Saturday, July 30, 2011

Summer of workshops

This year it has been a bit of a working holiday. I have been involved in three very different workshops, and I just love spreading the word about crafts!

The first was on the 19th of June. There was a large youth festival in town with musicians and artists from all over Sweden. This was the final round of a festival that had toured the country and the best acts had qualified for this final meet. Someone on the organizing committee had gotten the idea to have guerilla knitting as one of the workshops. I somehow volunteered and had one weeks notice to do something. I bought bags of bright yarn, collected needles and made a file of great examples on knit graffiti from the internet. On the big day the room, a nice café, was filled with about 30 teens and I asked if anyone could knit. No. OK, look at these pictures, knitting is cool, let me get you started. And they all went to work. Most had knitted once or twice during the compulsory craft lessons in school, and a couple did crochet or finger knitted long strips. After the class I sewed the knitted pieces together to make a long scarf, but I left it to be used at an event the following day and don't know what has become of it.







































































The week after this it was time for Midsummer, and I help out at a large celebration at the local outdoor museum. Since 2005 me and one other lady have helped visitors to make flower wreaths to wear as they dance around the maypole and celebrate summer. I spend a few hours in the morning picking wild flowers and birch and blueberry twigs. Then we get a couple of long tables out and supply thread and scissors and help for 3-4 hours. I always start out by making demo wreaths for my own children. This is the on my daughter got this year.















Finally last weekend I had to forsake two spinning events because I had promised to host a day of wool at the craft society. I brought samples of different kinds of wool, my yarn and equipment and a pile of woolen shawls. The other lady who worked there brought more knitting and some felted objects. We also showed some tunisian crochet (krokning) and nålbindning. The room was a bit dark, so I photographed my stuff when I got back home instead.





























2 comments:

Sjömans-Elin said...

The three last projects looks just wonderful!

Sjömans-Elin said...

UKM förresten, där var jag också med. Undrar om det inte var första året det arrangerades i Sverige. Vi var i Östersund efter två "delfinaler". Kul som attan! En del var riktigt jäkla duktiga.