A Crafty Journey

This week has been pretty busy, but my busiest day had to be Wednesday. I got up at dawn to catch a train to Greater Manchester. The purpose of my trip was to visit the crafty "UK DIY" exhibition at the Turnpike Gallery in Leigh. Partly out of curiosity and partly because some of my work is actually in said exhibition!

I was not disappointed. Right from the start, when I saw some trees wearing pieces of knitting by ArtYarn outside the gallery (also known as yarn boming or graffiti with knitted/crocheted fabric!), I knew it was going to be good.



Then I went into the building and right at the top of the stairs was some lovely mixed media work by Kay Haskins, influenced by nostalgia, the loss of memory that Alzheimers patients suffer and the life experiences of different generations.



This was a nice lead into the UK DIY exhibition. The first thing that caught my eye was all the gigantic sculptural knit and crochet pieces! I was also amused by the 'mathematic' crochet:



Other sculptural offerings included this amazing piece made entirely out of ordinary drinks straws, rendering them decidedly extraordinary!



I thought these flowers made from recycled fizzy drink cans were great.



The Techno-crafting section of the exhibition included my very own work, so naturally I was more than a little excited to see it in situ!



Next to it are funky pixel-inspired jewellery creations by spugmeistress. She was also responsible for at least one of the fab 'zines on display:



One of the things I was most impressed by was the knitted pillar cosy which even incorporated a 'neck' for the thermostat. How awesome!



Then there was the incredibly detailed knitted landscape, which made me smile.



I thought the interactive elements of the exhibition were really quite good. There was a cosy knitting area:



...where you could even have a go at french knitting:



Then, finally, alongside a pom-pom tree, was the craftivism section, including the Oxfam quilt, which is a knitted petition. Each square represents one of the 1,400 women worldwide who die every day in childbirth or pregnancy because of a lack of healthcare and medicines.



I was especially delighted to see Marjanne Jorgensen's knitted pink M24 Chaffee tank cosy as I submitted my own 15 x 15 cm square as part of this project back in 2006!



All in all, an inspiring and fun exhibition which encouraged people to get involved and have a go too. Always a good thing, in my opinion! :)

For more about UK DIY happenings, please see www.ukdiycraft.com.

P.S. Please click any of the above images in my post to have a better look.