Monthly Archives: April 2012

Julie Arkell Workshop

Posted on by Abi

Last weekend Anne was lucky enough to attend a workshop run by Julie Arkell, one of the UK’s most celebrated folk artists. Here is a little insight to her day.

The workshop was held at Hope and Elvis, a studio owned by Louise Presley. Louise organises a wide variety of workshops taught by herself and various guest tutors.

This wonderful apron notice lead the way into the workshop.

I love the inventive way that Louise advertises her other workshops!

When Julie arrived she set up a small display of items that she had made. Some were available for purchase on the day or could be used as inspiration. I love the use of vintage clothing as a means of presentation.

Duly inspired everyone got down to the act of being creative. I’m told that everyone was so engrossed in their work that many forgot to stop for lunch!

Some closeups of Julie’s wonderful brooches.

A few of her gorgeous fabric bracelets.

Finally here are Anne’s wonderful creations, she managed to complete three brooches during the day. The first is a take on a wartime brooch.

Then two wonderfully quirky flying creatures, a lamb and a mouse!

 

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Colours in Nature

Posted on by Abi

Just recently the weather near us has been decidedly dull, wet and miserable. While unpleasant for many reasons, it does at least have the side benefit of encouraging nature and producing a plethora of wonderful colours.

We always have a camera on standby when we’re out and out about, so when we snapped these few pictures I thought I’d share them with you all. Hopefully the sun will make an appearance this weekend and we can all get out to enjoy these wonderful colours.

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Knitting For Charity

Posted on by Abi

Here at Angel Eden we are always looking for creative ways to use up left over pieces of materials from our various crafts. So when we heard that Oxfam were looking for knitters to help them raise funds we were keen to get involved.

Anne and I both have a huge amount of leftover wool from various projects, too nice to throw away but too small to use this seemed like a wonderful opportunity to not only clear some space but help out a worthy cause at the same time.

The idea is simple, enthusiastic knitters knit small squares which can then be sewn into a larger blanket. These are then taken along to local and national festivals and sold to raise funds for the charity. In 2010 the blankets raised £6000 at just one music festival alone!

We began by knitting six inch squares, but it soon became apparent that it would take a considerable amount of time to complete a 6ft by 4ft blanket. With this in mind we are endeavouring to enlist fellow knitters in this most worthy of causes.We have had a great response on Twitter already but are now hoping to get you guys involved as well.

If you would like to join in and help us to make as many blankets as possible then here’s what you need to do:

Squares are knitted in double knitting yarn on size 8(4mm) needles. We cast on 30 stitches and knitted 56 rows in garter stitch to make a square.

Basically we are looking for six inch squares knitted in any colour of DK yarn and we will sew them together into blankets.

Contact Anne or myself by email, facebook or through Twitter for details of where to send your completed squares.

Thanks again!

 

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