rockpool candy

Cor Blimey Crochet! - you can keep your squares, Granny!

For those of you who can't make it to the Turnpike, you can watch my (rather clunky) youtube video of me winding my ball and then crocheting the monster bacteria. It didn't turn out as big as I'd hoped, due to lack of stuffing, but hey, it ain't no granny square.

Oh, and who would you want watching you shed blood and sweat for your artistic practice? Well the UK Minister for Culture, Andy Burnham, of course.

Stay tuned for my next Cor Blimey Crochet! installation. This is just puppy feed.

UK DIY - micropower

I'm getting ready for the UK DIY show at the Turnpike Gallery.

You'll recognise one of my white reefs on the cover there (and Alabamawhirly's gorgeous gloves, Miso Funky's emo-broidery, Ildiko Szabo's freeform and the odd bit of yarn bombing, too).

But I'm not installing coral this time. I've cooked up a plan with Ildi to install micro organisms.
All are larger than life.
Some crocheted and felted.

And some gigantically, ridiculously, arm crocheted (as let's face it, hand crocheted doesn't apply to this monster!) I'm calling it Cor Blimey Crochet!

If you've ever wondered what a listeria bacterium would look like enlarged to the size of a car, then the Turnpike will be the place to visit.
Thanks to the lovely Jacob Semko and my one and only hub, MyTarPit, shaking their tail feathers for the last 3 days and helping me construct this filament, I've got 300m of the stuff to drag across the Irish Sea and tame on site. I'll not know if it works until we're actually in the gallery, so fingers crossed.

And so why am I doing this - because, let's face it, it's not for the fun of picking glitter out of my undies for the rest of the year! Well, I want people to think about who really rules the world. Here's a sneak preview of my wall text.

MICRO POWER
I've often wondered why the Human Race thinks itself so superior. By taming other creatures and bending them to our will, we assume that we have the greatest intelligence of any organism.
But I'm not so sure.
I'm beginning to think that micro organisms truly rule our planet. We rely on them to keep us alive, all the time hoping that they don't kill us. Meanwhile, they're mutating and evolving, making our defenses ineffective.

At only a few nanometers long, some of these microorganisms are so small that they don't even reflect colour. (Humans can see colour waves between only 400 and 700 nanometers long.)
Under a powerful electron microscope, scientists have to fire electrons at the microorganisms to 'excite' them and make them glow to be visible.

MICRO POWER lead me to enlarge these monumentally powerful, yet microscopic entities using crochet and felting.  Featured here are the common cold, bacteria, micro fungi or other viruses.
As you visit the gallery, think about how you're trafficing these micro organisms unwittingly and look out for new clusters.

Not convinced of their dominance?
•Millions of Prochlorococcus can live in a drop of seawater, quietly making oxygen. They made one in every five breaths you take.
•About 100 trillion microorganisms live in your gut. Most of these bacteria and viruses aid your digestion.

•Some viruses use mind control. Rabies, which is fatal in humans, enrages its host, making it bite, just to pass on the virus.
•Then there's body control. Dengue Fever turns your immune system against you, so that you're attacking your own body from the inside.

•Myxamatosis, found in rabbits decides just how long it needs to keep its host alive to be bitten by enough mosquitoes in order to move to new hosts.
•And there are micro fungi that lasso roundworms before devouring them.

My advice? Think small.

So come down, help the viral spread of artwork both in and out of the gallery and rediscover your love of craft.

There are a few extra classes going on. I've tried to photograph the details. Hope they come out. If not, just go to the Turnpike site.

 

 

What measure success?

So, it's almost a year since I set up the Coral Collective, providing crochet project bags for a hospital waiting room. Each pack has everything a patient needs to crochet a small coral.
Now the idea was to get the patients to send me their corals, I would then sew them into reefs and use them to decorate the walls of the clinic, at the same time documenting the patients' stories and how the crochet had helped them.

In the last year, I've received one, yes, just ONE coral back (the rather lovely one pictured above) and even this was sent back anonymously.

So, initially, I felt I'd failed, after all, one coral does not a reef make.

But then I stopped and thought about it. I may have only received one coral, but I have put over 300 project bags into the clinic and they have all gone and continue to do so.
When speaking to those that work in the clinic, their reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

The clinic is shared between gynae and psychiatric outpatients. Apparently the women visiting, especially those in the older age group, love picking up the crochet hook again.

So maybe it isn't a failure. These women must enjoy being given a gift that brings back memories, brightens their days with the colours of the yarn and keeps them occupied during their time in the clinic (and hopefully at home, too). Otherwise, none of the bags would go.

And what do I get out of it? Well, I realised that I need to take my ego out of the equation. This is not about me, or recognition, or thanks. This is a totally altruistic project. Kindly people donate yarn,

scissors, funding and crochet hooks to me through various avenues. I am just the facilitator, bagging these donations up and putting them into a place where they help.

It's all just paying it forward in a way.

And that is how I realise that I must measure success in this instance.

Lesson learned.

So why am I blogging about it if I don't want recognition? Purely to encourage you to do something similar.

Get fibre active.

It feels good.