Woodtastic

Did I mention how much we were looking forward to Wood Festival?  Well, we weren't disappointed.  It was great to be back in the workshop village, surrounded by the sounds of musical improvisation, samba bands, therapeutic gong baths and of course screaming children!

One of the most satisfying things about building up the number of workshops we've done is when we are visited by familiar friends.  Celine was with us at Wood and Tandem festivals last year, and she dropped by to make yet another piece for the blanket.  Nice one Celine!

Lucy brought her family with her to the festival, and to the blanket too!  Son Arthur wanted to learn to knit, and did just that, son Nick learned to crochet, and Lucy herself made the first ever heart on the blanket, attached to a piece she'd made earlier.  What a crafty family!

It was really great that we had more males with us this year, so well done Arthur, Nick, Keith, Dan and Sam for taking up the challenge!

Sophia likes to do something special for the Blanket at Wood Festival, and this year a snail came in and made the blanket its permament home.  Perhaps it needs a name, what do you think?

With brilliant weather and a creative, vibrant setting, we really enjoyed Wood this year and very much look forward to returning in 2016.  And if you've got a community event you'd like to see us at, let us know.  communityloveblanket@gmail.com.  See you there :)

Gearing up for Wood

The Love Blanket team are getting rather excited about being in festival-land again when we do two days of drop-in, drop-out but hopefully no drop-stitches at Wood Festival.  In April we had a little warm up at Silvia's house:

 and more recently had the opportunity to fully lay out the blanket (a task that's getting harder to do as it gets bigger!) and get it laying flat, by judicial removal of certain squares and reinsertion of other shapes:

 I even had to crochet a couple of triangularish pieces to fit in certain gaps.  I like us being able to accommodate strange shapes in the blanket (within reason), as it reminds me of medieval field systems before enclosure.  Whatever the size, Love Blanket pieces are certainly self-sustaining!