Crafternoon session #3 knit & crochet

The third of our crafternoon sessions – knitting & crochet. Started with the obligatory coffee, and a worthy distraction to Guthrie & Ghani. The wonderfully wooly emporium of Lauren Guthrie, a finalist in The Great British Sewing Bee. We all left with wool which subliminally seemed to match our outfits : )
We all came with high hopes of pom pom bunting, funky footwear and ideas for crochet cushions…what we left with was something all together very different, but from small seeds…
Laura started by continuing her menagerie of mice to include an octopus.
The resident wool terrorist helped to make lovely neat wollen balls look more like cooked spagetti.
Abby had an awesome cotton yarn from Tiger, in the most amazing hot pink and practised double crochet
Jo Jo practised casting on and slip stitches. There was plenty of face pulling all round, as we wrestled with the yarn and hook combo.
Some examples of the finished squares – lets face it, we were always being a litlte ambitious. Always good to aim high – cat pom poms/squares/scarf potentials were created instead. Though this little granny square may grow up to be a blanket one day : )

Crafternoon session #2 pen & ink

The second of our crafternoon sessions – # pen & ink. We experimented with brush lettering and drawing with inks. The brush pens were a big hit, Zig and Tombow both being popular alongside the more traditional paint brush & ink.
It was a bit of a type frenzy to begin with, w’s were obsessed about. We put into practise some basics, stroke, varying direction & pressure (fat down, thin up : )
Then the colours came out – and the masking fluid, opened up a load more potential. Beautiful washes of colour with type reversed out.
Tea drank, pastries eaten, silence descends as the concentration levels hit their peak : )
We had all thought prior about type we may want to explore, so we had poems for friends, type for wall art and a little boys bedroom, birthday wishes and party invites.
It was of course the run up to Mothers day, so a lot of us tried our hand at making something we would be happy to send.
Tongues out – mean business : )
It was nice to see everyone’s individual styles start to come together, quite a varied bunch in the end.
Little geo repeats and graphic florals explored amongst others…
… and beautiful contemporary script.

Crafternoon session #1 Lino printing

The first of our crafternoon sessions – #1 lino printingIt was a good day, fuelled by tea, pastries and good conversation : )
Lovely geos from the lovely Laura
It was the right time of year for people wanting to say thank you after Christmas, so this was number one on a few of the crafternooners list of things they’d like to achieve. Thank you #1 from Abby
Thank you #2, reverse foliage and full bleed from Charlotte
Mark-making and a big thank you from Alex. Thank you #3
Denise was on fire with fishes and a winter scene.
Beautiful butterflies from Jo
Foliage, flowers and a little geo from Karen