Crafters Against Cuts goes on the road - Manchester Tory conference protest!

Hey guys!

Argh! what a weekend. I'm just in love with Manchester at the moment. You guys are all amazing.

So obviously the Tory conference is going on now and the banner, the beautiful giant banner, the culmination of all our efforts for the past two months, made its debut this weekend.

First of all it went to Piccadilly Station to welcome the Tory delegates to the city. It was ace: the Open Voice women's choir sang Bread and Roses, an old trade union anthem; someone handed out pig-shaped sweets; a brill lady called Sue dressed as a fat cat and gave out fake fifties with lefty slogans printed on them; and we hung the banner over the balcony to a great cheer from the concourse below. Exciting :)

Here's a pic from Real Media

I'm not in the photo because I was being interviewed at the time *hair swish*

We were supposed to be the signal for the choir to start singing, but I had no idea what my signal was, or where we were supposed to be or anything. Plus I only had Tim with me. The banner is seven metres long. So we set off to Piccadilly Gardens to recruit some of the ravers who'd been up all night to come and hold it with us. In the event, loads of passersby at the station helped out too - no one likes the Tories here.

PS, re. the rave: the Telegraph or someone was moaning that it was keeping delegates awake all night. well boo hoo, I was kept awake all Saturday night by a police helicopter which I assume was something to do with the conference, we all got problems BUBZ. Anyway they've all been moved on now so the little tories can sleep soundly in their beds, knowing that they've done a great job.

Here's some more press coverage!

Salford Star

ITV

Manchester Evening News

and here's a Real Media video of the event, featuring me with a horrible voice and face.

So there was that. On Sunday was the giant massive march, and my first proper protest march ever, AND the moment of truth for banner-pole-things.

We went into town real early to sit in Sidney St LGBT centre and drink brews and panic quietly. But I needn't have worried: it could NOT have gone better. It was smooth as silk, a lean mean protestin' machine, beautiful. The lefty gods were smiling on us, the sun was shining, and everyone was upbeat and positive. Apart from the over-reported spitting/egg-throwing incidents, which by the way I think were planted, everyone was cool.

This is the BEST picture of the banner in action, taken by Ruth Kerfoot... how amazing does it look!

yay-uh

Here's some coverage from the march - obviously there wasn't much, but we DID come in at number 5 of the MEN's top 7 banners, so THAT'S amazing.

TUC.org.uk

Manchester Evening News

If you have any more, please do let me know as I'm collecting them. There are a lot of pics on social media as well which is amazing. I could not have done this project without the help of so many awesome crafters and craftivists and I am so thrilled. I'm taking the banner to the conference tomorrow morning for Cameron's final speech, come along if you can and look out for me :)

It's a shame they had to get all peevish with the whole 'Castlefield Arena is full' nonsense, but it just proves they're scared. If that's what they have to do to stop us congregating, then shit, try harder bozos. 10,000 people turned out last night to hear Jeremy Corbyn, Owen Jones, Natalie Bennett and the rest of them at the cathedral. That is truly something. We are on the rise, don't DARE stitch us up, we're coming for you and some of us got knitting needles.

xxx

How to make a 7 metre-long protest banner poley-holdy thing (keywords for Google)

Hey friends and allies.

Last time you saw me I was delirious and hysterical because I couldn't work out how to make a structure for the immense 7 metre banner, and I started wondering what the hell I was thinking when I decided that would be a good idea.

After I posted my tantrum online I got absolutely tons of responses from helpful kind people, thank you all, I know some awesome dudes.

I ignored the problem for a few more days, and yesterday Kelly, Claire and Laura, my chief pole consultants, came round to tackle the stupid thing in the garden. And.... it worked!

 Extensive googling tells me that there are no online tutorials explaining how to construct supports for such a long banner. So this will be the first ever one. If you're making a very stupidly long protest banner, follow these simple steps for easy and efficient banner-carrying (I hope).

You will need:

• Long tent pole, the same length as the banner, one of those bendy ones with elastic through the middle that come apart.
• Some bits of wood, the height you want your banner to be off the ground. I used 1x2in (ish) pine from B&Q.
• Some hose clips. The same number as bits of wood.
• Twenty million cable ties
• Drill
• Capable friends

1. Get wood. Drill four holes in the end your banner is going to hang from. There should be enough room between the holes for a hose clip to fit, vertically (I'll show you in a minute).

