: Oriel 1

Last saturday (25th) was St Dwynwen's Day! I hope you all had cards and treats... we had a family drop-in card making session here in St Fagans National History Museum and we also did a bit of sewing too.

We will be doing something pretty similar for Valentine's Day on 8th and 9th of February.

And the mocktail?

That was for reading group! We were discussing 'Rules of Civility' by Amor Towles which is set in 1930s New York and therefore we had suitably 30s type refreshments - Shirley Temples and kit kats all round! (the kit-kat was introduced in 1937). Our next reading group meet up will be on 22 February where we'll be discussing Alan Hollinghurst's 'The Stranger's Child'. It's a big book, so you'd better start now.

At the beginning of January we had a crochet session where myself and Anna Phillips attempted to turn everyone into crochet queens. Anna made up a great little easy pattern to crochet circles which could then be turned into a garland, or maybe a coaster if you stopped at just making one. We will be having another crochet meet up on March 15 so come along to that one, and because everyone seems keen I'll try and add more dates to the rest of the year.

I've been taking photographs of all the activities I've been a part of, but keep forgetting to update the blog with them. Therefore this is going to have to be a two-parter as I have so much stuff to update you all with.

Ok. Let's go:

Our summer art cart activities included the super successful Iron Age shield making workshop. Ian (the celtic guy) and I spent two days running the workshop and we were really lucky to have volunteers on hand too as with all the glue, paint and celtic pattern designing it was pretty crazy. As you can see from the pictures, the finished results were just beautiful. I love the one that looks like maybe Chagall had a hand in it.

Artist Tracey Williams made the most wonderful house out of cardboard with visitors over the summer, inspired by our buildings on site. It was a lovely community project which I stupidly don't have any photos of!

I spent the rest of august doing a variety of art and craft workshops - we did some sketching of nature in the bird hide, made dragonflies out of wooden pegs and did gorgeous drawings and collages of the lily pads in the Italian Gardens with a bit of inspiration from Monet. We also did some sewing and made felt flower badges which were really popular.

If you took part in any of these activities, do you have any photographs you could share? and what did you think of our locations this year? was it fun going to the Italian gardens (I know I enjoyed it) or was it too far away from the main entrance? let me know!

So part one of my epic sharing of photos with you looked at our summer art and craft activities. Part two is all about the food festival and a couple of craftivist sessions.

On a lovely sunny day up in the Italian gardens we had a picnic and took part in the Craftivist Collective project all about fashion. The project is all about how we love fashion and hate sweatshops, and as part of our event we talked about where we buy our clothes and what we can do to help the situation. It definitely made us all think more about ethical fashion and sustainability!

Another Craftivist project we've been a part of this year is the #imapiece jigsaw project. Earlier in the year we had a session where we made fabric jigsaw pieces embroidered with messages about global hunger and sent them to the craftivist collective to be a part of a huge installation. Just a couple of weeks ago we got a part of the installation back (300 pieces out of a whopping 700 or so) and exhibited it in St Fagans: National History Museum. We have also been adding to the installation ourselves, it will be up for a few days yet, so come and see it and let me know if you would like to add your own message.

For the food festival this year, myself and genius gardener Bernice made herbal teabags! Bernice picked and dried mint, lemon balm, fennel seeds and Elderflower from the gardens here in the museum and then we bought some teabags to fill and made little envelopes to put the teabags in for safe keeping, or as a sweet gift. We also made sure we had a pot of tea on the go all day and almost everyone liked our blend!

The last thing I wanted to tell you about is the Wedding Fayre that was held here a couple of weeks ago. You probably already know that you can get married here in St Fagans, either in the castle or in Oakdale. Well, now you can also have a hen afternoon tea party as well! as part of this tea party you can learn to dance, have hair and make-up done (vintage style), or get all crafy with me! The photos show what kind of things we could make... tissue pom-poms, name places, bunting... it will be lovely and I can't wait to take part!

That's all for today, but I do have some knit and sew group photos to share next time, and look out for half term halloween arts and crafts and quilt club on the 2nd and november. Happy Autumn!

Hello!

I've been pretty quiet blog-wise but not work wise! Oriel 1 is now shut so I've been taking my art and craft activities further afield, trying out different locations on the site in St Fagans: National History Museum and going to Hay festival, Tafwyl, as well as doing some outreach work with schools.

Our quilting club is still going and our next meeting will be on 20 July and will be all day! from 11 until 1 and 2 until 4 (though you are welcome to just come along for some of it). I have also started up a knit and sew group, it's just a chance to come along and meet new people and exchange ideas and the next one of those is on 28 September from 11 until 1.

To keep up to date with what we're up to quilt and craft wise, have a look at our facebook page

We've also taken part in a few Craftivism projects and hope to do more of those over the next few months too. Again, there's a facebook page for that, although we don't just meet in the museum and take part in lots of other events!

And the other newish thing that I've been involved with is the St Fagans book group (yep, there's a facebook page for that too) which meets every month (next meeting 20 july) to discuss novels that have links with the site or have links with Wales. We also invite speakers to come and give us some context for the books too - so, for instance, when we read 'The Rebecca Rioter' by Amy Dillwyn, Sioned Hughes (curator: Politics, Trade and Religion) talked to us about the Tollhouse in St Fagans, when we 'read' (I'm yet to finish it) 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' by Hemingway, Heulwen Thomas talked to us about the Welsh links with the Spanish Civil War, and last meeting when we disussed 'The Hill of Dreams' by Arhtur Machen, writer and Machenite Catherine Fisher talked to us about Machen's life and times. The current book we are reading is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and we'll then be joined by Dr Madeleine Gray who'll be giving her historical take on the novel whilst we visit the church.

If you are interested in getting involved with any of these things please let me know! my email address is sian.lile@museumwales.ac.uk and I'd love to hear from you.

I have to get back to my crochet bunting now!