Innocent Village Fete: Day 2

At the Innocent Village Fete: Sunday 5th August

More pictures as promised from the second day in the Folksy tent.

Orange-headed penguin with pink front….

Fluffy cat head with big bright blue eyes. Meow!

This cat has got two sides: one pink and one purple. Looking very dapper with a pretty tie.

Turtles were the most popular plush to be made. I think this boy is pleased with his.

The first bunny to be made at any of our workshops and looking very cute in a blue jacket.

We ran out of stuffing towards the end of the day and in true re-use style we substituted the stuffing with shredded fluffy scrap fabric. Here’s some turtles hanging out together on the straw.

I am particularly pleased that we managed to get the fluffy legs out of this dog when we turned it inside out. I was worried we might end up with a 2-legged dog, but after a bit of effort and poking through, the legs appeared and completed this lovely fluffy dog.

I would have personally named this one the ‘Incredible Mutant Sheep’. It took the couple hours to make and I’m impressed with their patience and persistence to finish it. It’s huge!

Isaac and his penguin.

Starfish with suckers and pretty pink bird

This was one of the last creatures made with some striking red lips. Many eyes helps a good looking plush girl (all the better for seeing you with)…

See more photos from the fete here. If you’re photo is not on the blog, but you want it to be send me a message and I’ll put it on.

Innocent Village Fete go: Day 1

At the Innocent Village Fete: Saturday 4th August

I arrived at Regent’s Park with my suitcase full of scrap fabrics and toy stuffing and was unacclimatised to the hot weather. It was a beautiful day and the fete attracted thousands of visitors to the park to enjoy smoothies, food and a variety of activities. I felt very pleased to be a part of the Folksy tent helping the kids (and adults) to create some unique creatures. A bonus for me was being handed regular cups of free tasty smoothies throughout the fete and meeting many very interesting people, including some local crafters.

We had so many visitors to our workshop that I was very pleased to have Shaun there to lend a helping hand with the kids. I don’ t think he was expecting to be helping to sew up little fish and turtle creatures this weekend (he specialises in skateboarding lessons).

Meet the creatures….

‘Shreegon’ is a mutant sheep dragon that began life as a dragon and adopted a set of fluffy wings, possibly to allow a soft journey to any who take a ride on his back.

Laura was lovely to chat to and I could tell that she’s a natural crafter. She’s also a musician based in London, find out more about her music and talents on her website here. Here she is with her cute yellow dog that she made at the fete.

Would you believe that this little lizard began as a badger and was magically transformed into this rough n ready for anything cowboy lizard? Oh yes.

I was so impressed by this mega beetle. Having six squishy legs, a zip for a mouth and a variety of patterns on it’s shell makes it a cut above any beetle I’ve ever seen.

Parents were in on the act and got involved by lending a helping hand to complete some of the creatures. For some parents discovered they had skills they never knew existed. This was the first turtle to be made at the fete and involves some great team work.

And here’s a cute owl made at the end of the day.

It was great to see lots of happy faces when the creatures took shape and came to life. I hope the owners of the creations are pleased with their work and have found a safe home for each of them.

See more photos from the fete here. If you were at the workshop and want your photo to be put on the blog or you want your name included, send me a message and I’ll put it on.

Sunday’s activities in the next blog post to follow shortly…

Kids Tent @ Moor Music festival

Armed with a big bag full of scrap fabrics, some stuffing and safe plastic needles, I went to the Moor Music festival last weekend. Sarah Spicer did a fantastic job of organising the kids tent and the activities this year. There were zones for different activities: Hoopla, Dressing up, Telephone, Face Painting, Random craft and my Re-Toyed Trash sewing workshop so the kids had too much to do to ever get bored. I also noticed some non-kids sneak in for a face painting.

The kids were decorating the tent with their creations throughout the festival and made hats, tea pots and other magical things to be used in their Mad Hatters Tea Party on the last evening.  Some images from the party will be in the next post.

I brought with me some examples of plush toys made at recent workshops. You might recognise some of these characters from previous blog posts. The tortoise and the octopus were very popular with the kids and some tried their best to take them home. However I offered that they could make their own toys instead.

Some of the kids had never sewn before and needed lots of help to get started, so we had lots of one-on-one sewing lessons. The ‘Monsters Inc.‘ furry fabric seemed to be very popular with lots of monsters being sewn together.

Robyn made a teddy bear called ‘Sully’, named after the Monsters Inc character. I was very impressed with her sewing capabilities and her patience because this teddy bear took a long time to complete. Here she is with her completed teddy.

This girl made a snake from a section of some old stripey socks. Notice the snake’s long tongue with hearts on it. This snake is called Alex.

Here’s a full-length photo of Alex.

This plush is a soft monster ball with eyes.

Ellie made two furry seals on the first day. This is the second one with two ears.

More workshop photos

As promised more photos from the ladyfest workshop (thank you Sarah!). There’s some good ones of the workshop in progress. Here’s the stereo ready to be dismantled, well it’s ready to be dropped onto concrete after trying for enough time with the tools to break it apart…

Here’s me unscrewing parts of the stereo after having dropped it from a height onto concrete. The stereo split into two parts and exposed the insides with all the circuit boards.

Zo and Ames are beginning to make their monsters. I liked the way that Zo had stitched a bead necklace under some latex to create a spine for her creature. The latex being re-used here was from a huge monster sculpture that Dan had made for his degree show.
Dan’s monster was on display in the Leeds Met University main entrance few a few weeks, but unfortunately because of its gigantic size, it had to be taken apart because he could not find adequate storage for it. For a good view of the whole gigantic monster click here. Ames combined different found elements to give her monster a Jamaican vibe. I love the palm trees.

Dan working on some found wings…

Toby starting his monster, this dude made the mighty bird monster with wings made from reused latex.

This guy is one of the couple who travelled up from Reading for the festival. He’s using a saw to cut off sections from the found toys to make it easier to glue them together. If you can spot the tiny prodigy sticker on the table….Dan went to great lengths to cut into the plastic of the stereo just to get this sticker off in one piece so he could put it onto the back of his crab monster.

Sarah, one of our visiting ‘resident’ artists looking proud after making the first of her two robots. This one’s modestly named bot. He’s flying an art market flag. Bot is made mainly from old electrical equipment, including a cassette player for his head. Knitted resident artist sash made by Lil Adams.

If this doesn’t illustrate how happy this workshop can make someone, I don’t know what will. Great smile Dan. It does also look as though he’s wearing a big black feather at the back of his head, suitable for a cocktail party.

Zo’ monster nearly finished, with a baby doll plastic arm.

A rummage through the boxes of junk.

Dan’s second monster….I think it looks a bit like a the skeleton crab riding a monster bike.

Toby’s bird monster…

Sarah’s second creation of the day, this one is named ‘Ro’, with a circuit board for a body, a headphone-head, an old necklace for a mouth and the bit the holds a CD in place in a stereo for an eye.

A friendly artist (didn’t manage to catch his name) showing me his creation that has shaped up to look like a dinosaur. I’m impressed, you can’t see my face but I am.

A workshop regular, Rachel ‘Miss Police’ working on her fantastically camp mime cat monster. Using many colourful beads.

Crystal re-using some furry fabric.