Alchemy Festival 2011

I spent the Easter weekend working at Alchemy Festival with Ani, teaching knitting and crochet to anyone who wanted to learn. It was a small festival, which meant we were not rushed off our feet and gave me some time to do some spinning in the sunshine.We met up with some old friend and even made some new ones, which will hope to see again soon. Here are a few photos of the festival and the knitting tent.

Our view from The Knitting Tent

Bodger's Workshop

Ani waiting for someone to teach, with Sacred Fusion next door.

Site Art which was beautiful when lit up at night

Us trying to look busy

More site art

Spinning in the sunshine

More beautiful art

Latest commission and another stool

Welshy recently got asked to pyro and line a jewellery box for a friend's sister's birthday. After much blood, sweat and tears, it's finally finished and it's beautiful. I love the Antique Pine colour of the stain so much, I'm going to beg for an aromatherapy oils box in the same colour or maybe I'll go with an oak stain, or maybe get one of each.

We also liked the design of the Sun Clock so much that he decided to put the design onto another stool, which I shall be parking my bum on at every opportunity.

Funky Blackboards

I decided I needed some chalkboards to stick outside the knitting tent to attract people wanting to learn. We looked on the internet and were outraged at the cost of decent ones - some were over £100 !!!

Once again Welshy's talent for making things saved the day. He got some timber and constructed a basic frame.

He then decided to jazz them up a bit with his coloured wood dyes.

He then painted some hardboards we had with blackboard paint, sprinkled the frames with some glitter and tiny shiny stars and here they are

I think you'll all agree that they are fantastic and unique. So remember to call in and say hello if ever you see them outside of a tent.

Tick Tock

Welshy has been a busy boy recently, playing with his new wood dyes. He has pyro'd, used a lovely yellow dye, a couple of different stains and then assembled a clock. It really is a beautiful piece of work and would look lovely anywhere.

He's also been busy constructing some A-frame blackboards for me to use for the knitting tent. They are very colourful and very sparkly. I shall post photos when they are finished, which will hopefully be tomorrow - as long as this fine weather holds. He's such a talented bloke and I'm such a lucky pixie to have him.

Proud to be from Wales

Now that Welshy is thinking of taking his pyrography skills to festivals to do demonstrations, he realised he needed somewhere to park his arse. Being a proud Welshman, he wanted to do something patriotic and decided on a Welsh dragon.

More stuff by The Pixie

I finally nagged, bullied, pleaded and bribed Welshy to take some photos of my stuff, so here is a little selection.

These will be for sale at any of the summer festivals we are attending and any that are left will be on folksy at the end of the summer. The two blankets were made for my boys. Welshy got the stripey one and The Boy has the large granny square. Although I enjoy making blankets, the amount of hours it takes makes them too expensive to sell, although I would take commissions.

Photographs by Welshy, who thinks he's Laurie Jeffery!

I did it !!!

As Welshy was putting me to shame, by being far more productive than me, I made a promise to myself that I would post something on here before Welshy's next bit of pyro'ing. Admittedly he managed to involve himself, by actually coming up with the idea (clever boy!), but I did all the hard graft to get it finished.

Somewhere along the way I acquired a book, which is covered in banana leaves with banananananana (sometimes I just can't stop) paper inside. It's been hanging around for sometime and I've never known what to do with it. A couple of days ago I had the bright idea of filling it up with knitted/crocheted stitch samples, with a brief explanation of how to do the stitches. It's a beautiful book but had a plain paper diamond shape on the front cover, which was a bit boring. Welshy came up with the idea of covering that bit with knitting or crochet. After some deciding about which colour of yarn would go best and crocheting a couple of samples, Welshy decided on the one used and I agreed.

So here it is

If you're a festival goer, look out for the knitting tent and come along and do some knitting/crochet with us and see it in the flesh.