The lovely Lisa organised the first ever Freecycle / Natural Earth festival recently. It was held at the Art and Photography Centre at Rivington on Sunday 24 June and was a great success. This photo shows Jackie from Bolton Knitting Noras and others having a go at making woven rugs from fabric under Lisa's supervision.
I decided to organise a stall to promote recycling and also publicise my local knitting group, Bolton Knitting Noras.
The plan was to knit with strips made from plastic carrier bags and so show visitors the possibilities of using recycled materials to make something new and unique.
As I am an exceedingly bossy and busy person, I also had a Bookcrossing stall set up next to my knitting stall - both attracted a lot of interest during the day.
Up until the last minute I wasn't sure if I was going to make it so I was rather unprepared; however, in the days before I made some plastic bag samples, some small knitted flowers and created a small bag from 6 cut up Morrisons carrier bags.
I was going to sell the flowers but ended up giving them away to young visitors.
My lovely friends Anthony and Jen turned up to help me run both the stalls - Anthony did sterling work talking to people about bookcrossing while I knitted with plastic bags. I met a young "eco-warrior" from Wigan - he tidies his school and picks up litter, and his dad, a councillor is going to invite me to knit with recycled materials at Wigan schools with the kiddies.
I also sold some Knitty badges and made the grand total of £8 which helped pay for the band's lunch.
They were called S R Gents and were wondrous to behold; I loved the slouchy hats - Tom Waits is one of their friends on Myspace apparently and I ain't surprised as he's been wearing a selection of fine hats for years so I reckon he knows what he's talking about.
Lusting after the band aside (who, me?), I had a great time promoting knitting and chatting to people about recycling. Anthony took a picture of me and "my wares" I think the stall looks lovely though I say it myself, wish I was as equally photogenic (shame about the chins) 
Vicky from Bolton Knitting Noras has devoted a page of her wonderful blog to the event, which is rather more professional than this sad attempt:
There is a great picture of me and Jen in action with our needles.
I really enjoyed the event (particularly the performance by the gorgeous band S R Gents and their equally lovely hats) and will definitely do it again.
Lisa has vowed never to organise another one though; go on, Lisa, you know you want to.
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