Elle Revel’s Mexican Wrestler Mask Tutorial!!

Hi it’s Elle Revel again! I hope you’re all wearing your nipple covers from February’s tutorial?! Last month, between making my costume and performing my Booby Job performance at both Lord Muck’s Nasty Grind, at The Grosvenor Stockwell and Punkvert’s Subterfuge at The Inn on the Green Ladbroke Grove, I’ve taken the time to make a Mexican wrestling mask, want to see how I did it?

If you’re up for the challenge you will need:

♥ Approx ¾ a metre of fancy, shiny fabric
♥ Contrasting fabric for decoration
♥ Backing fabric
♥ Padding
♥ Approx 15cm of Velcro
♥ Ruler
♥ Paper for a pattern
♥ Tape measure
♥ Pins
♥ Scissors
♥ Sewing machine
♥ Co-ordinating thread
♥ A tight fitting hoody of your size
♥ A glamorous assistant (optional)

1) Using the tape measure take some measurements from your forehead to the back of your head. Then measure from left to right at the top of your head. Measure the circumference of your head around your eyes. Measure the top of your head down to your chin.

2) Taking the first measurements from the top of your head make a pattern.
Lay your backing fabric, then a layer of padding and next your chosen fabric on top now pin your paper pattern to the top of these three.

3) Divide the measurement from around your head in two, mine was 22 so I use 11 inches as my measurement, using this measurement and the measurement from the top of your head to below your chin, mark these out on a piece of paper. To create the shape of your mask place your hoody on top of the paper and draw around. Fold the hoody over to get the shape for the front section. Again sandwich the padding between the backing and top fabrics, pin paper pattern on top. You will need to cut two pieces from this pattern.

4) Cut around each pattern, remembering to leave a seam allowance. Remove the paper patterns then sew around the edges of each piece to secure all the fabrics together.

5) Measure from your cheek to above your eyebrow, then diagonally from the inside of your nose to the corner of your forehead. Take these measurements and use them to create an eye decoration pattern with the paper. I then measured across my forehead from between my eyebrows to the back of my head stopping after my ear and repeated the pattern process as before to create another decoration. You could add whatever decoration you like; beards, eyebrows and crucifixes seem to be typical on wrestling masks.

When cutting these decorations remember to cut two pieces from each pattern for each side of your mask, and also that they should be mirror images of each other.

6) Pin the sides of your mask to the top section, put it over your head then mark out your eyes, nose and mouth as best you can, this is where your glamorous assistant could come in handy!

7) Unpin the sides from the top section and pin your eye, nose, mouth and any other decorations to the side sections. I use a zigzag stitch, as I believe it’s the strongest and is the most flexible.

8) Once you have sewn the decorative eye, nose and mouthpieces on to both sides of your mask’s side sections carefully cut out the middle parts of each.

9) Turn your two side sections so the undersides are facing up then pin them together from the bottom to just above the eye decorations, securing the two side sections together.
You can now sew up the front of your mask.

10) Turn your mask right side out, try it on, now turn it inside out again and pin the top piece of your mask in between your two side sections. Turn it right side out again; try it on to check it fits. You can now sew the top section between the two side sections that are already joined. Turn the mask inside out again and trim off excess fabric and padding where necessary from around the top section.

11) Continue to modify your mask so it is tailor made to your head. You may need to trim the eye, nose and mouth decorations so the mask is a better fit.

12) Now its time to attach your Velcro to the back of your mask. Sew the ‘sticky’ side to the underside of the back seam of your mask on the left hand side; I used a small straight stitch to fit along the small edge Velcro has to enable it to be sewn on.
I then sewed the ‘fluffy’ side to the top of the right hand side (the patterned side) of the back seam of my mask, creating a fold over flap at the back of the mask.

13) Give your mask a good once over, checking that there aren’t any loose seams or padding hanging out that you may have overlooked.
And you should be good to go, happy wrestling!
Be careful when putting on your mask and removing it, that you don’t catch your hair in the velcro. This shouldn’t happen if you carefully hold the flaps back.

