Summer crafting highlights

Over the summer months I've been busy spreading the crafty gospel by running an assortment of crafts classes across London for children, young people and adults.


My favourite was the 'boho chic jewellery' course I ran back in July as part of the Greenwich Summer Uni programme which gives young people under 25 the chance to learn new skills for free through a variety of courses.


What I liked about the course is how my students were really inspired by my own work and used my love for bright colours and bling to create their own unique jewellery collections.


The student above became fascinated with acrylic stones and used them to make some amazingly sparkly items! 

Another one of my students who was just 15 created had a natural talent for design and composition and made this beautiful necklace, which I think is so much nicer than a lot of the hand made pieces you get in gallery gift shops.

On closer inspection you can see how she embroidered into each bead to add detail.

This student kept it more simple by adding anything and everything on to ring and earring findings.

On the 'Bollywood Crafts' course my students had the chance to make some of the projects that feature in my book including these gorgeous decorative bowls, handbags, books and photo frames.

One of the fun parts of running the courses was souring the materials. I picked up these rolls of sequin trims for just £1.50 each from Creative Beadcraft - superb value - you get 100m on a roll and if you buy 1m from a haberdashery they normally cost 40p per metre. 

I also ran a textile project over six weeks with mothers from a local school in East London in conjunction with The Women's Library. The project entitled 'My City' was an exploration of each woman's relationship with her local area. 

The best thing about teaching crafts is seeing students produce work they are really proud and getting inspired by their ideas myself! It's been a fantastic summer of crafting but I'm now going to wind down on the teaching front until next year.....come the Autumn, I have some other exciting projects to plan - crafts for my wedding!  

Making and Teaching

As you know I love making stuff but I also like helping other people make stuff too! As a community artist and artist educator I get to work all over London with all sorts of people from different communities, ages etc.

For the last three years I have been working on the Geffrye Museum's Asian Women's project to engage the women of Hackney in East London with the museum. So far there have have been two groups, the first are an over 50s group who have lost their husbands and their children have grown up, so meeting up is an important part of their social life. They are all very lovely and so creative. Most of the time I just give them materials and they instinctively know what to do with them!

The second group is a younger Asian Women's group who live in a local estate. They are mainly in their 20s and don't work, so while their children are at school, they meet up and do craft activities together.

This Spring I worked with both groups to create an installation in the museum inspired at the recent Maharaja: the Splendour of India's Royal Courts exhibition at the V&A with the concept of creating a modern day Moghul living room. The groups created soft furnishings using hand embroidery, applique, sewing and painting.

The pieces aren't stereotypically Asian looking, they have a very modern East/West twist to them, representing the women's own lifestyles.

We started with an embroidery project, using different stitches to create a group wall hanging displayed at the back and then the women worked on individual projects for their own homes.

The quality of the work was amazing, one lady claimed she'd never done embroidery before but had seen her sisters do it and came up with this remarkable floral design! Wow! For most of the women it was the first time they had done any embroidery in ages but old school memories of learning the skill came flooding back to them in no time.

The installation is still on display at the museum in the downstairs art rooms so pop in and see it if you can!