Claire being rugged

2. Attach hose clamp to the wood using two cable ties in a cross configuration, like this:

3. Do the same to all the other lengths of wood.

looking sweeeeet

4. Realise you haven't got enough wood or hose clamps and send Laura to buy some more. Thanks Laura!

5. Attach all the tent pole bits together and thread through all the hose clamps. Make sure the uprights are roughly evenly spaced, tighten all the hose clamps.

My tent pole is about 9mm wide and the clamps won't tighten that much, so we wrapped strips of fabric around the pole and taped them in place, to thicken it up a bit.

If you look closely you can see Kelly in the undergrowth. My garden is not quite long enough for this project.

6. Attach the banner to the tent pole and uprights in a manner of your choosing. At the march I will probably use cable ties or sew some fabric to keep the banner in place, but for the practice run we just tied it on using the loose threads at the back.

7. Lift the banner up with the help of as many people as you can find. It will be v wobbly but strong enough to hold. Oh, I should mention that we taped round all the joins in the tent pole, to stop it from coming apart.

If you're very lucky you will have a washing line in the way that impedes the banner somewhat, so in this event, send everyone round to the front of the house.

This tip is only really useful for protest marches taking place in your garden.

Finally - hooray! It can stand up.

Here's me shouting, when Laura zoomed in by mistake. I was excited.

You may have noticed that Claire is holding the end of the banner up because the pole isn't bloody long enough. Don't worry, I'm going to add a bit of stick to that end.

8. March! have fun and get the bastards! Basically what I'm hoping is that David Cameron sees the banner and immediately disbands the Tory party. realistic.

so that's how we did it. Whether it will stay upright for the whole day next Sunday... well you'll have to come along and see for yourself won't you! Rest assured I will have a rucksack full of cable ties, tape and glue for emergencies.

Bye!

Protest banner workshop #1: aka Helen's austerity sweatshop and partytime

Me again, you cannot get rid of me.

Just wanted to ramble on a bit about the first workshop we did on Monday night at the Castle in Manchester city centre. It was great to meet new people, all of whom share my intense dislike for the Tories and their cruel and useless austerity measures, AND a passion for craft and making! Awesome. I've made friends.

Here are a few photos from the evening.

all the wool.

Here is Molly learning to knit for the very first time. She mastered casting on and the knit stitch in under an hour, and informs me that her first square doubles as a cat cape. Versatile.

Ames and Kelly riding the crochet train

Louella, Jo and Beth

smashin the system, needlecraft style.

Kelly learning to make granny squares

Kelly's first square plus stoic Eastwood style pose

dem squers

Okay so that was fun and rewarding, and we now have a bit of banner. Here is it:

I'm aware that the letters look a bit rubbish at the moment but that will be rectified and they will be MEGA legible, so don't fret. I wanted to get a word finished by the weekend, so I'm on a square-collecting mission, do you have any?

There will be another workshop this Monday, despite it being a bank holiday, because we are THAT DEDICATED. Well, I'm not, because I foolishly am going to London and I won't be back in time, so newly qualified granny square expert, Kelly will be overseeing proceedings. I will be around the week after and every other week forever.

Thanks to all my lovely knitting and crocheting bros and sisses! I'm thrilled that this banner MIGHT ACTUALLY HAPPEN <3 p="" xx="">

Massive knitted anti-tory banner IS GO! CRAFTERS AGAINST CUTS!

so hey again my dudes. I realise that it has yet again been a million years since I posted, and I'm sure you're all gutted, but never fear, because I am about get all righteous and worthy up in here and you'll be all agitated.

have you heard of this thing called the Tory Party? yeah, they're pretty popular for some reason, but they're also rather unpopular and particularly in the North. they just keep on shafting us. it's wack.

Manchester is hosting the Conservative Party Conference from 4-8th October, and a few of us medium-full on radical lefty types are pretty angry about this (and about the party's general existence). you see since 2010, when the Tories first got into government in a pretend coalition, we've been shat on. Here are some facts about how hard they've shat on us, in case you weren't already aware:

Budget cuts in Manchester amount to £311.94 PER HEAD between 2010 and 2015. This makes up £250 million of cuts to our public services, OURS. Manchester City Council is proposing more cuts, totalling £59 million in 2015-16 and £31 million in 2016-17. This includes cutting council services to equality, drug services, youth and play, advice, home care, supported housing and city infrastructure. GREAT, I'm sure none of us were using any of that.

