Following on from the highly successful craft summer school I have been putting together some events for the autumn and beyond while we wait for the outcome of the lottery funding bid.
As we have lots of yarn based resources and skills it made sense to base an open day around this and so 'For the love of wool' began to take shape. We had a 'yarn bomb' window display earlier in June (International Yarn Bomb Day was 9th June) but we never actually got to bomb the town. It seemed like a perfect way to publicise our open day on the 20th October, I mentioned it to a few people and everyone was really enthusiastic, keen to join in. Within a few days I had offers of live sheep, a time lapse photo shoot, You Tube video, knitters, support from the Leominster in Bloomers and a willing team of volunteers. Now its one thing to pop out under the cover of darkness to create annoymous wool grafitti but once more people are involved and you need some daylight to do the filming, it becomes another matter.
Whose permission do you need? Let's start with no one. "But you might get arrested" said my boss. "All publicity" I said. However, being a good citizen and keen to keep my job I used contacts and asked the Town Council. They thought it sounded like a lot of fun and would be good for the town, "but it's not our decision, you'll have to ask Herefordshire Council" I fixed a smile as I felt my heart sinking.
Three departments later......no one has heard of yarn bombing and think it sounds like something that probably shouldn't be happening. One woman said 'well, of course you realise it's illegal' but couldn't actually tell me how. Is it vandalism? Trespassing? "So what would happen if I actually just did it?" There was silence at the other end before she decided she needed to refer me to someone else, it was the Friday before bank holiday weekend and clearly not what she wanted to try and deal with.
- No call back today but more support from 2 other craft shops in the town. Suggestions to link with the museum and Priory church, a donation of yarn and offer of machine knittng tuition, a bag full of knitting, a new customer just learning to knit and wanting to join in. All just brilliant. It's going to happen, I'm not taking no on this one.
Non-melting, calorie-free ice cream in any flavour you desire!
These were designed for one of the summer-themed windows at ECHO last year but have proved a real hit with people coming in to ask if they can buy them. We've included them in the summer window this year as well.
I'm not giving a full tutorial as basically you make a pompom using colours to suit your flavour and then we stuck them onto real ice cream cornets with pva glue. OK, they're not very durable but fun for the summer. We added flakes (pleated and rolled dark brown card), cherries (mini red pompoms), sprinkles (chopped up bits of wool) and some flags.
Craft summer school update
Yesterday was officially the last day for summer school but yet again we had a lovely group in who thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and are keen to come back soon.
Plans are well under way for Ghoul School happening on Saturday 27th October which will be at the end of half term week. We'll be offering Sew Spooky to make peg doll witches and cute zombies from 10-12 and then all out horror craft fest from 1-3 with fake blood and severed limbs. Can't wait to make the samples for that one!
It's been an amazing 4 weeks at the craft summer school and feedback tells us we should continue to offer it as part of Echo Craft - Leominster's New Creative Hub!
Here are some of the amazing pieces of work, it been such a pleasure to watch the creativity flow.
Hobbycraft Hereford
A few weeks ago one of our regular shop customers suggested that I contact the new Hobbycraft store in Hereford as they were keen to have local crafters in to demonstrate in the store. So I did and its a great idea. They will provide a table in the store and any materials needed. You can show off your talent and sell any made crafts providing they use materials that can be purchased in the store.
I wasn't sure what to demonstrate but finally decided to show how to do feltmaking as it meant I could get my hands on one of GillianGladRags feltmaking kits which I have lusted after since seeing them at a craft show. Rachel came to help and we made our way through the Fiesta Fandangle bracelet and the Ickle Pickle Felt Bag. If you haven't seen Gillian's site it is a gorgeous colour-fest of wooliness, go and check it out here www.gilliangladrag.co.uk. The kits contain all you need, easy instructions and are the perfect introduction to feltmaking if you haven't had a go before.
It wasn't very busy in the store considering it was a Saturday but everyone who came to see us loved the felting
and the staff had a great itme too.
we both had a brilliant day and will be back at the end of September for another session.
