what we did last week

Such a lovely evening we had, either sitting playing with ribbons and sequins and beads, or making willow stars and wands. This is Stacey's flower which wound round the neck of her cardi. There were lots more flowers and beads and sari silk.  And lots of stars and laughter too, though we didn't manage to capture those.

The loveliest thing of all, I feel, was the gentle industry of women making stuff, concentrating as they threaded beads, riffling among ribbons, admiring flashes of creativity, sharing gossip, encouraging their friends, laughing at the incongruity of waving willow wands and casting spells to send off our leading ladies with the very best wishes for sharing their skills.

Very many thanks to Barley Massey for coming along and showing us how to transform rags to riches, and to our lovely Karen for making magic with willow. And a special mention for Annie who wore her newly embellished little black dress on Friday for our coffee morning, another hour or so of delights.

You can visit Barley's shop, Fabrications, in Broadway Market for more inspiration, including classes of all sorts. We'll also be selling Barley's Rethinking Rubbish kits at our Christmas Market on 3rd December, more of which anon.

some ukes, some stitches and a slice of cake

We're setting some challenges for you at our Tuesday 19th February meeting .  We've invited members of the punk band 'The pUKES" to come along and teach some lucky people the ukelele, perfect for any of you who have a new year's resolution to learn a musical instrument!   There are only 12 ukes available, so if you have access to your own uke, do please bring it along so more people can join in. We're on the hunt to borrow more if we can - but no guitars please.  We're also offering a little craftivism.  The #imapiece project supports the Save the Children race Against Hunger campaign which urges our Prime Minister to  use his presidency of the G8 conference in 2013 to help to do something about the 2.3 millioin children who die each year because they do not get enough food.  The idea is that you send an embroidered message on a fabric jigsaw piece.  We'll bring the jigsaw pieces - all you have to do is sew your message.  You don't have to be an expert sewist but you may want to keep ithe message short!  This is a really lovely little project and we very much hope you will want to join in. 

As usual we meet at 7 for 7.30pm at St Margaret's House, Old Ford Road, E2 9PL.  Tea, coffee and light refreshments available, including wine (donations invited).  Visitors are asked to make a £3 donation towards costs.

Our coffee morning is at 10.30 am on Friday 22nd February at Fabrications in Broadway Market.  Fabrications is a shop/ workshop run by Barley Massey who has offered us space in her lovely Imaginarium to have tea, coffee, our own cake (so we know it will be good!) and some jo;;y company.  You can come along for the chat, bring some knitting or finish off your jigsaw piece.  Just turn up and join us.

spring sprung

Benets

We were a little tempted to have ice cream at Benets on Friday, Annie, Stacey and me, but we managed to show some restraint.  We did have a lovely time chatting about this and that - the trials and tribulations of planning permission, how Google maps is not always as helpful as it might be, stepmothers in fairy tales, you know, that sort of thing.  Good coffee and tea too.

Spring crafting

It was a good ending to a busy week that saw the start of spring with a little crafting and lots of sun. Hope those of you who made posies at our meeting are still enjoying them and that you have remembered to water your bee-mixture paper pots.  Maybe it's not quite warm enough to sit out in the garden with your lanterns but if you have your hammers ready, and tins saved, at least you'll have a little time to make a whole lot more for the long evenings. The trick, apparently, is to fill the cans with water and freeze them before getting out your hammers and nails - and maybe best to use a less powerful hammer than the one in the picture here!

As ever thanks to everyone who shared their expertise and joined in the fun, especially Jo and Elizabeth and our friends from Phakama who led sessions, to Veronika, our lovely auction auditor, who made sure everyone who joined in went home with a bargain or two, and to Ruth who diligently collated promises of food and skills for the Edible Garden project.  And thanks too to all those behind the scenes who share the goodness, give up time and make our meetings happen.

Don't forget to let us know what you enjoy and what you want more or less of.  We want to know.  And I'll promise not to forget to post the info on what we're doing next.

Enjoy the sun this week... and don't forget to give your EEWI bag a trip out too if you can.

cushion love

Just to say that you don't have to have a swish sewing machine to make stuff.  This one is over thirty years old (thanks, Mum) and Annie soon took over the controls to make a lovely cushion.

Congratulations to our novices who went home with their gorgeous creations after a night at Curvey Crafters and help from Fiona, Jo, Noeline and Sunita.

wine, women and song

Almost forgot to mention what a fabulous evening we had at the AGM.  The lovely Mike and Maureen from Waitrose Canary Wharf did a first class job of presenting and serving a selection of Christmas wines - we are super-grateful to them and to Waitrose for their generosity in providing their time and the wine.  If you weren't able to get a copy of the list I've posted it here for you.   Many thanks too to Clare and Veronika for organising the wine-tasting and the mini-feast that accompanied the wine.