Here are links if you want more info, or just google 'Manchester cuts 2015' and see how fun it is! hooray!

Manchester Community Central

Manchester City Council

This is obviously on top of the twenty million other shit things they keep doing.

ANYWAY! a few of us (led into battle by the inimitable Cathy Crabb) are doing an arts intervention at the conference, setting up creative things here there and everywhere to get people involved in interesting ways, and to show the Tory bumheads that we DO NOT want them here.

So here's mine. (PS thanks for reading this far xx)

yeah that's right. DON'T.

So the idea is we knit 476 squares which will make up a 7 metre-long banner which says 'DON'T STITCH US UP!' slightly cheesy slogan but better than all the others we came up with (thanks to everyone who 'helped')

This is a slightly ambitious undertaking given that the conference is in like 6 weeks, so I NEED YOUR HELP, crafters! Come to a workshop at the Castle Hotel on Oldham Street in Manchester, every Monday 6-9pm starting next week. If you can't come, I'd still appreciate the help. Give your squares to someone who knows me or email me and I'll tell you where to post them.

This is what I needs:

• Knitted or crocheted squares. Red or white (any shade). Any stitch pattern and yarn weight you can lay your grubby hands on. The only thing that matters is that they are 10x10cm.
• If you can use your own yarn stash or buy some cheapo yarn that'd be fab. I have a bit but I don't have a lot of money. Ditto needles.
• Oh! So a 10cm square knitted patch is roughly 20 stitches on 4mm needles using DK wool. Play around to suit. I am not that bothered about intricate beauty here but use your creative genius as you see fit. You can do lace or intarsia or what-have-you. But I need like a million squares, so it's quantity over quality (like all my other artwork, HA)
• I need 331 red squares and 145 white. But don't worry about that at the moment, just make whichever your beautiful heart desires.

Okay think that's everything. Oh there's a catch-up meeting, upstairs in the Castle tomorrow at 7pm if you want to come meet everyone, but no worries if not! email me and join in the fun! Show 'em what a fucking Northern Powerhouse really is! YEAH 

love you xx

the true meaning of #mousebiro

Yo yo, hope you are having a happy new year so far. I am distracting myself from a job application which is taking forever.

anyway I have been meaning to write something about this for ages, because it's great. Ages, ages, and more ages ago, I read somewhere that mice can squeeze through a gap the width of a biro tube (a quick google search reveals that this may or may not be true anyway, my favourite is this yahoo answers post - good old yahoo answers. 'What is a biro')

because I am a dumbo I took this to mean that mice can fit THROUGH an actual biro TUBE, like down the inside of the whole tube. Stupid. Anyway years later me and Maddern submitted it to Salle Pierre Lamy for their first ever (?) SPLARPY, check it out here (number 008). I was the clear winner thanks to the number of #mousebiro drawings generated, people were obviously incensed.


Check it, largely nicked off SPL's website:

 Oly (I suspect)

Anne-Marie

Me

Ellie Larke 

 Emily

 Joe List

 Joe Morris Jnr

Maddern (aka MOUSEBIRO DENIER)

 Llinos

 Marie

Karen (my favourite)

Mike (at v interesting work meeting)

Me again

Bryce

Ruby

Sophie

Laura (aka rolaricho, check out her drawings MAINTENANT)

French Amazon

Awesome yes? So I won the argument and therefore mice CAN fit through biros, in your face science.

I wanted to make something mousebiro related and still do, but I haven't yet, I am cooking something up. I am NOT cooking a mouse, I don't mean. Mice have appeared sporadically in my work, since I was at uni and the whole 'people disguised as mice/mice with suckers on their feet' thing I was obsessed with, that doesn't make as cute a hashtag, but this is the sort of thing:

I only have crap photos but anyway. 

Okay so if you've been paying attention you know I made Maddern #mousebiro socks for Christmas:

And and and! Oly, my good buddy from work, MADE me the most awesome #mousebiro picture for my not-very secret Santa present! Oh my lord. Look at THIS

Whoooooooo yeahh! Now all I have to do is get a REAL one from wonder-taxidermist Fiona Campbell. I asked her to make one, and she said she would :) 

Okay ENOUGH but you have not seen the end of this phenomenon. It's BIG

xxx