I haven't been online much this Summer, not blogging, not even tweeting. The main reason was I wasn't in the mood, I felt like I had nothing happy and exciting to contribute so I kept stum. As much as I enjoyed the Body and Soul Festival, I felt exhausted, and drained after it, I was even thinking of backing out of the Electric Picnic. I think I went through a mini midlife craft crisis. So after a lot of soul-searching I came to the conclusion am I fecking mad?
I love festivals, I love music, I love camping, hanging out with friends and talking textiles for days on end. So I decided to use that scary word "invest". I dont invest in my future, I barely think about next week, but the marquee thing was getting to me, and I was sick of making endless decorations, so I decided to invest in a proper marquee. I had several boxes to tick, I needed a marquee that would suit several different festivals, be comfortable to sit and teach in, as handmade/eco as I could possibly get, takes 2 people to put up, isn't too difficult to store, would last me an awful long time, and most of all be nice to look at. Lots of endless nights trawling through marquees, websites, festivals looking for inspiration. I came across pasttents.com and fell in love with this.
So, a very, very, long winded story which involves tents not arriving on time, cars breaking down, children starting school, it was the craziest most stressful summer I have ever had. So a week before the Electric Picnic I ended up with no transport, no tent. Luckily I was just coming out of my midlife craft crisis, I had run out of steam, and although my insides were churning, I maintained an outer calm. I have taken to mantras, all summer all I repeated to myself was "It'll be fine, it'll be fine' it'll be fine...". I managed to borrow a van 5 days before EP set-up, and my mantra changed to "Diesel, diesel, diesel...". The day before I was due to leave, my new tent finally arrived, but without any instructions on how to put it up "It'll be fine, it'll be fine, it'll be fine...". So, I when I get to the Greencrafts site, guessing how to put the marquee up, my mantra changed to "it'll stay up, it'll stay up.... as long as it doesn't get windy it'll stay up"
This is the tent on Day 5, it's gone a bit loose and lopsided, but I think not bad considering it came with no instructions. I am absolutely delighted with it. And hopefully I'll be able to start doing more festivals and events. (Anybody want me? Now taking bookings for next summer!!)
The workshops went great, I had 2 fantastic helpers this year, Denise and Lisa. I am indebted to them for making my festival very easy this year. I had some lovely people stop by for a chat. A few people I recognised from last year, and it was lovely to meet to them again. But my favourite of all were these bunch of cousins. They were so pretty and happy, and we all just giggled for ages. They made my festival.
To be honest, I didn't see much of the festival, I pretty much stayed in the Greencrafts Village, in the trees for most of the weekend, during the day doing workshops. Maybe I'm getting old, but the big bands don't do it for me anymore. What I love about the Electric Picnic is being surprised, hearing new music, and the top 2 to impress me were CW Stoneking, like Tom Waits in his early drinking in the harbour tavern days and Lady Grew, a pint-sized tornado like a cross between Mad-Max and Grace Jones. But the real highlight for me was dancing my wellies off at the Gramophone Disco.
Here's a few more pics from Greencrafts. I didn't take many although I say every year I will, maybe next year I'll take more.
I have a lot of crafty blog posts to write up, everything from how to make fabric windmills, crocheted mushrooms, plastic lace, and more, so the next few posts will have less chat and more craft!
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