Congratulations to everyone who took up the challenge of making something from a Cafe Direct coffee sack.  As someone whose sack got a bit holey after a spin in the washing machine, I can only say it was not as simple as it looked.  Anyway we had some lovely entries and clearly lots of work had gone into making them as well as not a little imagination. Whoever would have thought you could craft a sack bouquet?  Well done all!

As to the song - Gemma gave us a wee reminder of what a coup it would be if Jerusalem - including al of our lovely EEWI singers - could make it to the Christmas charts.  If you buy a copy on 12th December they just might.

Don't forget our next meeting on 14th December.  We've been planning our craft evening and there will be chocolate, flowers, hearts and who knows what elve.  And mince pies, ladies, for our annual mince pie competition.  We need your homemade mince pies!

november meetings

OMG - the clocks have gone back and it's time for the AGM already!  Our 16th November meeting is our Annual General Meeting - members only, please - when we will be rewarded for out rapt attention to the administration of our branch and election of officials etc by a delicious wine tasting, courtesy of the wine experts from Waitrose at Canary Wharf (thank you! thank you!).  Non alcoholic drinks and complementary nibbles will also be available to taste.  Remember to bring along the crafted wonders you have been making with  your Cafe Direct coffee sacks for our competition, with prizes too.  If you have not started snipping yet and need some inspiration, then go over to their flickr page and take a look at the wonderful things other WI members have already done - love those panniers.  The meeting will be at our usual venue,  St Margaret's House in Old Ford Road, next door to the Gallery Cafe.

Our coffee morning on Friday 19th November will be at Fresh, 275 Whitechapel Road which you will find immediately next door to the exit at Whitechapel Underground Station.  It may look small on the outside, but there is plenty of room upstairs.   We'll gather at 10.30am as usual.

If you are into crafting, here will be another meeting of the Curvey Crafters at the Salvation Army Hall on Kerbey Street, Poplar, E14  on Thursday 11th November, 7.30pm - 9pm.  Just bring along whatever you are working on and share some good company.  There is a small charge (£1.50) to cover the cost of refreshments.

Looking forward to seeing you all.

we got flow

If you read any of the literature about happiness you'll probably come across the idea of flow at some point.  It happens when people are absorbed by what they are doing.  Which explains why people looked so happy and absorbed at our June meeting.  Making rosettes (and many thanks to the lovely V&A WI for sharing the instructions)... 

..even doubly happy...

...or making our WI banner...

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...even with a broken wrist (get well soon, B!)

or making paper bags....

or ceramics...

Thanks so much to everyone who contributed to our skill sharing evening and special thanks to Mo for leading the ceramics workshop.

nights at the museum

There is something magical about being in a museum when it's closed to the public.  Not that it was quiet exactly.  The lovely women from the new V&A WI had invited London WIs to a Quilts social, so there was plenty of wine,  food and chat going on.  We were in great company,  including Ruth Bond, the National Federation WI Chair and Vice Chair Janice Langley and the ladies from the Essex Federation.  There was a chance to say hello to WI neighbours from Wanstead, Clapham and North West London.  And then, of course, there were the glorious quilts.  Sue Pritchard, the curator of the fabulous quilts exhibition, gave us a quick tour of some of the exhibits - including the evocative Rajah quilt and the work of the men from Wandsworth Prison after which we had time to look around at our own pace and be tempted by the Liberty quilting fabrics.

Massive thanks to the V&A WI for their warm welcome and generosity - and inspiring me to get on with a bit of quilting of my own,

out and about

If the recent publicity associated with the V&A's quilt exhibition has whetted your appetite for all things quilty, you might want to go along to see the London Quilters Highlights exhibition at Swiss Cottage Library  (a short walk from Swiss Cottage tube station).  There are dozens of quilts on display, including this amazing piece of work by our own Janet Beck, with a range of styles exhibited.  The exhibition is on until the 29th May and is free.

You can find details about this and other events on our new events page.  And if you want to keep your diary up to date on where we'll be serving tea and cakes this summer, take a look here or click the link at the top of the page or in the sidebar..

thank you very much!

A big thank you to Pamela and the Royal Docks Community School for inviting us to make Morsbags with some of their special needs pupils over the last couple of weeks.  It was an absolute pleasure for us and we were delighted with the lovely thank you cards you made for us.  We hope the young people like their new bags and get lots of Easter eggs to put in them.

Thanks too to Darren for his talk on osteopathy last week.  Now we all feel guilty about our high heels and are thinking about giving them up, abandoning breast stroke and taking up Pilates.  We were so shaken up that we had to take consolation from the first class cakes at the Skylight Cafe on Friday morning - top marks for the caramel shortbread and the lovely atmosphere.

While we are on the subject of cakes, let's have a huge round of applause for EEWI member Christine for the cross stitch sampler she made for us. We'll be showing it off at our cake stalls throughout the spring and summer.  We'll put up the dates here - don't miss us.

And finally, ta, tata and bon voyage to Nadine who has been looking after us at Chisenhale.  We'll miss you and hope that they look after you in Berlin as well as you have looked after us.