Tag Archives: Made in the Shade

OVERDUE: The Made in the Shade Craft Library at BUST

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If this blog post were a library book, I’d be liable to pay some hefty long overdue fines!

Last month, as part of a pact my business partner & pal, Clare Nicolson made to ‘get out and about more’, we hosted a pop-up library event feature at one of London’s biggest indie shopping shindigs – The BUST Craftacular.

The project unravelled, just as some of the best ones often do, kind of by accident.  A fleeting idea developed into a Proper Idea and with a little help from our crafty pals in London Town, the library was soon fully stocked with the best craft titles of 2011 AND we managed to recruit a gaggle of amazing authors to take part.

Clare is the design whizz of our little Made in the Shade duo and boy, oh boy, did she bring my geekfest library dreams to life!  Never short of a great idea, Clare’s also pretty amazing when it comes to interpreting my own gobbledigook visions and madcap design notions.  Everything from our library cards (actually discount cards for our online shop) to our book plate receipts (date stamped – of course!) and pretty book bags, librarian badges, banners and signage turned out just as I’d hoped.

To have Jazz Domino Holly, Tatty Devine, The Craftivist Collective and Cicada Books all involved in our little library was quite something.  I was proud to place my copies of The Busy Girl’s Guide To Sewing alongside some of the best craft titles of 2011.  Pretty neat, y’know,  if I may say so myself.

I shall, for the moment, spare you the usual chat about the Megabus journey – but if you happened upon my Carrie Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry Facebook page during the trip, you’ll have been treated to some mental commentary from a sleep deprived eejit about some mental, equally sleep deprived eejit co-passengers.

I thought you might like to see some of the brilliant photographs Beardy took on the day…

Going BUST

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I’ve been feeling a little bit sad lately.  Well, more angry than sad – probably.  Sad.  Mad.  Angry.  All of those things.  Oh – and drunk.  I’ve been drunk too.  Every day, I experience this weird feeling that some jackass is toying with my calendar and that my days and weeks are speeding up – like there’s a little switch you flick to make stuff go faster and it’s been nudged up a gear by accident.  Like on a record player.  (According to my on-screen tv guide doodah, there is a programme showing right now  on Channel 4 called, ‘Living With The Amish’.  Whit?!).  For the rest of this blog, you can imagine my voice speaking to you at 45rpm when I should clearly be set to 33rpm.

Not two days ago, I posted a ‘lil rundown of Beardy and I’s last trip to London Town.  No.  Wait.  I posted THAT story about three weeks ago!  THREE WEEKS?!  Mind I haven’t even published a moaned about Halloween yet!  Or Bonfire Night.  Hardly seems worth it now, does it?

So.  Here we are at the tail end of November and for the umpteenth time this year, Beardy and I are getting set to reboard the Megabus and head south again to London.  This time, we’re heading to Bethnal Green for the BUST Craftacular.  In my Made in the Shade guise, I’m joining Clare onstage to play some of our favourite Christmas songs as The A’Maisonettes.  We never describe ourselves as ‘djs’.  We are not djs.  Djs aren’t scared of cd mixers and most can negotiate two turntables and the contents of a record box all at once.  We are – and we can’t.  Instead, we hunt out supercool songs and just play them to people.  The only skills required?  Finding them (eagle-eyes), learning the words to ‘em (good memory/singing in tune) and then putting them in a funny order so that they tell some sort of story (creative editing & narrative building – oh yes).  I’m looking forward to The A’Maisonettes’ little session at BUST.  Clare is planning to wear her Christmas dress and I will wear white woolly tights and an amazing Christmas jumper with kittens on it.  I’ve borrowed it specially.  I fully intend to do a little dance.  A little wiggle.  A little wiggle in my borrowed Christmas jumper.

Once the singing and dancing’s over with, I have a quick wardrobe change before taking up my position as Chief Librarian in the Made in the Shade pop-up library – a little event feature we’ve put together for BUST.  Stand by for a torrent of photographs and much gushing about meeting Craftivist Collective, Tatty Devine & Jazz Domino Holly next week.  An obvious reflection of my own state of mind I think, my author session is loosely based around an imaginary self-help group.  Library goers will be encouraged to wear, ‘Hello, my name is…’ stickers.  They’ll be offered a positive sewing dunce affirmation and we’ll share stories about not being very good at making stuff.  I might have my guests eat donuts and drink horrible coffee to further enhance the experience.

At the minute though, I’m mostly getting upset by the thought of being in London for a grand total of 14 hours – but being on a bus for 20.

Oh.  When I have time, I will tell you all about the following things:

(i) State of Craft – a great craft book edited by pal & BUST Craftacular organiser Victoria Woodcock, published by the lovely Ziggy (Cicada Books), photographed by Beardy and featuring stacks of craft friends and talented makers.

(ii)  Behaving like a teenager, going to a proper rock’n'roll show and returning my gommy feet to the oh-so-comfy Dr. Marten fold.

For now, I must save up some snoozes.  It seems unlikely I’ll be enjoying any proper ones for a while!