My next performance will be at Lord Muck’s Nasty Grind on Saturday 30th April at The Grosvenor, Sidney Rd. Stockwell, bring your confetti!! And I’ll be expecting a wrestling-mask-adorned audience, shaking their nipple covers at me naturally, until next time xxx

UnLtd Good Ideas

On 26th January 2011 Kristina and I went to an UnLtd Award Winners day (I know that’s ages ago – we’ve been busy!!). During the day UnLtd advisors talked about what UnLtd can do for us, introducing us to UnLtd Connect and their legal clinics (which Makerhood has since benefited from), helping us to develop an elevator pitch and giving us all manner of other useful tips and advice. However, the best part of the day was meeting all of the other award winners and hearing about the projects they are setting up. I thought you might like to hear a little bit about about them and the wide, wide range of social enterprises that UnLtd support (thank you UnLtd!).

Serious About Youth
Paul Matthews was an UnLtd award winner back in 2009 for the project ‘Serious About Youth’ which he set up with his lifelong friend Rommell Wallace in 2008. Paul came back to the Awards Day to tell us about the highpoints and challenges of life-after-awards. Serious About Youth are an organisation based in London offering workshops on topics such as effective communication, attitude and creative thinking. The workshops aim to inspire, guide and support young people to gain the life and social skills needed to live fulfilling lives and progress successfully in the ‘real world’. The workshops draw on Rommell’s work as a poet to create fun, interactive environments for learning. Serious About Youth are an UnLtd success story, gathering great reviews from teachers and students so it was a little sobering to hear Paul talk about the continuing difficulties of balancing full-time work alongside running a social enterprise which doesn’t earn enough to pay any wages (yet). It seems like having an understanding boss is key here! See say-youth.org

Stepping Up UK
Angela Nairne is a 2010 UnLtd Award winner for Stepping Up UK which supports young care-leavers age 15 – 25 with projects that focus on wellbeing and life-skills such as budgeting, voting, environment, D.I.Y and nutrition. Based in Southwark, London, Stepping Up Uk also has an on site employment, education and training advice service in partnership with Peabody. See http://steppingupuk.org.uk/

Bob Lectures
The Best of Bristol Lectures website brings you talks by a range of the very best lecturers that Bristol University has to offer. Is it possible to resist talks with titles like “Quantum chemistry, or why we don’t fall through the floor” and “Secrets of Social Success: Ants and Us”? (Answer, not if you’re a geek like me!) The site was founded by Tom Corfield and his UnLtd award will help him extend Bob Lectures to other universities. See www.boblectures.org.uk

Food From The Sky
The brilliantly simple concept behind Food From The Sky is community gardens on the roof of supermarkets growing food to sell in the supermarket below while providing a learning and educational space for the different part of the communities. In one simple idea the project addresses sustainability in food production, urban gardening and learning about food growing. Food From the Sky initiator Azul-Valerie Thome set up the first garden on the roof of Budgen’s supermarket in Crouch End, London, last year. And they are already selling vegetables, fruits, mushrooms and herbs grown to organic standard in the shop every Fridays. The mushrooms are grown inside the lift shaft apparently.. Check out http://foodfromthesky.org.uk

The Hackney Pirates
The Hackney Pirates (great name hey?) are a group of teachers and social entrepreneurs working to develop core literacy skills and creative ability in young people. Led by Catriona Maclay the Hackney Pirates (not surprisingly, based in Dalston, Hackney) aim to achieve this by giving young people one to one attention in an unconventional learning environment. Supported and hosted by Bootstrap Company, a social enterprise that has been running for 28 years, the Hackney Pirates use the diverse skills of local volunteers to provide alternative and inspiring role models and help young people develop the skills they need to achieve. Last summer Hackney Pirates ran 4 week-long creative workshops with a different creative product being produced each week. This model is now being trialled in a term-time context. See more at www.hackneypirates.org

Great projects hey? And the best thing is that the people behind them are lovely!

Not only that, but these were only the people who I spoke to, there were 25 more people there who I imagine had equally fantastic ideas for supporting their communities. In all, it was great to be in such good company, and we’re very happy that UnLtd chose us to be part of their community of award winners.

Making meets the web: the idea behind Makerhood

At this Wednesday’s Green Drinks, organised by Transition Town Brixton, Duncan Law and I got into a long conversation about community trading schemes. It was fascinating to find that we shared so many values and metaphors. It also made me realise that a longer post on the goals behind Makerhood is well overdue (if you’ve spent any time with us you’re likely to be very familiar with this!).

