Exercises for the articles and videos - October issue

YARNBOMBING

Complete the words in the glossary with words or phrases in the article:

    1.        people who make a piece of clothing that has a pattern of holes, using wool 

    or cotton thread and a large needle with a hook on the end (noun):

    2.       making you feel happier or more hopeful (adj.):

    3.       put something made of cloth over or around something (verb):

    4.       react after a slight pause, bacause you are surprised by what you have just seen 

    or heard (Verb phrase): 

    5.       people making something such as a piece of clothing using wool and sticks in an

    unexpected way (adj+noun):

    6.       something that is used as a pattern (noun):

    7.       be sensible and brave enough to do something (verb phrase):

    8.       end of a piece of work seems likely to happen soon (verb phrase):

    9.       deliberately damage something valuable by writing on it or breaking it (verb):

   10.   change something or do something important so that people notice and remember

    it (verb phrase):

   11.   slightly strange or old-fashioned (adj.):

   12.   decorated with something bright and colourful (past participle):

   13.   laugh quietly especially in a private and secret way (verb):

   14.   get rid of something that you no longer want or need ( verb):

   15.   connection with an organization, especially a political or religious one ( noun):

WORKING HOLIDAYS – VIDEO

What kind of working holidays are mentioned in the video? Name minimum five out 

of the mentioned ones!

     1.       ……………………………………………………….

     2.       ……………………………………………………….

     3.       ……………………………………………………….

     4.       ……………………………………………………….

     5.       ……………………………………………………….

How can people benefit from working holidays both in the short and long term?

     1.       ……………………………………………………………………………………..

     2.       ……………………………………………………………………………………..

     3.       ……………………………………………………………………………………..

     4.       ……………………………………………………………………………………..

     5.       ……………………………………………………………………………………..

     6.       ……………………………………………………………………………………..

Working holidays –article: Explain the following phrases  taken from the article in

 English.

    1.       dragon’s teeth:………………………………………………………………………

    2.       4×4s:…………………………………………………………………………………

    3.       invasive species:……………………………………………………………………

    4.       briefing:……………………………………………………………………………

    5.       heathland:………………………………………………………………………......

    6.       fearsome spikes:……………………………………………………………………

    7.       a common bond:……………………………………………………………………

    8.       wind down:…………………………………………………………………………

    9.       alter:…………………………………………………………………………….....

   10.   stock up:……………………………………………………………………………

LOW CARBON VILLAGES – VIDEO

Watch the video and find out about the missing information.

It’s a joint venture in which they are trying to reduce the …………………………………………………… of two villages owned by the 

National Trust.

They are doing this campaign as a …………………………………………………. .

People are joining in for different reasons such as         ………………………………………………………

                                                                                                              ………………………………………………………

                                                                                                              ………………………………………………………

The villages have introduced some energy saving measures by installing ………………

……………..………………………………………..using…………………………

……………………………. Thus the system is ………………………………….....

 and much more ……………………………………………. .                                        

People are being informed by ……………………………………………………………………….to be 
up-to-date.                

Yarnbombing

How knitting became an urban art form

Discover the growing craft trend known as yarnbombing or graffiti knitting. By Olivia Gordon

Surreal as it is, it's getting more and more common to find Britain's streets covered in knitting! Recent months have seen colourful knitting festooned over everything from a London phone box to a bridge in Scotland to a Manchester shed to statues, bus shelters and lampposts across the nation. The people behind this yarn graffiti call themselves yarn bombers or yarn stormers, and anyone can get involved.

So what's it all about?

It's about making art, reclaiming city streets, being silly and having fun. Yarn bombers are knitters, crocheters and textile artists who ‘tag' depressing, grey street furniture with uplifting woolly creations. ‘We yarnstorm because we love it,' says Deadly Knitshade (www.whodunnknit.com), an anonymous 32-year-old female knitter from London who yarnstorms the city as a member of fanciful, whimsical collective, Knit the City (www.knitthecity.com).

 This group has created, among other things, a ‘phone box cosy' made of knitted patches; knitted oranges and lemons to decorate the gates of churches associated with the bells of St Clements, London; and spooky knitted skeletons and spiderwebs for a Hallowe'en installation at a disused underground station. ‘There's no agenda apart from imagination, a sense of fun and an overwhelming desire to tell stitched stories through sneaky stitching,' says the mysterious Deadly Knitshade. ‘There are no rules; it's about having your own ideas, going out and doing your thing with a sense of humour.'

When did it all begin?

