Zine Making For International Day Of The Girl

The first thing I ever had published was in a zine so I am a massive supporter of the DIY zine movement. I was therefore chuffed to be asked to run a zine-making workshop to celebrate International Day Of The Girl at The Southbank. 

As well as contributing to zines and fanzines, I also used to edit my own, a craftzine called Fete which focussed on the handmade. 

For this session I decided to create a group zine. The idea was that it would be A5 in size and everyone would be given a sheet of A5 paper on which they could do anything they wanted to; draw, paint, collage, write etc...(as long as it was about girls!)

My table filled with collage materials including lots of magazines to cut up and create with.

 The Southbank also leant us the use of these rather fabulous letter stamps and provided lots of ink pads.

Elsewhere there were some other workshops running alongside mine including this fun comic creation session with artist Matt Boyce.

And zinemaking with For Book's Sake who had some fab stickers.

As it was a drop-in session I had no idea how many people would come and whether or not we'd have enough content to make a full sized zine but I'm pleased to report that during the four hours, over 25 contributors took part and they weren't just women either, there was balanced gender and age mix which makes the zine even more special.

Here are some of the pages that were created...

And these are some of the spreads...

The finishing touches to the zine were these illustrations of different girls by artist Inky Ponting. 

And here are the names of the other contributors...

The zine has been kept by Thee Southbank who are going to make a digital version of it but in the meantime in true DIY zine style they have photocopied it and sent it to the contributors - it looks just as impressive in black and white. Although blogging is a digital form of self-publishing, nothing beats the feeling of seeing your work in print.

Away from work also I've been working on my own 'self publishing' project which after months of beavering away has finally developed into something...but more on that in my next post. 

Learning How To Ice Biscuits At Biscuiteers Biscuit Boutique

I had never iced a biscuit in my life until yesterday when I went along to a post-work icing workshop at the legendary Biscuiteers Biscuit Boutique & icing cafe in Notting Hill, West London.

For the uninitiated, Biscuiteers have made decorating biscuits an artform. Purveyors of the most creative cookies in existence, they bake and create biscuits decorated in every way possible. Often for major brands, usually for special events and every day for normal folk who can order their biscuits online or buy from their shop.

It's like biscuit heaven and a lot like what Willy Wonka's Factory shop would have looked like if he'd ever had one. 

It's not surprising then that Biscuiteers were asked to make the official biscuits to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Roald Dahl's Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.

Here's some close ups of some of my fave biccies in the boutique...

I've never been to New York but these are the next best thing!

And as for cute stuff, there are so many very sweet animal biscuits and dainty designs like these delicate birdies too. 
But that's all upstairs. Downstairs you'll find this....

...the space where the Biscuiteers team run icing workshops, events, have their cafe and hold  private parties.

For Icing Lates the table was all laid out for participants before we arrived.

Take a closer look at the wall - it's covered in cookie dermy!

We were each given the same shaped biscuits to decorate and a picture guide for how they could be decorated.

First up we learnt how to hold the bag. I confess I wasn't very good at this part. I'm right-handed but for some reason my left hand wanted to do the icing so it was a bit strange!

We began by outlining the biscuits with icing details then 'flooded' the insided with runny icing and then learnt a range of icing techniques.

Finding a natural rhythm to icing was hard for a newbie and I got a bit of arm cramp....professional icers (biscuiteers have 50 during peak periods) certainly need to learn about icing posture as well as possess some incredible artist skills.

Voila! My creations all wrapped up and ready to take home. They last three weeks but I suspect they actually won't - I ate the butterfly on the tube home!

I'm always keen to try new crafts and I had never considered icing something I'd ever do but it turns out it's a really fun activity. Learning from the best icers in the business is a lovely experience and seeing the team talk about icing and watch them do it with such passion is a definite highlight.

If you fancy trying out some icing yourself they have workshops twice a week - it's worth noting the up and coming dates above or head to their website.

Right. I'm off to munch on biscuit number two but which one, the pirate ship or the frilly frock?

Biscuiteers, 194 Kensington Park Road, London, W11 2ES
www.biscuiteers.com

Feeling Smug: A sunday afternoon sewing session

So you know the camera I use to take the photos for this  blog? I'm ashamed to say until now it didn't have a home. I'd been carrying it around without any case or protection...crazy considering it cost me £150! But alas things have changed and it now has a wee denim drawstring pouch that I made recently at a Sunday Crafternoon session at Smug.

Smug is a lifestyle shop in Islington. 'Lifestyle shop?'

