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| Photo by Alex Cook |
When life feels like it’s getting completely on top of you, it can be really difficult to try and make some respite time for yourself. You might be well aware that you’re taking too much on or that you simply can’t keep up, but I know that I’m not alone when I say that I find it hard to detach from that to have some de-stress time. That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling the past few weeks. I’ve struggled to stay on top of everything, but I’ve been letting it stew – that was until I went along to Make & Mend Festival*.
If you caught up with my recent post about this festival, you’ll know a whole lot about what the day was to have in store, but if not, Make & Mend was started by Rachel and Lyndsey, two wonderful Stockton-based ladies, who wanted to spread their love for crafting. They found strength and happiness through crafts and wanted to spread the message of wellbeing through creating across the North East (and eventually, the world). Not only this, but they also started the festival in the hopes that it would inspire attendees to try something new, which is exactly what happened when we visited, so keep reading to find out what we got up to!
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| Photo by Alex Cook |
Embroidery Hoop Workshop* – 12:15PM
You might remember from my pre-event blog post that I was particularly interested in getting involved with the embroidery workshop*. I’m a cross stitch lover through and through, and I’ve dabbled a little bit in embroidery, but I’ve never given it a proper go. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to really try though, so I booked on to the workshop, along with my mum and sister. My sister was in a similar position to me – dabbled a little, but wanted to learn more and have a proper stab at it – but my mum is an amazing, all-round crafter and did embroidery in school, so she kind of knew what she was doing.
The workshop was held in the billiards room of Preston Park Museum, which was a huge space with a gorgeous chandelier. The light wasn’t particularly great, but it was easy enough to turn our chairs towards the windows so that we could see our projects a little bit better. We were given a choice of three designs to work on, each featuring a motivational message. I opted for ‘You are magic’, mainly because I wanted to get adventurous and stitch stars all around the wording at the end. In fact, this was the design that all three of my troop chose!
Our tutor for the session was Gill Lyth, a representative for Make & Mend Co., who has experience in a vast range of crafts, such as needle-felting, lino cutting and jewellery making, and a passion to share her love for them – so much so that she is currently working on introducing crafting back into the education curriculum. She gave an anecdote about a surgeon she met who was, of course, extremely intelligent scientifically, but their finger dexterity just wasn’t up to scratch, and this is something that Gill believes can be taught through craft. She was a pretty cool lady!
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| Photos by Alex Cook |
Gill showed us all how to do a basic backstitch, which was really all that was needed to follow along with the printed wording, however, I had no idea how long it would take! Even though we had a full hour for the session, none of team The Northernist managed to get finished. However, we were able to take our projects with the hoop, any threads we liked, the needle, the wadding and backing fabric home with us. Despite not getting finished, it was really lovely to sit and get crafty for a little bit of time. We three are very much ‘I’m concentrating, don’t talk to me’ types of people, so we were all completely in the zone and totally focused on what we were doing. It was fab to escape from real life for a little while!
I’m so looking forward to getting mine finished and I’ll definitely be sharing a photo on Instagram, so keep your eyes peeled for that!
Paper cutting with Kppapercuts – 2:30PM
We enjoyed our time on the embroidery workshop* so much that we ended up booking ourselves on to the paper cutting session at 2:30PM. We figured that because our first workshop was something that we’d all dabbled in before, we should have a go at something completely new to us. There was a lot to choose from, like wreath making and macrame, but the paper cutting looked like so much fun and the results were so beautiful, and that’s why we opted for it.
This class was held in the main hall, which was a huge room with two other craft sessions going on at the same time, so it was pretty great if you love having a nosy, like I do. There was also plenty of light in this room, which is kind of needed when you’re dealing with sharp objects and precise imagery.
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| Photos by Alex Cook |
Our tutor for this session was the lovely and bubbly Keely of Kppapercuts, who got started in paper cutting around 5 and a half years ago after needing a bit of a mental break from her job. The stress was overwhelming and she felt miserable, so tried a range of crafts to try and help distract her when she got home on a night, including crochet, embroidery and even clay work. Nothing stuck until she tried paper cutting – as soon as the blade went into the paper, she was hooked! It was the perfect respite from her job because it gave her something new to focus on that took her mind away from the stresses of work, which is exactly what Make & Mend is all about. She now runs her own workshops and sells her paper cut products in her shop (go look – her stuff is seriously pretty).
And we were so glad that we chose this class because it was so much fun! As we were using surgical scalpels, Keely gave us a safety talk and demos on how to use the knives, then set us away with cutting out her adorable fox and hummingbird prints. It seemed as though the whole group was a little tentative when getting started with the knives, especially on the teeny tiny sections of the animals, but once we were into the swing of it, we were away! I’ll admit, I definitely struggled when cutting out the circles, but cutting out the animals was fab!
I can totally see where Keely is coming from when she says that paper cutting gave her a way to focus on something that wasn’t work. You’re using so much concentration to use this knife to cut these tiny, delicate pieces out that everything else that was in your brain just gets pushed to the side. It was so calming and relaxing, so I can understand why she’s head over heels for this craft. I absolutely loved it, so much so that we went and got ourselves some of the Kppapercut kits!
Before I get started on the kit though, I need to finish the little projects that we started in the session, because again, I didn’t finish them all (and plus, I wanted to use scissors to cut the circles out – shhhh, don’t tell anyone), so again, keep your eyes peeled on Instagram!
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| Photo by Alex Cook |
What else was lovely about Make & Mend?
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| Photo by Alex Cook |
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| Photos by Alex Cook |
I quite fancy having a go at stencilling so Iād be interested to learn a bit more about the paper cutting to enable me to make my own stencils ļæ½ļæ½
That sounds like a fab idea! You could create really personal stencils! x