Lovebox festival photos

Knottingley workshops

During June and July I visited the Crafty Folk in Knottingley to run a series of workshops with the lovely ladies there.  The Crafty Folk make sellable crafty objects to sell at fetes and fairs and give the profits to local charities.  I think some of these amazing furry toys might be given to loved ones though.

Workshop at Artgos

Nicolar Bell and I held a workshop for the last day of Artgos on Saturday 15th December at theartmarket.

Artgos was a collaboration between Artsparkle and theartmarket and sold work by big name artists alongside fresh talent working with multiples.

With templates, visitors could make their own soft multiples, or choose to customise our patterns to make something a bit different. We used recycled and donated fabrics in our workshop.

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.

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’.

Nicolar’s marvellous fox templates

Nicolar made some templates and step-by-step instruction sheets for the workshop on Tuesday to help people make a plush fox nexk jewellery piece. Here are her posters:

Saturday’s plush workshop

The workshop on Saturday was held in the ‘Corner of the market I’ unit in the Merrion Market, a large red unit just a tiny walk from theartmarket.

At the workshop we had lots of fabric for people to use, a sewing machine and other tools. The fabric I have been collecting over several months and comes from charity shops and unwanted clothing and scrap fabrics.

Here is Amy with the stitching that she did in the workshop. She said she might finish it at home or maybe bring it to the next workshop to finish it.

This is Michael with his brilliant ‘Octopus’. I particularly like the shape of its block head.

Jen made a sock puppet called ‘Lilly’ with a pretty bow on top of her head.

Here’s Donna taking a break after a long day of her project ‘Swap Shop’.  She’s beginning work on a plush giraffe.

Everyone, apart from Zo hand-stitched their work. We were suprised how quickly Zo managed to whip up a plush bird using the sewing machine.

This was supposed to be a rat, but everyone said it looked a lot more like a slug. It really took shape after a bit of stuffing.

Zo put some googly eyes on a paint brush and we took photographs as though the brush was an artist at the workshop. I’m hoping to use these photos to create a short animation inviting people to the workshop and declaring that even brushes can join in.

The next workshop will be this Tuesday with Nicolar Bell and all creations shall be on display in an exhibition in theartmarket from Saturday 26th May.