EPISODE 18

CHRISTMAS WITH FRIENDS

Should auld acquaintance be forgot? We don't think so. That's why we called up a few of the people we've met over the past couple of years. Community choir singers. Life drawers and life models. Mums who skateboard. Knitters from Brixton. West Country woodworkers. And invited them all round to ours. For a mince pie and a photoshoot. We all got reacquainted. And we promised not to leave it so long next time.

From left to right: Elle, Hana, Elena

So what has Craft Forward been up to since our first Life, Stuff, Style shoot?

Elle: We’ve been doing yarn bombing! We’re making crocheted flowers that will cover trees in a park in Lambeth. And we’ve had another knitting and crochet marathon at Southwark Cathedral. With over 400 people there.

Elena: And our biggest project is Blankets for London. We teach people how to knit and crochet at free workshops. And we make beautiful blankets that we donate to people that are currently unhoused. We were only operating in Lambeth when we first met White Stuff but now we’re operating across London, donating to five different boroughs. It’s a very Christmassy thing as we give away the blankets in December.

Hana: Everyone should be entitled to something that's handmade, beautiful and worth taking care of. Particularly people that are unhoused.

Elena: Yeah. One of the biggest things when you have housing insecurity, especially if you sleep rough, is a lot of the time people just don't really see you as a person. And receiving gifts and having nice things that make you happy is a massive part of being a person.

And what Christmas present would you give to Craft Forward?

Hana: A weaving the ends machine!

Elena: I know what I would give to our beneficiaries. I would give housing stability. 1000%.

From left to right: Helen and Dave

What’s been happening in the Some Voices world since we last met you?

Helen: It’s expanded. We got more choirs. We started one in Paris and Amsterdam. We were at the Radio 1 studios, singing a Saturdays song. At Kings Cross station, doing a flash mob for the TV show The Piano. Wherever you are in the country, you can probably be quite close to a Some Voices choir or gig.

And what does Christmas look like for Some Voices?

Dave: Choir gives such an adrenaline rush that when it’s not on for the holidays, we really miss it. I couldn’t make the gig last Christmas but the love and positivity from choir was a huge part of my recovery from my heart operation. That made last Christmas particularly special for me.

Helen: Choir really means everything. As an adult it gets more difficult to make new friends, especially in London, everyone's so busy. But choir’s a chance for everyone to come together. It's so joyous to sing together and when human voices all sing in harmony, there's something really moving about it.

From left to right: Alix, Yen, Felicity (with Gaspard & Hazel)

What’s Christmas like for the London Skate Mums?

Felicity: Well, Christmas is a tough time for skaters, especially in the UK, because it's wet and it's cold and it's hard to get out.

Yen: If I was going to gift us anything, it would be an indoor skate park!

Felicity: Yeah, every skate mum wants an indoor skate park for Christmas. I think a close second, would be a pair of those pads. The hip pads, the bum pads. I got my girls their first skateboards for Christmas and seeing them open up the skateboard on Christmas morning was just magical.

What does the London Skate Mums community mean to you?

Alix: I’ve always wanted to get on a board, but I never felt like I was allowed. As a woman, in my 30s, a mum. But Skate Mums has given me safety and a space to do that, which I’d never had the courage to do by myself.

Felicity: I think the thing that we all have in common generally is that caring role, which isn’t a natural fit with a kind of dangerous sport like skateboarding. People think, ‘you have to be careful. You're a mum. You can't hurt yourself.’ But you get to this point through motherhood, and you start to care less about what people think of you. And it's actually a great time to pick up something new and to be brave.

Yen: It's great to just challenge yourself, isn't it?

Felicity: My husband said to me the other day, it's like you’ve found your tribe. At the skate park. I was pumping a half pipe with one of the other skate mums, talking about what's the best way to get rid of lice in our kids’ hair. I'm like ‘this is something that could only happen in the London Skate Mums group’.

From left to right: Teresa and Pauline

What has the Shed been up to since we last met?

Pauline: Well, the rocking horse that some of us were working on has now been completed and we're looking to sell that. And there's a continuing project going on, part of Project Linus, making small blankets for premature babies, kids and teenagers who just need a comfort blanket.

Teresa: We’ve been running lessons with a great carpenter. We learnt how to make quite precise joints and it's come out as a little stool. There have been lessons for people who haven't done any woodwork at all, which has been great.

And how does the Shed celebrate Christmas?

Teresa: We often bring food in and have a celebration at some point over Christmas.

Pauline: Even coming to a little nibbles session that we had last year, it felt like a family Christmas for me. We get so engrossed in our projects that time flies by so this was a great opportunity to chat and get to know people that little bit better.

Teresa: The community definitely does grow and blossom into friendships, doesn't it? It's amazing how you meet people and you have no idea about their lives, and it sort of grows when you see different sides of people.

Pauline: Yes, it grows into friendship.

Teresa: You go through life thinking you've got not very much in common when you look at people, and then being part of the Shed and the community as a whole, you realise that you've got a lot more in common than you ever believed. So it's really a wonderful place.

From left to right: Dwayne and Jess

What has the 2B Or Not 2B Collective been up to since we last met?

Jess: Since that photoshoot, we've been growing the community. We’re a POC-run live drawing group, particularly focussed on uplifting underrepresented body types in the art world. And we’ve been expanding the number of locations, and doing different types of sessions. We've been working with places like the National Gallery, the Royal Academy, Kew Gardens. And we’ve really been expanding the roster of models and tutors.

Jess: For me, the community is such an important part of my life. Not only did it really pull me through the pandemic, which was a really, really dark time, but I think since coming out, it's a very important aspect of feeling like I'm rooted to something.

Dwayne: I think in a city like London, it's very easy to feel quite isolated, and coming from a smaller country as well, community was quite automatic. But I find here, you really have to look for it.

Jess: And being part of a community means having people that are there for you and having that responsibility to be there for them as well. So it's a very give-take. It's very gelling.

Dwayne: It makes you feel like being a part of something bigger than yourself.

Jess: Something that anchors you. That you can go back to, whether in times of happiness or in sadness, in strength or in need. It’s something that will hold you together and bring you forward. And it's really important that we all use community to lift each other up, because you're stronger together than separate.

To find out more about all the community groups in our photoshoot, have a read of our previous episodes of Life, Stuff, Style. Over a mulled wine and mince pie. (Preferably.)