Its sells lots of lovely things for your home including gifts that are very smart, chic and design focused...far more appealing than you'd see in a high street department store.

Having said that, it does have four floors, one of which has just turned into a Christmas shop. Recently the store also enlisted the help of designer A Alicia (who I met at Crafternoon Cabaret a couple of weeks back) to run Sunday crafting workshops. So far they've had wall hangings and Xmas decorations, I was invited to try out the bag making. 
It's a smallish space, enough for a very cosy group of crafters which means you get good one-to-one attention and can talk to everyone.

The most exciting part of the workshop was that I finally got to use one of these mini sewing machines. They're the ones that are sold in John Lewis for £50. They are very cute but I've often wondered if they are just for show...do they really work?

It was the slowest sewing machine in history but it did the job and I was sold in terms of it being a great machine for children, small jobs and public workshops. 

We all managed to do some hand embroidery too - I was totally fixated by this mini hoop. I've seen them but didn't know what they'd be like to use - it turns out they are so much more fun and easier to use than big hoops and are great for adding details on to clothes.

I also got to use my first ever pom pom maker. Again this is an invention I used to think was pointless, not that I'm a cardboard donut person, I like to make my pom poms by wrapping them on my hand..but alas once again I was impressed through the sheer joy of using it. 

And here it is - my new drawstring camera bag. Made in under two hours on a weekend afternoon with help from a very lovely tutor in a nice sociable space. 

Ladies who stitch! A group shot taken by Anna.

If you're passing around the Angel area of Islington, Smug is worth popping into. Expect some drooling and also 'oohs' and 'aaahs' while you're in there.
You can also check out their website for news of future workshops. 

Learning how to make a rag rug with The Amazings

Being a craftaholic I've had the pleasures and pain of trying and testing out many crafts over the years, but one I've been eager to master for a while is the art of rag-rug making. It's the ultimate textile recycling craft, is affordable, as creative as you want to make it, and doesn't require owning unwieldy equipment like a sewing machine.

Over the summer I was given the opportunity to learn this  skill under the guidance of Jenni Stuart-Anderson a master rugger based in Herefordshire with over 25 years experience in the craft. I travelled down to her quaint cottage with a film crew from The Amazings to film an instructional video about how to make a rag-rug, which you can  watch online now....but more on that later!

Some of Jenni's beautiful designs

The Amazings? 

Their passion is enabling elders to share their skills i.e all those incredible retired people who know lots of incredible things; making sure they are not forgotten about, giving them a platform in which to showcase what they do, and know. 

The method has changed over the last couple of years (read up on the story here), but in their current incarnation they film on-line tutorials led by these talented over 50s which anyone around the world can watch and learn from, for a small fee, some of which goes directly to that awesome elder who stars in it. 

I was invited to collaborate withe The Amazings to help make one of these tutorials. It started with meeting rag rugger extraordinaire Jenni in London at The Amazings offices to get to know a bit about each other. Two weeks later I headed over to Jenni's home to film the class, and of course learn how to make a rag-rug.

It was a glorious sunny couple of days so we filmed in her garden. 

The motif I chose to make was based on the eye of a peacock feather and all the fabrics I used to make it were from my exisiting fabric scrap. I also used ribbons and yarn.

Rugs can be made from any materials apart from towels as these fray - but cottons, fleece, jumpers, bedsheets are all ideal.

Jenni showed me two techniques which require different tools, progging where you use fabric cut into equal size strips and hooking where you loop a continous strip of fabric into the hessian backing.

Our online masterclass Make A Colourful & Cosy Rag Rug is available to buy to watch now. It costs £20 and lasts 73 minutes. It's split into 11 bite-size chapters to make learning the craft easier. Once you've paid up you're enrolled forever - so you have a resource you can keep going back to and watch at your leisure. Take it from me, rag rugging is an incredible craft but even I have forgotten the technique a couple of times, so watching the video back has been very useful now I'm making another rug as a housewarming gift.

Jenni with her rugs at the Knitting & Stitch Show earlier this month

Just think about where else £20 could go, it's far cheaper than any class you could physically go to and what's more, this is a craft that has very little expenses. You can buy the tools direct from Jenni (or other craft stockists) and then all you need is some hessian (a tote shopper or coffee sack is good), old clothes/fabrics and a pair of scissors.  

My finished peacock rug

And if rag-rugging doesn't appeal there are loads more online tutorials you can buy instead like machine embroidery, needle-felting and quilting. 

ALL classes (including mine) have a free trailer you can view before buying so check them out too!)

Happy rugging xx