No one knows exactly when people started making clothes for street furniture rather than people, but it's taken off in the US and then around the world in the last few years. One of the first and most famous yarn bombers is 36-year-old ‘guerilla knitter' Magda Sayeg from Texas in the USA (http://www.magdasayeg.com). She began by using scraps of knitting left over from her unfinished projects to decorate her neighbourhood, and it just got bigger and bigger: recent triumphs have included a crochet-covered bus in Mexico, and tagging the Great Wall of China with knitting. It's about taking knitting out of the home, she explains.

‘My purpose is to prompt thought about our urban landscapes. There's humour in anthropomorphising a lamppost with an argyle sweater in February, but it also starts conversations about art vs. craft, about art in public spaces, about people's expectations of traditionally domestic crafts. My purpose is to get people thinking, but also to put smiles on faces.'

Deadly Knitshade founded her collective last year. Having learned to knit a few years ago, when she heard about yarn storming, she saw it as a natural progression from knitting scarves and jumpers, which she now sees as rather boring. ‘Yarn storming is knitting as art - it's really different and fun and I enjoy the creative challenge,' she explains. ‘It can make people's day to see the knitting and you can highlight things you want people to look at. There's also the social aspect and teamwork of working together with others.'

How does it work?

Deadly Nightshade explains that her collective start out with a big vision for each project - a 15-foot knitted spiderweb for instance or a set of knitted creatures that will tell a story when placed in a location. They go out and measure the location to be covered in knitting, and create templates. The yarn stormers then get to work, often spending every evening knitting their share as the deadline for the street decoration looms.

They use cheap colourful acrylic yarn, often donated from others' stashes or bought on eBay. ‘You can go crazy with yarn you wouldn't be seen dead in if you were making clothes - like scratchy bouclés,' says Knitshade. As crafters, they take pleasure in experimenting with colours, textures and skills: ‘Our knitting gets more and more complicated and we learn new techniques every day, like mixing in other fabrics or even LED lights. We're bringing in other elements like embroidery now too and really crafting; it's moved on from simply covering objects in knitting. '

Finally, they drape their work all over the chosen location, take photos and stand back to watch as the public do double takes and chuckle in amusement. ‘One our work has left our hands, it's interesting to see how long it lasts,' Knitshade says. ‘People take a fancy to it and children usually take pieces of it home within just a few hours. We compete to see whose work gets stolen first!' They put labels on their work which ask those who take the knitting to ‘confess' the theft on their website, though it's rare that anyone has the gumption to do so. But, hard as it is for knitters who are used to making cherished garments to understand, these artists don't mind that passersby pocket the knits eventually or street cleaners throw them away - ‘it's nice they're so wanted, and if they were left on display forever they'd get rained on and ruined anyway,' Knitshade says.

Is there a purpose?

‘It's art for art's sake, just in the same way other arts work. People don't generally expect charities or causes to benefit directly from art. I don't see why knitted art might be different,' says Knitshade. But just as any kind of art can draw attention to causes or charities, there's nothing to stop yarnbombers using their work to make a statement.

One prominent British yarn bomber who's done just that is 29-year old artist Rachael Elwell, from Salford, who runs a social network for knit artists (subversiveyarn.ning.com). Her ArtYarn group (www.artyarn.org) tagged street furniture in Liverpool city centre with pieces of knitting made from shredded recycled plastic carrier bags to bring attention to the amount of waste that shopping bags produce.

Members of ArtYarn made a series of visits to the streets of Liverpool to collect discarded plastic carrier bags from public spaces and inner city wasteland areas. Each bag found and retrieved from a site in Liverpool city centre was documented and mapped. Once a sufficient amount of bags were collected, the found bags were then cleaned and shredded to form a recycled yarn, out of which new art works were made by hand knitting. By referring back to the mapping document created on retrieval of the found plastic carrier bags, ArtYarn replaced the bags, in knitted form, into the environments they were found and in those areas of the city which had the highest volume of plastic carrier bag littering and waste, to make their point. 

‘There are many reasons to do knit graffiti,' says Canadian Leanne Prain, co-author with Mandy Moore of the bible of yarn graffiti, 'Yarnbombing' (Arsenal Pulp Press, £13.99) and co-founder of leading global yarn graffiti bloghttp://yarnbombing.com.  ‘For some people it is simply a form of self expression; others see it as a defiant, political act. Many feminists like the fact that street art, which has traditionally viewed as a 'male' art, is now being done with the materials that have traditionally been used by women. Some people that it is a positive form of graffiti. Overall, no matter what your political affiliation, I would say that everyone that we talk to, no matter what their background, says that yarn bombing brings a sense a joy - to themselves and others.'

