Quilts 1700-2010

This is typical of me! I have just realised I am writing a post about an exhibition the day after it has closed, that will teach me not to procrastinate so much and never plough through that 'to do list'.

Anyway.....

Kandy and I thought we should soak up some culture on our last trip to The Big Smoke (for London zine symposium) so we headed to the V&A to check out the Quilts exhibition.

I have been meaning to get into Quilting for a couple of years now, more so that my love for and skills for hand sewing have grown. This exhibition just got my hands itching to stitch.

I particularly liked the really old quilts, the detail in those things is beyond belief, and the portrayal of stories in so many of them is exactly why I love hand sewing so much. We noticed it was quite easy to spot the ones stitched by females and the ones by males. The male ones being a lot more geometric and Uniform. Some so uniform they were stitched by soldiers using their uniform!!

Wasn't such a big fan of the modern quilts, but I'm not a fan of modern things in general!!! Saying that I was totally engrossed by a modern quilt that was stitched by the inmates of Wandsworth prison. Watching the documentary talking about quilting got me thinking I wanted to teach crafts to cons, I was having a John Waters moment.

Obviously we then went to peruse the gift shop which took a while, we finally settled on a pencil and brooch. I browsed through the books, but decided I'm still not ready to commit to learning how to quilt just yet.

And then we were off, stopping by at Hummingbird before hopping on a train back up norfffff, belly full of cake, mind full of stitching ideas!

Awesome zine alert!

Taking Cultural Produsction Into Our Own Hands is an awesome, inspiring zine. It was produced to coincide with the workshop (see post below) at London Zine Symposium.

It features a whole host of things, like:

Booking and Organising spoken-word tours, Curating Art Shows, Making Comics, Making poster artwork for gigs and events, Making your own animations, Making your own [documentary] films, Making Zines, Opening your own independent Gallery Space, Organising a Zine Fest, Organising Comedy Nights, Putting on Gigs, Putting on your own club night, Running a Magazine, Running a Zine Distro, Running your own record label, Recording Albums, Opening up your own Vegan Cafe, Screen printing, Setting up a Zine Library, Starting your own publishing house, Starting your own band, Starting your own theatre company, Writing and performing poetry, Writing and Publishing your own Book, Opening your own Shop, Opening your own Comic Shop.

After reading it, I wanted to go out and produce everything! The ever rad Melanie Maddison contacted me to feature in it, where I attempt to give business advice, but I'm no Patrick Bateman!

What this zine does, aside form inspiring, it's provide a good basis for networking, giving a whole host of contacts.so buy it now, from here.

London zine symposium

So a few weeks ago we headed to London Zine symposium.
We had a cup of tea on the way down there and I paid 25p less for a cup of water too (to aid digestion) we weren't even in the south when I paid for that!
We arrived and wandered round trendy Brick lane (Rusholme's curry mile with a few 'quirky' shops thrown in!)
The symposium was fun!! So busy, like intensely full of people all day, we were sat next to a lovely girl called Rosie who made some ace 'how to' couture pattern zines.
Our stall looked like this: I, saw lots of familiar faces, and managed to get a workshop about taking cultural production into your own hands, with the as ever ace Melanie Maddison ,Em Ledger, Debi Withers and Patrick Staff.

Afterwards we went for a curry, a rate northern curry, that got so northern I spat my drink out lolling at us all being northern, in particular that favourite northern Dad saying, 'APPY WI THAT!

Next followed a trip to chez Nick n Paul for a eurovision party with cookies and Cherry Lambrini, perfectly followed the next day by a milkshake darn a caff. We got our picture taken with the lovely Denise first!

We then went off to see some quilts, but that's another blog post.

London Zine Symposium....

We shall be at this on Saturday, oh yeah, as well a whole load of other ace people, excited much!!!

Things to look forward to in May.....

May is a busy for month for us here at Sugar Paper Towers, full of ace things to make and do. The best has already happened, my birthday fun last week (full blog post to come soon).
Here are just a few of the things we are really excited about:

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*Parenthetical Girls picture taken byNickie
**Sugar Paper colour in cover byBunny