Karen wrote earlier about how the project came together last year. Many lovely, passionate and talented friends have since come on board to help. We are a diverse bunch – what unites us, I think, is the belief that buying things made locally can go a long way towards solving some of the biggest economic and social problems we face today.

We also share a paradoxical discovery: that the “new”, intangible, global medium of the web can help support “old” local cultures that deal in physical relationships and tangible things. Hyperlocal sites have demonstrated this time and time again (see a great map by OpenlyLocal here). Brixton’s very own Urban 75 – probably the oldest local web community in Britain – is a great example. If this works for our social habits, then why not also for our shopping habits?

The metaphor we often use when thinking about it is one of Traditional Village: a community where people rely on each other for their livelihoods. Where acquiring things is a meaningful social experience, not a purely economic transaction. Where our skills contribute to the community, and we derive a sense of identity and satisfaction from this. Where objects have a past and a future (as in, you know how they were made, and what happened to them once they were sold) – where stories of things are part of a broader web of local relationships. This is very different from how we often buy and sell today.

At Makerhood we are building a website to help people in Brixton, Herne Hill, Camberwell and Stockwell to buy things made in these areas. When designing it, we’ve been thinking of a Village Market – the ones you used to have on the main square. Local makers will have their own Stalls where people can shop, chat, and share stories. This is work in progress, so any ideas for features are very welcome!

We would love it if, once launched in a couple of months, the site brought benefits to people who live in our communities:

For customers, a fun and meaningful experience whereby they get unique local things

For makers, an easy way to sell online locally without having to set up a shop while benefiting from a greater pool of customers

For new entrepreneurs, a way to try out a new skill or set up a new business in a low risk environment.

For everyone, a great way to meet people locally, and to enjoy making things – one of the most fun and creative activities there are!

If this takes off, there could be great benefits:

economic, as our communities become moreresilient in the face of global recession
environmental, because no long-haul delivery is involved – we are hoping most will be by foot, bike or environmentally-friendly transport like Brixton’s forthcoming low carbon delivery scheme
digital inclusion, as those currently not doing e-commerce could benefit from local support networks to help them get online. This could be particularly relevant for older people, many of whom have traditional crafts skills.

If the idea proves to work in South London it could be taken up elsewhere. In the long term it could help change our consumption habits all together. This may seem a long way away, but if you have a plan, it might just happen 🙂

In working towards these goals, it’s been wonderful to be part of a long-standing community movement in Brixton. We are learning a lot from projects such as Remade in Brixton, the TTB Food and Growing Group, London Creative Labs, The Brixton Pound, and Spacemakers, among many others. It is also fantastic to see new initiatives springing up in South London, like the SW Crafts Club and the Crafty Fox market, doing great work promoting skill-sharing and handmade goods.

It is going to be a busy few months for us as we are starting to build and test the website. Next week we’ll talk about volunteering opportunities if you’d like to help. Meanwhile, keep in touch! We’re always happy to get feedback, suggestions and questions.

Images by Emily Wilkinson and Lostwithoutwords – thank you!

Watch out, watch out, Crafty Fox is about!

I started the Crafty Fox Market because I was struggling to find South London venues in which to sell my handmade jewellery. I kept finding myself trudging from Brixton to North and East London on the weekends. I had a lightbulb moment while on the bus to a market in Stoke Newington and decided that with a I should start my own South London craft market. It’s been a really enjoyable experience and it’s great to be working with local groups such as Makerhood who share the same ideals.

I’m delighted to announce that The Crafty Fox Pop-Up Market is returning to Brixton this Easter on Saturday 16th April. The first ever Crafty Fox took place at the Dogstar on Brixton’s Coldharbour Lane last December. It was a fantastic day that saw over 1500 people through the doors to check out what the talented local makers had to offer.

Visitors also enjoyed crafty workshops and DJ’s throughout the day which created a unique shopping experience. If you missed it, you can see a taster below:

The next market will be happening on Saturday 16^th April (weekend before Easter) and this time it’s going to be even bigger and better than before. Along with the usual tempting array of market stalls, there will be a café, a letter lounge, a range of workshops and some special events from our friends at Etsy.com. The über talented Jimbobart is currently working on an Easter Crafty Fox illustration so keep you eye on the blog to get the first look at his latest work.

