Woolly Thinking - Greenbelt 2011

At Greenbelt this year there was a knitting and crochet event at tea-time on the Saturday.  The Hub venue was packed with hundreds of novice knitters and crocheters as well as experienced practitioners of the yarn crafts.  I was the official "Crochet Captain", in charge of a mixed ability crew of 15.  Our task was to cover the final letter O of the phrase "The ache for home lives in all of us" which had been cut out of cardboard.  We crocheted squares to cover the letter and decorated it with flowers and a crocheted cup of coffee!  We crocheted enough to be able to share some extra squares with other groups.  All the novices managed four or five rows and hopefully will have caught the bug.  The final resting place of the banner made it very difficult to photograph well.  Good fun was had by all and the core team are in regular contact through Facebook (Greenbelts Woolly Thinking),  Ravelry (greenbelt-festival---woolly-thinking) and Twitter (@WoollyGB).

Greenbelt 2011 preparations

Martie and I are off to Greenbelt Festival 2011 at Cheltenham race-course over August BH w/e.  Busy doing lots of crochet for it.  I am producing lots of crocheted fish (Christian symbols) for Sanctus 1 (emerging church) to yarn-bomb GB with.  My own spin on yarn-bombing, each fish will have a card inviting the new owners to adopt the fish, give them a name and tell their story in words or pictures of their adventures at GB and beyond, on a blog - http://aquatales.blogspot.com/.  Virtual yarn-bombing?!

I am also preparing to take part in the 'official' GB yarn-bombing event - Woolly Thinking, acting as crochet captain, helping the knit nurses teach beginners the rudiments, undo disasters, hand out already cast on needles/hooks and generally supervise the knitting and crocheting of lots of flowers, leaves, bees etc to cover letters spelling out a well known phrase or saying, to be hung up at GB when completed.  Crocheting a flower each time I've completed 20 fish.

When we get back from GB it is full speed ahead for Didsbury Arts Festival.  3 workshops to prepare for and take and yarn-bombing to organise.  A week entertaining our Hungarian friends from Szeged in between, a party of 11 from the Reformed Church that our church is twinned with.  Busy times ahead!