Lent my knitting skills to the fabulous Vintage Tea Party last Saturday on behalf of the charity Bliss (supporting families with premature infants). I was giving knitting classes as the 40′s records played and a hundred people in vintage get-up drank tea and ate cake on beautiful china plates.
There was a great range of local crafters teaching, for free, a range of activities from a nostalgic era that have largely, sadly, been lost to the majority of people. On the stage was sewing with great swathes of bunting being produced to decorate the hall. A fantastic artist Janine Nelson ran a smashing (literally) workshop in making mosaics from crockery, beads and buttons. Participants donned goggles in protection as the dashed plates into random pieces to make into hearts or birds. Her work and more workshops can be found at www.smashingchintz.co.uk.
Marcia Hamilton was very popular on the crochet table and had a beautiful selection of knitted, crocheted and woven items to showcase her talents, including floral brooches and embellishments.
More of Marcia’s work can be seen on flickr.com/photos/glammamamma/
Debbie from www.looseends.co, who organise traditional skills workshops for busy people in SE London, taught felt making and Susan Clark of www.susanclarkinteriors.com had a plant sale next to the homemade gifts table with all proceeds going to Bliss. There was also massages, nail painting, a baby sale, raffle, novelty teapot tombola and swapshop, where you could take away any items of clothing you wanted absolutely free.
The whole evening was a great success and I’m told by Helen, organiser extraordinaire, that I raised more then £2500 for Bliss. This money will be used to maintain the charities helpline for parents whose babies have been born prematurely or who need special baby care, contribute towards their campaign to ensure one to one nursing for all special care babies and to fund training for nurses in developmental care. If you would like to know more about Bliss visit bliss.org.uk.
