*Warning! Contains gratuitous Archers segue*
After work I went to Trafalgar Square to see Marian Cinnamond on the Plinth. Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth project has been running for a week but is set to run for 100 days (until October time) and will feature 2,500 people over this time period. Tonight seemed to be knitting night because although plinthers had been randomly chosen, two knitters were featuring and Iknit had organised a knit around the Plinth.
I have to confess that I am slightly obsessed with the idea of the Plinth - I love the social aspect to it and I have found myself quite frequently wondering who is on it at various moments. I'm loving the range of the different things people are choosing to do, like raise awareness of a particular organisation, cooking food or having a tea break. I'm very jealous that one of my co-workers has a space on the Plinth although he is having no truck with my attempts of trying to teach him to knit. There is still time to knit a flower for Anne Makepeace going up on the Plinth on Sunday 26th July so I might just have to be content my doing that!
(And as I can't keep The Archers out of any discussion of the Plinth, I did think that although the contest for the Ambridge Plinth did start off in an inspired fashion with Jill Archer baking bread at height, the culmination on Sunday of Gormley opening the fete and Joe Grundy as the Angel of Ambridge was a tad disappointing I feel).
Anyway, we trundled along and knitted and got some slightly strange looks but had a lovely time nevertheless. Marian knitted with aplomb and also drank tea out of cup & saucer which was fab. Hurrah for knitters!
Liz and Felix were there with Brenda Dayne. It was very nice to meet Brenda (despite not being an avid Cast On fan) and we somehow got on to a discussion about strawbale building. I have a secret desire to build a strawbale house and Brenda shares my enthusiasm. As she is currently living in Wales and being active in searching for land I suspect she might be in a better position to make it a reality some time soon but nevertheless it was a lovely discussion.
For strawbale inspiration, for people interested:
- North Kesteven District Council in Lincolnshire is the first local authority in the UK to use straw bales to construct social housing which I think is very exciting.
- Ben Law's amazing and beeeeutiful woodland house in Grand Designs can be seen here. (It always makes me cry this episode)
(Liz and Brenda working it for the camera!)
We also had a discussion on knitting community and my militant public knitter views were exposed. (If it is possible to be such a thing) I have always felt strongly that knitting has a social role and I have always loved the way that with knitting, discussions across a wide range of topics (from personal, political & technical questions) intersect with projects and conversations almost seen knitted into the fabric of the knitting. I did get quite indignant when a local cafe owner argued that the knitting group would be better suited to a community centre rather than a busy, public cafe. For me, I love the reclamation of knitting from a largely private, domestic sphere and drafty community halls where it is too easy to ignore,to be a more visible social activity and it was nice to be able to celebrate this on a sunny evening in Trafalgar Square.
Thankyou for your blog. I've been trawling through some knitting ones looking for people who blog life as well as knitting. I do love the "plinth" thing as an art form. It has enhanced the opportunity for knitting to have attitude as well as other benefits. My blog hasn't much knitting on it at the moment but there will be some to come.
Cheers Gillian
Posted by: Gillian Fergusson | 07/26/2009 at 08:23 PM