If you are interested at having a stall at the market, please email craftyfoxmarket@gmail.com for all the information.

So don’t forget to mark the 16^th April in your diary with a paw-print. As usual, entry is free so bring your friends for a fun day out in Brixton.

Step by Step Nipple Cover/Pasties Tutorial! by Elle Revel

Hey fellow Makers, let me introduce myself – I’m Elle Revel aka Miss Snelgrove, I’m a performer and prolific maker. You can catch my shows at Lord Muck’s Nasty Grind at The Grosvenor, Sidney Rd. Stockwell (see www.nastygrind.com for the next show) or Punkvert’s Subterfuge at The Inn on The Green, 3-5 Thorpe Rd, Portabello (next show 19th March).

For this post I’m keen to show you how easily you can make your own nipple covers. I chose a panda motif but you can use any shape you want-think outside the box!

You will need:

a sewing machine (not entirely necessary but it finishes the covers off nicely)
some fabric of medium thickness: preferably eye catching, bright or shiny, for my design I’m using two sorts of fabric
thicker backing fabric
co-ordinating thread
a gluegun
two small clamps/paperclips/pegs
silver foil
scissors
a craft knife
a ruler
a compass
pencil/pen
tailors chalk/white pencil
PVA glue
pins
Hairdryer (optional)

To begin chose a design. You could either draw your own or source the internet. Photocopy your selection (you never know when you might need the original) this will also enable you to reduce or enlarge your design, you are aiming for a size that covers your nipples. Then cut it out.

Take your image and fold it in two horizontally. Using the compass and ruler measure a gap of 1.5cm straight down the line. You’ll now need to adjust your image accordingly to accomodate the gap . You now have a template.

I am using three different fabrics; a silver, a black and a backing fabric. For this stage you will need two squares of each fabric, a total of six so layer up all thedesired fabric and place your template on top in the centre, pin if necessary to stop the layers moving. Using the scissors cut out a square, you now have six squares.

Next take the backing fabric squares and the next layer (mine is the black fabric) and using PVA glue stick the black on top of the backing fabric. Use the silverfoil as a base for this as it won’t stick to the fabric. Fold the foil around the fabric and smooth the pieces together using the ruler. You’ll need to uncover this foil‘package’ and wipe away any excess glue, fold it up again and leave on a high shelf to dry, these took a day and a half to dry! If you are in a hurry you could speed things up by using a hairdryer.

Once this section is completely dry place your template on top, and using the tailors chalk or white pencil mark around it. Then using the scissors cut around leaving a small seam allowance edge (a small gap all around the marking, just in case!).

For the next layer I adjusted my template by cutting off sections. For the smaller cutting use the craft knife.

I then placed the template onto my next layer, the silver fabric squares. Pin the template down to stop it moving, cut out the two pieces again using a small seam allowance.

Using the same technique as before stick this layer on top of the last, then leave to dry.

Trim off any overhanging fabric from around the edges.

Now set your sewing machine to a medium zigzag stitch and outline the covers, securing all the edges with coordinating threads.

For my covers I had some details that I added, eyes and mouths, for this I set my sewing machine to a straight fine stitch.

Now stick the two sides of the covers together using the gluegun so that they are conical, secure with the clamps/paper clips/pegs.

Leave to dry then Voila! Custom-made-unique-simply-fabulous nipple covers! Hoorah! Now all you need is some tit tape…

And now for an action photo-The Legendary AcidPanda of Anarchistwood modelling said Panda nipple covers, image courtesy of Bonnie Baker!! Big thank you girls xx

Tie-dye your way into a fun day and a whole new wardrobe

This week we are delighted to welcome our first guest blogger! Maya, a long time Brixtonite and a creative soul, shares her wonderful tips on tie-dyeing. We loved reading it, and will be making guest blogging a regular feature. If you’d like to share your own making or recycling adventures, whether as a hobbyist or professional, give us a shout!

Everyone likes to have fun. But what does fun mean?

