A Crafty Sheffield Christmas

Well...its the last day of school before Christmas and when I was young that meant you could bring games into school like Connect 4 and Battleships, so I'm in the Christmas holiday mood. Since the last post things have been busy with the spring workshop programme and I've made lots of gift vouchers for crafty Sheffield people to get in their Christmas stockings.

This week I was in town for the last minute presents and also popped into 'Birds Yard' on Chapel Walk. Birds Yard (Sheffield) has been set up by Birds Yard (Leeds) and local artists and craftspeople can rent selling space to promote their wares to the good people of Sheffield. This is MUCH needed in Sheffield, in fact 3 of our tutors have items for sale in the shop (Sharon - tweet cushions, Saskia - Screenprints and Hayley - Lampshades). I often feel that Sheffield falls way behind places like Bath, Bristol, Brighton, Manchester and Leeds for promoting good and professional craft (except for Silversmithing of course). I wonder if its because our art / craft degrees in Sheffield are quite limited and we are just not turning out trained graduates and craftspeople, or is it because Sheffield doesn't value the benefit of craft as much as other major UK cities? Where are Sheffield's crafty pop up shops for example? I hope Birds Yard starts a new trend.

Wandering down Chapel Walk (this little Street has real potential...) brought back fond memories of Whiteheads (does anyone remember this little Aladdin's cave of crafting?), me and my Gran used to do down into the basement bit of the shop and buy lots of crafty things to keep us going. It was real jumble of stock and you almost couldn't see Mr Whitehead and the till behind all the stuff piled high! Later the shop moved to the bottom of London Road, but it always lot some of its charm for me at its new location.

So over the Christmas break I really must do those curtains for our bay window (they've been over a year on the to-do list), and finish that linen top and do 18 more granny squares for the cushion......while drinking hot port and listening to Bing Crosby singing 'White Christmas' .....I hope you all have a wonderful time and hope to see you in the new year - Emma x

(Late) New Years Resolutions

Here are my new years resolutions:
1. Update this blog more often
2. Not to buy any new clothes* (for as long as possible)

*exceptions to the rule: underwear (obviously) and probably long sleeve T-shirts as I wear them all year round and the current stock are probably going to need refreshing some time soon.

Note also the word NEW, this lets me get away with buying 2nd hand and vintage clothes and obviously making my own. Last night I finished my little blue skirt, but I have lots of other clothes projects (and non-clothes projects) on the list. Next up will be a bias cut dress which I am making as an example of the dress you can make at our 'Make a dress in a day' workshop (date probably in May). I have bought some rather funky fabric which is petrol blue / black / white tartan (looks better than it sounds, I promise).

Here's the skirt photo (not a fab photo but at least you get the idea!)

Happy New 2010

Hi everyone I'm back - after a busy break and being frustratingly ill, culminating in bringing in the new year with a hot mug of Lemsip. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be organising and planning and you should start seeing the results on the website. We have finished painting the craft room although it needs a massive amount of tidying and I have lots of pictures and products to share with you all when we finally get a broadband connection which works properly (maybe I'll do a week of picture blogs to make up for having no nice images to look at!)

Happy new year to you all - lets hope its a crafty one!