be making wool webs like this one below

They are made quite simply by winding different coloured wool round paper craft straws which I have already attached together.

I’m slightly worried that some of the residents I might be working with might have dexterity issues (I havent met them yet) but we’ll see how it goes.

Good things people have shown me this week:

I Heart Guts – ever wanted a cuddly spleen? Look no further.

Children’s Own Studio – This reminds me of Korean photographer Yeondoo Jung’s project Wonderland

Monsters with ReMade

As it’s the end of August we’ve come to the end of our series of fabric monster making workshops in Kirkgate Market as part of the summer programme of kid’s activities.

The sessions went well and we even had some regular attendees who must have made more than three monsters in total.

Here’s some examples of finished monsters!

Kirkgate Market/ReMade In Leeds – MONSTERS!

First monster making workshop in Kirkgate Market went well yesterday

We’re back there next Monday, 12-2pm – Stay tuned for more updates!

Coming Up In August!

Hi! I’d just like to tell you about some events coming up that I’m involved with…

The first is IN MY BACKYARD on 20th of August

I have been attending a Community Transformers course at Oblong Resource Centre this year, which teaches people how to make a difference within their community through fundraising, enabling, informing, that sort of thing.  IN MY BACK YARD is our group’s end project.

On the 20th August at All Hallows Church, we are putting on a  day of free taster sessions of activities and projects that people can get involved around the Hyde Park, Woodhouse, Little London and Headingley area. Expect finger knitting, yoga, bike fixing,  face painting, banner making, stress busting and lots of information about activities in the area. We have people from Swarthmore college coming down to tell us about their new adult learning courses (One of which is a day course learning which british mushrooms to pick – I’m definitely going!)

Click on the logo for the site, travel and contact information about this event.

Also in August, I will be working with ReMade Leeds during a series of monster making workshops, at Kirkgate Market, Leeds from 12:00pm – 2:00pm, the first four Mondays in August

Remade in Leeds is run by an excellent group of ladies dedicated to up-cycling clothing and fabrics into really nice stuff.  You will find them amending festival costumes at Beacons Festival this year, but they usually reside close to Hyde Park Corner where they run sewing workshops (the next of which is this Saturday) make and repair outfits, and host very popular clothes swaps.

 In their own words they are a “Leeds based ethical fashion boutique offering workshops, events and on-trend clothing collections under our in-house brandAntiform.“

ReMade are also going to be present at IN MY BACK YARD with a finger knitting workshop

Looking forward to August!

SUNDAY – Pet Work Shop! – FRINGE:Leeds

On Sunday I managed to remember my camera and got to take some action shots of workshop participants getting cracking with their own pet creations