Laughter? Excitement? Music? Colour? Creativity? Getting new things?

Have all of these and recycle a lot of horrible grotty old rags into vibrant, unique, desirable clothing by getting a few friends together for an afternoon of tie-dyeing.

The great thing about tie-dyeing is that it’s wonderfully easy – anyone who can loop anelastic band round a piece of fabric can join in, and the results are quite difficult to predict, so there’s a great sense of excitement when you pull your items from the dye. Best of all, as long as you don’t mind looking like a surfer, it gives a whole new life to clothes that were otherwise heading for the dump.

It appeals to all sorts of people– we spent a day doing it last Sunday, and our little group included friends and family from 7 years old to retired!

So here is my recipe for tie-dyeing fun 🙂

Ingredients:

a few enthusiastic participants
clean, dry, white or pastel-coloured cotton clothes (linen or viscose are also ok)
dye colours (Dylon do both hand-wash and machine-wash colours)
a pair of rubber gloves
kitchen scales
a couple of kilos of salt
a washing machine or a couple of buckets
elastic bands
small pebbles, plastic beads or coins
music
food and drink

Put on some upbeat music.

Explain to your participants that the dye will not adhere to parts of their garments which are tightly tied or knotted. Weigh the garments while they are dry, as you must be careful to match the weight of fabric to the appropriate quantity of dye if you want a good colour (E.g. about 600g-1kg of dry fabric to one pack of machine-wash dye).

Tie or knot the garments in the areas which you want to stay the base colour (e.g. if you have a white t-shirt, the bits you tie/knot now will stay white). If you want to change the whole colour, don’t tie anything. Note that usual colour-mixing rules apply – if you start with a pale blue t-shirt and dye it yellow, you’ll get a green t-shirt.

To get circles, tie your elastic band around a small pebble, bead or coin.

To get narrow stripes, tie the elastic band around the whole body, arm or leg of the garment.

To get broad, streaky, interesting stripes, tie knots in the garment.

To get a really random effect, bundle up the garment before you tie it.

To shield large areas from the dye, you can also use plastic bags tightly tied on with an elastic band.

Celebrate randomness! If you aim for symmetry you are likely to get frustrated, so for your first attempts focus on having fun with your tying and enjoy the surprise pleasures that result.

Put the dye and an appropriate quantity of salt (usually 500g per pack) into the machine and put it on a 40° wash. (Or mix dy & salt with water in a bucket, following instructions on the pack, if handwashing).

Feed and water your participants while the wash runs.

When the wash has finished, immediately run another wash to rinse out excess dye and clean the machine.

Clear away all the food and any grease. Hoik the clothes out of the machine and feverishly untie all your knots and bands to see your results!

If you want more than one colour, you must dry out the garment completely between colours, and you may not want to undo all the knots and bands – leave them in where you want to preserve the underlying colour. Then tie new knots and bands where you want the newly dyed colour to be preserved, and dye in the next colour. If you are dyeing items more than one colour, allow lots of time as you need time for tying, dyeing (2 washes – dye wash, rinse wash) and drying for each colour.

Note that it is best to build up the colour from light to dark as the dark colour will dominate over light. E.g. if you are using light green and dark blue on a white t-shirt, your first round of tying will result in white marks, your second round of tying will result in light green marks, and the final shade of blue will be blue where it covers white, but more sea-green in the places where it overdyes the green.

Finally, put on your new garments and wear them with pride – they’re unique.

What we’ve been up to in 2011… That’s right :)

It’s been a busy start to the year here at Makerhood, so we thought to update you on what’s been going on.

Building on all the great input and feedback we got last year, our lovely developer Andy Broomfield is about to start putting together the first bits of the Makerhood pilot site. We always wanted it to be open source, but there was some debate as to whether we should use Drupal, Ruby on Rails or another platform. Drupal won in the end as we felt it was best suited for building a simple user-friendly interface for the pilot. Andy will be using blocks made by other developers (the beauty of open source!) as well as write custom software for features that are unique to Makerhood.

We have also been working on the legal aspects of the site. Granted, it might not be the most exciting bit. But it is really very important as it defines relationships between users, and also the things one can do on the site, like buying and selling, creating groups and taking part in discussions. We are drafting the User Agreement ourselves (thank internet gods for its collective goodness!) and have had the benefit of some excellent pro-bono advice.

