Plush toy exhibition

All the completed plush toys made at the workshops during Situation Leeds are in an exhibition in the Merrion Market. Here they are….

‘Maisy’ by Sophie Strong

‘Dave the rave tape mouse’ by Gemma Fozzard

‘Marky Marky’ by Mark Pembrey

‘Carl’ by Gemma Fozzard

‘Handy’ by Alicia

‘Love Slugrat’ by Alicia

‘King’ by Hamish Lloyd-Platt

‘Octopus’ by Michael Dixon

‘Fly’ by Jo Stafford

‘Lilly’ by Jen Jones

Plush woman by Beth Dawson

‘Bird’ by Zoe Sawyer

‘Lilly White Legs’ by Lianne

Giraffe by Donna Walker

‘Floppy Drunks friend’ by Lil Adams

‘Floppy Drunk’ by Lil Adams

‘Frank’ by Sarah Barrett

Tuesday’s plush workshop

Tuesday was the busiest workshop we’ve ever had. Lots of friendly visitors had a play and made some unique plush creations. This is going to be a bit of a long post since I have many photos of the activity and creations to show.

Here’s the demo plush neck fox that Nicolar made as a guide for everyone

Lil was the first to complete a plush toy in this workshop and here is ‘Floppy Drunky’, an artist plush who likes a bit of a drink by the looks of things…

A hive of activity in the Merrion unit

Beth sewing up the body of her plush and Gemma sewing together ‘Dave’ the rave tape mouse

Sophie putting stuffing in her soon to be hamster creation, ‘Maisy’

Jo stitching together the tortoise shell for ‘Fly’. Check out those pretty nails.

Amylee making some lips to go on her fish

Sarah cutting out the fabric pieces for her plush fox

Lianne with her plush ‘Lilly White Legs’. Lilly wanted to make friends with the other plush toys and is presently being given a piggy back ride by Donna’s giraffe

Amylee with her plush ‘Lilly Jean’, made in memory of the late Lilly Jean the fish that got spots.

Jess, Dave and ‘Michael Ball’. This plush fox was made at the speed of light, maybe because there were three people stitching at once.

‘Michael Ball’ has been taken away by his makers to be given to a friend for their birthday and wont be in the exhibition, so here’s a lovely photo of Mr Ball on his own

Beth with her unnamed plush girl. I like that this girl looks like she’s got attitude with her crossed arms.

Gemma turning her starfish ‘Carl’ inside out. This starfish is definitely thee best I’ve ever seen and I’ve hinted at Gemma that I’ve got my eye on it.

Even though Hamish arrived late at the workshop, he managed to make this little beaut. This finger puppet may look as though he’s got one eye, but the other one is on the other side of his face, allowing him to see in both directions at the same time.

Jo with ‘Fly’ the tortoise

Here’s some of the plush gang together

I did some filming at the event, so I’ll be doing something with that soon and uploading it, so watch this space. Also a reminder that the exhibition of workshop work will begin Saturday 26th May and continue for a week as part of theartmarket’s ‘Fruit of art labour’.

Workshop photos

Just a little report back from our Ladyfest Leeds workshop from yesterday: because of the brilliant support that we had from our visiting artist friends, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day and everyone seemed to throw themselves in. There were lots of brilliant creations made: some robots, some cute little decorated pieces, some hanging flying sculptures and some big hybrid monster toys. I’m really pleased at the turn out, especially when I heard that two people at the workshop had traveled all the way from Reading to come to Ladyfest Leeds.

We had an old stereo and video player that didn’t work, which we spent some time taking apart. The stereo proved pretty difficult to take apart using just tools so, we ended up taking it to the street to drop from a great height into a dis-used subway to break it into usable parts. The circuit boards inside proved good parts for robots.

Thanks to the following artists for their support yesterday: Sarah Barrett, Zoe Sawyer, Dan Walls and Amy Warren

My camera died half way through the workshop so I have a limited amount of photos so far, however, Sarah was snap-happy all day so I’m hoping there’s some gems on her camera to post on here. Here’s the few photos that I have….

Crab monster by a dude from Reading

Big robot by a lovely lass from Reading

‘Carribean womble merman’ by Amy Warren

‘Bot’ by Sarah Barrett

If you want to see the full collection of creations from the workshop they are on display in the window cabinet opposite The Art Market in the Merrion Market.