First off I’ve been commissioned by Wolverhampton Art Gallery to help transform St Peters Gardens in Wolverhampton with knit graffiti.  The project called Park Your Yarn will be installed in the gardens from 21 April for 4 weeks. Over the past month I’ve been delivering a series of drop in knitting workshops around Wolverhampton getting people to help produce the knitting needed for the installation. Rachael and Cheryl from ArtYarn have also been giving crochet workshops as part of the project.

Secondly I’m proud to announce my latest project with Stitches and Hos K2TOG - Knit 2 Together. For this I am planning to cover the columns on the outside of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in knitting to celebrate the arrival and stay of the Jamaican and American Olympic teams to Birmingham.  Six colours (red, white, blue, yellow, black and green) will be used to create the installation. The colours are taken from both teams’ national flags and are also used on the Olympic rings log.

The project has been selected for a Kalaboration commission which I’m very excited about.

Right now the project is trying to raise £2500 to help pay for a pop up shop in the Mailbox, Birmingham.  The shop will be a relaxing drop-in space where anyone can come to contribute to the piece and find out about the project. Staff will be on hand to teach basic knitting skills and local workers can pop-in over their lunch hour or after work to knit a square or just a few rows.

To support the project by donating as little as £1 please visit the Sponsume website

After a morning of experimenting I finally got the paint solution to the right consistency and started to print the leather.

I got varying results depending on what colour I was used so decided to stick with the darker tones. Here’s some pictures of the leather pieces drying.

The leather has been sewn up into lovely clasp frame purses

The new purses will be on sale at Marketplace the Midlands Arts Centre’s contemporary craft fair which runs every weekend in the lead up to Christmans.  I’ll be there on Saturday 19, Sunday 20, Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 November from 11-6pm.  Please come and say hello.

I left early on Wednesday morning with the ever lovely Vickie Glynn.  When we arrived at Skegness we went straight to our digs, The Kildare.  Turns out that the Kildare won Channel 4 programme 3 In A Bed last year.  We rang the bell but no-one was home. It seemed that the owners had popped out to run some errands.

The weather report I’d seen before leaving home had showers and sunshine forecast for Thursday, so we decided to get to the pier and start installing whilst the weather was dry.  Fuelled by cups of tea and fresh doughnuts we managed to get 16 lamp posts covered before dinner time.

After our dinner we went back to the hotel.  We were given a warm welcome and lots of apologies for being out when we first arrived.  The Kildare is a friendly homely B&B and if you’re ever in Skegness I can recommend that you stay there.

We’d been invited to meet the rest of the visual artists for a drink that evening.  Vickie was feeling a bit coldy so elected for telly and an early night and I went to local bar Wallies to mingle.

Thursday morning was decidely grey so I packed my waterproofs and Vickie and I headed down to the pier to finish the install.  We got a taste of the bracing Skegness wind and had to use cable ties to secure the pieces whilst we stitched them on.

By lunchtime the install was finished.  I took Vickie to the train station to return home and went for a mooch round Skegness’ charity shops.

For the rest of my stay I was a lady of leisure. I took a trip to Mablethorpe further up the coast to visit the Bathing Beauties beach hut exhibition but the huts were closed.  I also visited some of the other exhibits at SO Festival Luminarium, Migration Stories, International Bus Stop, Weaving Stories and Camera Obscura.

I rounded off my Skegness stay with fish and chips on the beach.  A very fitting end to my stay by the seaside.

I would like to say a MASSIVE thank you to Vickie.  It would have taken days to install the piece without you.

Here’s a few pics of the final piece.  Note the mistake on the information board - it seems my name is Stitches and Hos!

image from http://sophiarogge.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html

My commission Candy Cane Pier for Skegness Open Festival has been featured in the Birmingham Post and Birmingham Mail.

I think it was published today.  So, I’m off to the newsagents

I’m currently working on an outdoor visual arts commission for Skegness Open Festival 2011.  The piece is called Candy Cane Pier and for this I will be transforming the lampposts on the pier in to sticks of rock with knit graffiti (well, actually I’m using crochet, but thats just a technical point).

Production of the pieces is going well here at needlesandhooks HQ.  In total I will make 24 pieces of crochet 110 x 24cm in just over 3 weeks.  I’m already over halfway through the crocheting (at time of writing 14 done, 10 to go) and still have just over a week to complete the work.  Luckily I have cleared the diary for the final week so will be able to concentrate fully on abusing my crochet hook

I’m very excited and a bit nervous to be taking part.  It’s great to set myself a challenge and this really is one.

I’ll post up photos of the completed work once its been installed next week.  Until then I’d better get back to my crocheting

Its been quite a while since my last post. It seems the time has just run away.

I have been busy working on various projects in my blogging absence.  I’ve been back at Birmingham Royal Ballet in the Wardrobe department repairing, maintaining and fitting costumes.  I’ll also be working on Elmhurst School for Dance end of year gala performance.

A breakway faction from Stitches and Hos gave the Floozy in the Jacquzzi (and other bits of Brum) some new knitted cheer.  You can read all about the groups exploits here.  We are also busy knitting our next knit graffiti project.  Keep an eye on the Stitches and Hos blog to find out more.

I’ve also been selected to produce an outdoor visual arts commission for Skegness Open Festival.  For this I’ll be wearing my Stitches and Hos hat and transforming the pier with knit graffiti.

I won’t leave my next blog update so long next time.  Until then ta ta

I’ve also been back at Birmingham Royal Ballet dressing for their new production of Cinderella. I really wish I had a chance to see the production but I’ll have to settle for seeing the costumes on the rails, lacing up bodices and doing up hook and eyes.

Well the working fun doesn’t stop quite yet for me.  I’ll be at my last Christmas fair selling my wares at Festive Flair, LIght House, Wolverhampton on Saturday 11 December, 11-4pm.

For more information here’s the flyer

…to be jolly, fa la la la la fa laa laa la. Here at needlesandhooks I’m starting to get in the festive mood.

After wrangling with Illustrator I’ve managed to design (and print) some Christmas cards for all of the upcoming shows and markets I’ll be at over the coming weeks. I still have a very long to do list but I’m trying to work through it as fast as I can.  My first show is next week - eek!

I’ll be exhibiting at:

Handmade Birmingham, Bullring, Tuesday 9 November

Mid Century Modern, Dulwich College on Sunday 14 November.  I’ll be sharing a stall with the everso talented Ben Javens.

Marketplace, Midlands Arts Centre, Saturday 20, Sunday 21 and Sunday 28 November

Handmade Birmingham, Bullring Markets, Saturday 27 November

Well with all these shows lined up I’d better get back to work.

This weekend I’ll be selling my wares at Handmade Birmingham.

You should really come by and say hello

I went over to my good friend Ruth Green’s studio to do some screen printing.  It’s something that I haven’t done since I was at school but have been meaning to do for a while.  I was very lucky to have expert tuition and guidance from Ruth to ease my screen printing nerves.

So with plenty of tea and biscuits we got to printing.  First the background eggs

Then we printed some birds over the eggs.

I want to say a big big BIG thank you to Ruth for letting me use her studio for a whole afternoon and acting as my lecturer and technician.  I wouldn’t have been able to get so much done without your help.

Today I’ve been embroidering the prints with images of architectural details

I’m really pleased with my stitched pictures, they look great.  I’m most pleased with the machine control (yes I did it all freehand - no computerised sewing machine in this house).

Now I know what they look like I’ll be developing some other designs.