This exercise reminded me of my work at the London School of Economics in 2004 on Digital Business Ecosystems. It was experiment to help small businesses start doing e-commerce – we found that legal issues were a huge barrier for many. Speaking of which, we do not have a legal expert on the team yet, so if you are one and would like to get involved, please let us know.

But, really, isn’t what matters most *what the site will look like* ? 🙂 On that front we are so very lucky to have two wonderful Brixton-based artists making sure that makerhood.com is as pretty as possible. Carolina Valleijo, a wonderful interaction designer, writer and globe-trotter with wealth of digital experience is looking after site design. And the fantastic Emily Wilkinson, an illustrator and graphic facilitator (among many other things) is coming up with great ideas for our logo. We can’t wait to pick one!

We will be writing more about all of this in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, get in touch if you have questions or tips for us – all will be gratefully received

Our beautiful banner image by Alice Angus

The Makerhood blog banner comes from this drawing of Brixton Village by Alice

You might have noticed the banner on the Makerhood blog. The illustration that always sits at the top of the page whether you’re reading about improvised pantomime or pork pies. Beautiful isn’t it? The use of that illustration was a gift to us by its maker, Alice Angus. Alice isn’t a south London girl so perhaps it’s a bit cheeky to use it on the Makerhood blog, but as it’s a drawing of Brixton market I figured you wouldn’t mind..

The set of 6 drawings Alice made in Brixton Market

Alice is one of the directors of Proboscis and an illustrator. Last year, Dan Thompson of the Empty Shops Network invited her to spend a week in Brixton Village making sketches and drawings of what she saw there. For the Makerhood blog we’ve used a part of the drawing at the top of this post. It’s a little hard to tell from the section we’ve used but Alice builds up her drawings layering scraps of different papers, black and white ink sketches and colour. I think they’re beautiful.

Detail from one of the Brixton Village / Granville Arcade drawings

I used to work with Proboscis and I’ve known Alice a long time now. When Kristina and I were talking about setting up the blog we couldn’t think of a better image to represent Makerhood than one of Alice’s drawings of Brixton market (this was before we met any Brixton-based illustrators). I was quite shy to approach Alice about using one of the drawings as we couldn’t afford to buy it or pay for it so I was thrilled when she said we could use one anyway. This spirit of generosity and willingness to share with others is something we’ve met again and again as we’ve worked to set up Makerhood. I hope one day Makerhood will have a chance to pass on some of the good will we’ve received to others.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Alice’s drawings (and you really should!) you can take a look at her Flickr account or email her on alice(at)proboscis.org.uk to find out about exhibitions, sales and so on.

Alice also has a blog for her ‘As it Comes’ project exploring the role of independent shops and Lancaster in Lancaster, see it at http://lancasterasitcomes.wordpress.com/

Christmas traditions come home

Every year, on Christmas Eve, my family has pork pie for dinner. The tradition has been passed down from my mum’s family where they had pork pie for dinner on Christmas Eve because my gran would be too busy plucking and preparing the turkey to cook. (Yeah, yeah, grandpa could have been doing the cooking – let’s just say times were different!) I’ve never met anyone else who eats pork pie on Christmas Eve though mum was recently told it’s a Midlands tradition which makes sense as her family is from around Birmingham. Anyway, this tradition means I’ve eaten many pork pies in my lifetime. Mostly these have come from supermarkets. Marks and Spencers and Waitrose both sell reasonable pork pies, however, in 2010, I bought the Christmas pork pie right here in Brixton.

In early December I found out that Ian, at Cornercopia in Brixton Village, was making pork pies to order in a variety of sizes. These pies were handmade from start to finish, pastry, meat filling and apple jelly. I went for the 10-person pie, judging the size from baking tins Ian showed me. It was the largest pork pie I’ve ever seen (yet not the largest I could have had..). I put in my order and on 23 December I went to pick up my pie. It looked magnificent. A pie worthy of Christmas Eve dinner (and Christmas Day supper and Boxing Day lunch as it turned out!). I carried the pie to my parent’s house near Cardiff. My mum cut the pie. The meat filling looked like, well, meat. “That looks different” everyone said, then “That’s good!” when they tasted it. The pork pie of 2010 has set a standard all other Christmas pork pies will have to live up to. I’m just hoping that Ian will be making them again next year..

