Highlights: #SummerOfLove Craft Night featuring Craftivist Collective and Mind

Summer wouldn't be summer without a festival so we invited Londoners to join us for a special Summer of Love festival themed craft night featuring mindful stitching with the Craftivist Collective, flower power crowns and some seriously groovy recycled earrings. Thanks to everyone who came; it was our busiest night of 2017 so far! 

Here's a look at what we got up to...

Introducing the new Craftivists kit...

Craftivist Collective were our special guests for the night. They launched their new craftivism kit, supporting charity Mind. The kit has been created for you to stitch a message to your MP reminding them that they need to keep fighting for mental health support and provisions to be on a par with other health investments. The kits officially launch on September 4th and will cost £12. £7.20 from each kit goes to fund Mind and the vital services they provide, inside is everything you need, so purchase one then and become a crafting change-maker! 

Mindful making: Flower Power

Guest tutor for the evening, Bryony Acketts from Blooming Barnets dazzled us with her giant paper flowers...one of which is bigger than her cat! Crafty lasses flocked to her workshop to make festive floral crowns, here's some of the fabulous creations made on the night. 

Recycle and Wear

Mia held a session recycling magazines into jewellery. Everyone loved this project as it was so quick and simple, so gave a sense of craft satisfaction, which is what we like at The Make Escape. The hardest part was deciding which pictures to cut out; we were particularly impressed by the Trainspotting earrings!

Knit & Knatter

Madeline was on hand in our yarn corner, helping to develop your knitting and crochet projects. As ever we had a host of colourful yarns and wool available, and some newbie knitters trying their hand at yarn crafts for the first time.

Sarah Corbett, Founder of Craftivist Collective and volunteers with the Mind team

The lovely ladies from Mind were with us throughout the evening, encouraging you to hold your own #Crafternoon where you can craft with friends, family or colleagues while raising money for Mind. Find more about Crafternoon here.

A big thanks as always to The Spinning Yarns, our Resident DJs who provided the groovy soundtrack. 

Momtaz with Make Escape first-timer Natasha who travelled all the way from Kent to come to our night

Don't forget to follow us on social media, we are @TheMakeEscape on Twitter and Instagram.

If you took photos of your wonderful makes share them on social media, tag us and use the hashtags #TheMakeEscape and #SummerOfLove

Our next FREE craft night at The Hackney Attic will be on Monday 30th October, a fright night special and the best Halloween craft night you'll find in London.  

From 7:30pm as always, see you then!

Highlights: Summer Of Love Festival Craft Night

Last month as the cool folk were gearing up for Glastonbury, we packed our own tent and set up camp at Hackney Attic's Middle Floor bar for our own summer festivities.

But what fun is a festival without the crafts? Thankfully we had oddles of activities to keep our festival goers amused. First up we were joined once again by local jewellery designer Sheridan Laine who brought along a box of beautiful beads...

These were transformed into a whole array of bangles, bracelets and charms.

At The Make Escape we pride ourselves on being the friendliest craft night in the whole of London - and the most inclusive. Indeed we welcomed our youngest ever visiter...Mia who we couldn't drag away from Collage Corner!

Elsewhere we welcomed a generation at the other end of the scale. This girl brought her dad along. But what did they get up to?

The wonderful textile designer and teacher Purple Claire set up a weaving stage showing us eco crafting at its most fabulous. 

Hurrah! We even managed to get some boys involved. 

Claire showed crafters who to weave on card...

And how to create masterpieces on paper plates. Can you believe this is actually a paper plate?? We can't!

For those who didn't want to craft on their own loom, Claire also set up a group weave on the wall.

Everyone was asked to weave in their one designs using scrap yarns...

...and gorgeous ribbon and fabric ends.

Check out these amazing results!

Wow!

And here's how they got on. Now they have matching coasters, we wonder which one of them will be putting the kettle on first?

Hang on a tick, who's this? It's a boy knitter, creating a present for his girlfriend. (aka our perfect man.)

Don't forget everyone is welcome to bring their knitting and other crafts projects along...and if you don't know how to knit, our in-house guru Madelaine will show you how.

Music is a major part of any festival and always one of the fave parts of our nights. Our DJs The Spinning Yarns transported us to the 1960s with a soulful, loved up, hippy, dippy soundtrack.

AND we had an AMAZING LIVE SET by The Something Sisters. Clarissa and Claire used to sing together three years ago when they lived in Belgium and this was their first gig since then. You wouldn't think so, there was absolutely no evidence of any rust. They were incredible.
Don't worry if you missed the set. It was recorded and you can watch and listen back to the tracks here. 

For those who caught the music bug after hearing Claire and Clarissa sing we invited them to make their own musical instruments. 

Surely that was it? NO! We also set up a stall where you could make your own festive headbands. 

There's bows, and there's this creation. Amazing or what?!

Phew! What a night. And to think our Becky (in the middle) was off to the real Glastonbury in the morning.

See you on July 30th - in a very exciting development we are having our first ever collaboration. We're hooking up with Once Upon A Console for a night of retro gaming AND crafting. You can play games and make stuff. Is this going to be the coolest free night ever or what???!

Make Invaders, Tuesday 30th July, The Hackney Attic, 270 Mare Street, London. 

7.30pm-11pm.