AFRORETRO - Beyond The Clock
New Stamp. Crinkle Earbobs on display at Stitches In Time Christmas craft fair
Limehouse Old Town Hall is a lovely old building that’s doing the shabby chic thing. It’s a little bit crusty and I personally feel some Milton cleaning wipes could go a long way here. But wait for it… when you get in there you’re hit by these huge vaulted ceilings and as your eye travels across the room you notice all these beautiful details like the carved balustrades, the intricate cornices and all of a sudden you’re like, “If AFRORETRO won the lottery we would totally buy this place!”. Despite scuffed skirting boards and mismatched tables you can see the glory - a little faded, perhaps - but actually it’s a great venue for a craft fair.
Sooooo there we were, standing at the steps of Limehouse Old Town Hall. I’m like on this mega high, feeling pretty pleased with Team AfroRetro – we achieved! The crafting gods gave us a challenge and we brought it on. We didn’t crumble. We made 100 earbobs, possibly more, devised a sewing workshop and still had time to time wrap myself a mega headwrap – you know, representing the ancestors. I was so in the zone. It was like we were a crafting whirlwind, sucking up trimmings and finishings by the dozen and tearing up yards of the most unusual fabrics, spewing out hand made earbobs. We were living on the edge of our pants, sewing wildly and recklessly, taking on the world with our creations. We bow down to no-one - our creations speak for ourselves - woo-ha!
Yeah, I know - WOO-HA!
All that was left, was to sell 100 earbobs - easy peasy lemon squeezy right?!
WRONG!
Unfortunately there weren’t really 100 people to sell to, which was a real shame. In fact, it was super quiet - not so quiet that you can hear the mice rustling in the skirting boards of this beautiful old building - but quiet enough to make selling 100 earbobs a bigger challenge than making them in 3 days.
But I’m not gonna cry about it because there are loads of positives to be taken from our outing. I can totally take out that achieve list and get myself a big marker and draw out some giant ticks.
So, if we weren’t selling a hundred earbobs what were we doing?
Well nooooo, I wasn’t checking my emails, Facebook, Blog, Vine or Instagram – well, I did check the Instagram, but only like for ten seconds. What Team Afro was actually doing was making AfroRetro Christmas stars with the Stitches in Time Craft Market visitors. For £3 a pop, peeps at the fair could make their very own AfroRetro Christmas star. Just wanna throw it out there - I love making and taking. How could you not? You rock up somewhere random, make some really cool stuff that you can take home and use. Make & Take – life changing!
We had a crazy mix of humans joining us to craft; old, young, boys, girls - from sewing virgins to couture masters. They all joined us for a cosy chat and the opportunity to make a star. This was the highlight of the day; it was amazing to able to talk to people about our passion for craft, creating and Uganda. By having loads of great Ugandan fabrics and materials like banana leaves, tree bark and beautiful wax prints, I was able to talk about all the other amazing things Uganda has to offer, like: great food, tons of wildlife, sunny days and crazy bum dancing – yep that’s gonna be another blog post. I would like to think we were entertaining, that we didn’t bore people. I mean I didn’t notice anybody frantically looking around the room for an escape route or with that eyes glazed over look. We just had a chilled out time selling the crafting dream.
So in a homage to my old friend Jerry Springer, here are some words of randomness that sum it all up, “No we didn’t sell tons of stuff, however on Saturday 7th December 2013 we met an amazing bunch of humans and spread the crafting Love around East London – the only love that is safe to spread around.”
The final thing I’m going to leave you with is some awesome pics of crafters and their creations. If you recognise yourself then totally share it or make a comment and even if you are like, ‘I don’t know these people’, well, still share it -we want to spread the AfroRetro Christmas spirit.
Thanks Team World!
Until next we meet again,
“Take care of yourself and each other!” ~ Jerry Springer
Many mwahs
Team Afro