But the fact that the pie tasted good is only one reason (albeit a pretty good one!) why the pie was so special. I loved contributing the pie to my family’s Christmas and more than that, I loved that it came from the place I live, and that I knew the person who made it. Telling my family the story behind the pie was as much a contribution to Christmas Eve dinner as the pie itself. And with this I understood even more clearly how Makerhood can work. Buying a pork pie from Waitrose fulfills the need to have a pie for Christmas Eve dinner. But I never felt like I was involved with the pie. Buying my pork pie from Cornercopia felt very different. I was contributing to the success of an independent business in my local area and contributing to my family dinner at the same time. I met the people who work at Cornercopia, they make great pies and I want them to be successful – not least so I can get my pork pie there again next year. In return, they provided me with the best pork pie I’ve ever eaten and a personal, friendly shopping experience that gave me insight into someone else’s life in Brixton. If Makerhood can make experiences like this happen I’ll be more than happy!

Happy New Year!!

I’m excited about 2011, developing the Makerhood site, meeting more makers around Brixton, Camberwell, Stockwell and Herne Hill and figuring out how to connect makers and buyers together in a way that benefits everyone. The turn of the new year always makes me look back as well as forward, reflecting on what took place in the previous 12 months and I thought that this might be a good time to share the story of Makerhood with you and tell you how Kristina and I came up with the idea. So, are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin..

Twelve months ago the idea of Makerhood didn’t exist. It was born one Sunday in May when Kristina and I were in a pub in Camden enjoying a long Sunday lunch to celebrate the visit of a friend of ours who had recently moved to New York. Kristina told me about an idea she’d had the day before for a website to help people find things made in their local area. The inspiration had come as she tried to find a particular item made locally and had not been able to. I was excited. Her idea was the online version of a proposal I had put forward when Spacemakers were offering shops at Brixton Village. I had proposed to run a shop where local makers of any kind could sell their produce whether they had one item or thirty to put on sale and whether they were professional or hobbyist. I’d never spoken to Kristina about it yet we had come up with very similar ideas. The coincidence was too good to ignore and we began to plan.

We started talking to people about it. We talked to makers at Brixton Village, Tunstall Road market, the Piano House and Lambeth Country Fair and asked – if we build this site would you be interested in using it? We were so excited when many people told us ‘Yes, we would use it. Please build it!’ We asked our friends to advise us and over the summer Kalam, Dougald, Carolina, Aoife, Amar, Hannah, Anand and Monica all joined us on Windrush Square as we sat on the grass and discussed possible names, user journeys and strategies. We could have been called ThisWeirdGirlMadeIt, MyNeighbourStitchedMeUp, MadeByMe or Doozy. Luckily Makerhood stuck and the domain was free. Yay!

We searched out people around Brixton who were already involved with makers and met people doing great projects such as Hannah with Re:Made in Brixton, Mitchell of MadeInBrixton, Ed of We-Fab, Fiona of Oh Sew Brixton and Zoe of SWCraftClub and talented individuals and makers such as Emily, Bua and Laura*. All of whom were incredibly generous with their time, knowledge and experience and willing to share these things with us. In August Kristina and I had enough details worked out to put in an application for UnLtd Level 1 funding and in late October we heard we’d been successful. That meant we could get a developer on board (the amazing Andy) and we began to think seriously about the site architecture, user experience, platform, user journeys and design. Right now we are completing these tasks and beginning to actually build the website.

It’s been an incredible seven months and difficult to remember a time before Makerhood. For me, it’s been very exciting to begin to make the website happen yet the most enriching part has been the people I’ve met. I feel more connected to my local area than ever before as I meet people who live and work here. I’m looking forward to more of that in 2011 and I’m hoping that when we launch the website it will play a part in the landscape of creative, inspiring projects that are happening right now in Brixton and surrounding areas. And, of course, we’ll keep you updated about all of that here on the blog. So here’s to 2011!

*And many more.. I’m sorry if I missed your name out here but be certain that I’m very happy to have met you!