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!

Worldwide response to Bollard Day

Since posting photos of Mad Knitters' Tea Party's contribution to IYBD on Flickr we have had a tremendous response. 8 photos favourited, one of them three times by people in Seattle, San Francisco and Japan, (my Japanese is not up to reading whereabouts in Japan!).  I'm off soon, at the request of the Hat Works Museum in Stockport, to put a very small hat on a knob on their entrance railings.

Crocheted out!

Wednesday and Thursday this week were spent travelling between Manchester Piccadilly and Media City Salford on a tram, crocheting as part of an interactive Contact Theatre performance called the Lost and Found Festival.  While a bunch of us knitted and crocheted people sang, recited, acted or danced around us and the other passengers.  The 2 knitted and 1 crocheted artwork produced were on display at the Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester yesterday.  I don't know how long they will be on display.

Yesterday was an early start.  Alarm 06:00, bus at 07:18 to Stockport with a huge rucksack of hats to go on bollards for International Yarn Bombing Day.  I'd been asked to co-ordinate Mad Knitters' Tea Party's contribution.  77 hats this Stockport based yarn crafting group created and it took only 30 minutes to have them all installed and photographed.  After 3 hours 60 had found new homes.

After coffee in a local cafe it was off to the Hatworks Museum for 3 hours of knitting and crochet in the cafe as our contribution to Worldwide Knitting in Public Day.  Then my wife Martie and I hopped onto a 42 bus for more public knitting and crochet before the Manchester contribution to Worldwide Knitting in Public Day event, also the end of the Lost and Found Festival, 3 hours at the Contact Theatre.  Great achievement, I started and finished a curly-leaved lettuce during the day.

I'm at a loose end now, between projects  What do I do next?  Something small in thread I think, a reaction to the 18 hats which were my contribution to IYBD 2011.

Forgettery living up to its name

Trying to set up a blog page for myself, suddenly realised I had this one and had forgotten about it.  Now doing much more yarn-tagging/storming/bombing and help with yarnie type art installations.

Just finished work with the King's Arms Knitting Group from Salford dressing over 50 lamp-posts with green French knitting bands with crocheted and knitted brooches attached. This was for a music festival Sounds From The Other City and festival members were encouraged to take brooches and wear them.  Lots of people did and only 7 brooches out of over 100 remained a week later.

Next day I had a stall and creative space at a Christian Mind, Body Spirit festival at Manchester Cathedral, which I entitled "Yarn Crafts - Building a relationship with God, one stitch at a time."  Displays of crochet and knitting for church and charity and a creative space to explore yarn-crafts as an aid to prayer, meditation and contemplation.

Now I'm busy helping Mad Knitters Tea Party, a group of yarn crafters from my home town of Stockport, prepare for International Yarn Bombing Day on June 11th.  We have every intention of putting hats on 150 bollards down Princess St and Warren St in Stockport town centre, as a continuation of Stockport's 200 year old tradition of hatting. (I rediscovered this blog whilst trying to set one up for them.) More news anon.

2 recently finished projects

Just finished 2 projects.  Both requests for a friend having a radical hysterectomy in the coming week.  First a life-sized replacement for what is about to be removed and then a coin-purse on the same theme.  Both very well received.  Wonder if I'll get requests from others undergoing similar procedures?

Knitted Nature

On Thursday took a bag of crocheted flowers and leaves for Sarah of Artyarn for the "Knitted Nature" exhibition at the Touchstone Gallery, Rochdale http://artyarn-knittednature.blogspot.com/. Watched her sewing strips for the YarnForward installation at the Manchester Craft & Design Centre and adjusted the Spanish Moss to hang more evenly.
In the evening took a stroll through Fog Lane Park.  The pansy is still thnere on the back of one of the benches, originally 4  placed most of which disappeared very quickly.  I've now got some labels to attach to them to possibly follow their progress with an e-mail address for news of their whereabouts.  Whilst there did some measuring for proposed plan to yarn-bomb the BMX/Skate Park in Fog Lane Park.