Cracking times this weekend over at the Hay literary festival. And many craft-related fun times to be had. Some highlights were:
• Being put up by Athenie, the owner of the gorgeous Great English Outdoors shop on Hay highstreet. Her house is full of wonderful books, decorations, Welsh blankets and many other bits and pieces that were a pleasure to gaze at throughout my stay.
• Meeting Amy of Keep and Share, the luxury knitwear label, and helping her out with two workshops, teaching kids and adults to knit (the most middle-class kids I’ve ever met in my life, may I add – what other eight-year-old say things like “I really like olives”.)
• Browsing around Hay’s fine bookshops looking for craft books from back in the day (see my post below “the craft to end all other crafts”).
• Doing some public knitting at the festival and having lovely people say things like “keep up the good work” and “good for you” to me.
• Buying a piece of jewellery from the Hay castle market stall made by ladies in Zimbabwe, and then talking to the lady who organises the crafters about how great the work they do is for them.
• Hearing how artists such as Antony Gormley and comedians like Marcus Bridgestock have traveled to Antarctica as part of a program called Cape Farewell, which is designed to get those involved in the arts to interact, and then discuss climate change. The highlight of this talk was the showing of Lemn Sissay’s poem, What If We Got It Wrong.
Make and do with Perri 