CraftyAffairs.Org

Hello and a very warm welcome to everyone.  Having enjoyed such fantastic weather over the long and extended Easter holidays with a Royal Wedding thrown in, we hope you have all still found time to enjoy a bit of crafting to help you relax!

On Tuesday, we had a fantastic evening with a glorious display and demonstration by Quilters Dreams of Andover, learning about the ‘codes’ hidden with the blocks of patterns developed over many years designed to help captive slaves escape their lives in America; it was truly fascinating.  We had a good number of members attending but as we know that no everyone can join us on a Tuesday, included below is the newsetter that we issue to give everyone a chance to keep up to date!

As always, if you have any questions, please email us – meanwhile Happy Crafting!

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This evening, we are lucky to have Ricky and Janet, owners of Quilters Dream who have a shop at Picket Piece in Andover, stuffed full of beautiful fabrics along with books, patterns and an array of accessories needed to produce fantastic items, such as cloths, runners, quilts, cushions; the list seems endless!  They will be showing us how to construct a Quilt block along with the three layers to make a Quilt, including hand quilting techniques and bringing along some finished items for us to drool over!  They have very kindly offered to put together for us some beginner’s starter kits for us to purchase.   If you want to visit them at the shop, you can find them on the first floor at Quilters Dream, Units 403-407, The Commercial Centre, Picket Piece, Andover.  Tel: 01264 324 420, www.quiltersdream.co.uk.  They are open 9.30am to 5.00pm every day except Sunday and Monday.

We are continue to try to source experts to come and demonstrate their craft to us but with no funds in the purse yet, it is proving a little difficult as many of them are some considerable distance from us and we would at the very least need to cover their expenses.  For example, highly rated on the questionnaire of skills crafters want to learn is basket making, but we would need to bring people from Reading so we need to build up our funds quickly!  Of course, we welcome any suggestions of fundraising and if you know of someone who would be willing to come along to demonstrate, preferably without cost, please do let us know.

Many of you expressed an interest in Ecaustic Art Wax Painting.  This is a technique simply described by saying that coloured pigment is added to beeswax which is heated/melted and applied to a canvas using metal tools, primarily a small iron type implement.  The two pictures you see here are examples of what can be achieved once you have mastered this unusual craft.  Art of Wax (www.artofwax.co.uk) used to have a unit at the Viables Craft Centre in Basingstoke where classes were run but now conducts workshops based in Fleet.  Cazzy who runs the workshops and produces the beautiful artwork has the following suggestion:

“My fee is £125. Alternatively I could do a workshop with you with 6 people at a time. Say 7 – 7.30 first group, 7.45 -8.15 second group and 8.30 – 9pm third group. So in total that would cover 18 people and charge them £10 per head this then would cover material costs, petrol, and they would get 30 minutes tuition in the basic techniques and their designs to take home too.”

Please let us have your feedback on whether you would be prepared to pay extra to cover the costs for a master-class in this technique.   Unfortunately, until we have built up our funds, we are unable to discount costs or cover expenses on behalf of the Crafty Affairs group.

Many of you enjoyed the Crochet Corner, run by Maria designed as a beginners guide to get you ‘hooked’, with requests being muted to learn how to crochet flowers and Maria is happy to guide you through this on the next Wednesday session, alongside the Form-a-lines demonstration that Miranda will be giving, so you can chose what you would like to do.  We are hoping to talk Maria into making herself available to us on the Wednesday sessions to be our Crochet ‘guru’ and hopefully take us through to more complicated patterns.

Extreme Crochet and Knitting is one of the latest trends to join the crafting world and we are lucky to have someone in Winchester who can demonstrate this new craft for us.  As you can see from the book cover photo the needles are rather on the large side!  Knitting and Crocheting with such large needles makes your work grow very quickly and it is an ideal way of using up all those odd balls of wool you have left over; you simply use them all at once to generate a really thick yarn.  This extreme craft appears to extend to both extreme cross-stitch and extreme tapestry so we hope you will find of interest as we will be attempting to organise a demonstration!

Finally, we must do all we can to spread the word that Crafty Affairs is here!  If you know of anywhere we can advertise or distribute or display our flyers, please let us know.  We are looking to increase our numbers because by doing so we will be able to continue to make use of the whole hall, with the bright light and veranda, which will be lovely in the summer months and of course increased attendance means more money in the pot for us to fund demonstrators.

Crafty Affairs member Rosie has told us of an art show/fair that is held every year in Oxford called “Art in Action”, held at Waterperry House, Oxford which takes places on the 21st to the 24th July.   There are demonstrating artists, classes (over 3000 in 38 subjects), many items on sale and performing arts and music.  Check out the website for further information (www.artinaction.org.uk/This-Years-Event).

Closer to home is the Quilting exhibition on at the Andover Museum by the ‘Sprat and Winkle Quilters’.  The exhibition is on from Saturday 14th May to Saturday 11th Jun and shows their current range of work which includes both contemporary and traditional quilts, colourful wall hangings, 3D quilt art and vibrant textiles. For further information see http://www3.hants.gov.uk/hampshire-museums/andover-museum/andover-museum-events-detail?id=108264

To finish, we have to mention the up and coming nationally acclaimed Watercress Festival at Alresford on Sunday, the 15th May.  Held annually on the third Sunday in May this nationally acclaimed FREE food festival celebrates watercress – the superb locally grown, delicious and versatile crop and draws together the local community and food lovers from far and wide for a day of food and fun.    There is a large Festival market which includes arts, crafts, jewellery, clothing and items for house and garden.  The entire centre of New Alresford in Hampshire becomes a huge street festival, with a large food market showcasing the very best local producers have to offer. Award-winning and well known local chefs share their passion for watercress during cookery demonstrations throughout the day, whilst local experts extol the virtues of this acclaimed ‘superfood’.   Music and dance are central to the festival so find time to enjoy performances by the many bands, Morris dancers and local school children. Talking of children, there’s lots to keep them happy including circus skills workshops, face painting, magician, treasure trails, a climbing wall and mobile farm.   One of the main highlights of the festival is the street cavalcade at 10.30am with jazz musicians, Morris dancers and local school children accompanying the Watercress King and Queen atop a horse and cart distributing the first of the season’s watercress harvest to festival goers.  Check out the website for further information: http://www.watercressfestival.org/