She adds: ‘We live in a world that has been covered with 'sameness' - I can eat in the same fast food restaurant in Canada as you can in the UK. We can buy the same shirt from the Gap. Handcraft items cannot be duplicated the same way - yarn bombing is a way of putting your mark on the place where you live, or travel. It is a way of putting a unique signature on the world. Author Betsy Greer called yarn bombing "love letters to your city".

How can I get involved?

Just go out and do it, or get your knitting group to join you, advises Knitshade. If you want to connect with other yarn stormers, they're often easy to contact through their websites and blogs. If you want to highlight a cause through yarn storming, get in touch with the charity or organisation and suggest it.

And unlike other forms of graffiti, yarn doesn't deface or damage property, so don't worry about getting into trouble! ‘Once I was stopped by a cop in New York City, but as soon as he saw that I wasn't using spray paint he just chuckled and went on his way,' remembers Magda. When yarn storming in London's Parliament Square, the Knit the City crew were served a 'stop and search' notice by the police. ‘The fact that it was 'craft' disarmed them somewhat,' says Knitshade. ‘They allowed us to continue and one of them took a photo of the phonebox to send to his wife. It's much less intrusive than some street art and it's all utterly removable.'

Yarnbombing: our pick of the best

Knitted graffiti, also known as yarnbombing, yarnstorming or guerilla knitting, is the 

art of using items handmade from yarn to create street art. Here's our gallery of 

some of the cleverest, weirdest and most daring British yarnstorms of the last year.

 By Olivia Gordon.

Source: http://www.allaboutyou.com

Working Holidays

Wake up in a beautiful location, enjoy a fun-packed day doing exciting conservation activities, and make great new friends in the process with one of our working holidays.

A holiday with a difference

Looking for an exciting and interesting way to make a difference in conserving the environment and the UK's heritage? Whatever your interests or skills, we would love to hear from you.

A day in the life of... a working holiday group

A working holiday group who spent their holiday pulling dragon’s teeth and

© Sean Malyon

We catch up with a working holiday group as they install dragon’s teeth (spikes intended to stop 4x4s driving across the common) and clear invasive species from Hindhead Common in Surrey.

Words and pictures by Sean Malyon

7.30am
Food is always a vital part of these holidays and the first job is to organise the breakfast. We all take turns and breakfast is usually cereal, toast, yoghurt and fruit juice.

9.00am
We leave Hunter basecamp in Haslemere, where we are staying, for the minibus drive to the work site.

9.30am
On arrival at the work site the warden and team leaders describe the day’s task. This gives us the opportunity to hear how important the work is for the management of the property. The briefing also includes safety advice; very important as this type of activity is so different from our daily lives. In this group we have several teachers, an engineer, someone from IT and a HR specialist. On our first day we cleared birch, gorse and other invasive species on the heathland. This helps to preserve the fragile habitat and all the creatures that depend on it. On another day we cleared a bridleway of over-hanging branches and had a fun afternoon clearing out a cattle grid. We’re also installing dragon’s teeth, fearsome spikes to prevent 4x4 vehicles driving across the heath and causing damage.

1pm
Today we have lunch on Gibbet Hill near the Devil’s Punch Bowl. This is one of the highest points for miles around and a great place to have a sandwich. The views over the south of England are terrific. Lunch is also a good time to get to know everyone better. We all get on very well because we’ve found that we have a common bond, a passion for the environment. There are five people from overseas in this group and they have agreed to speak English at all times so we can share our differing experiences from home. Despite there being a big age range in the group, from 18 to 58, we all get on really well.

2pm
It’s more of the same work in the afternoon. Today we’ll probably finish a bit early because it’s our last day, but we usually keep going until 5pm. It’s not all work, though, we had a day off on Wednesday. In the morning we all had a walk around the Devil’s Punch Bowl to see the landscape from a different perspective. In the afternoon some of us went to nearby Petworth House. We spent the evening having a meal in a local restaurant.

5pm
We are all tired, thanks to good, hard, physical work so it’s a quiet ride back to the basecamp.

7pm
We take our turn cooking and this is a great opportunity to gain new skills. The holiday leaders suggest menus before the holiday and then we alter them to suit people’s likes and dislikes, trying to include everyone’s favourites.

10pm
Hunter basecamp has a lovely sitting room where we can relax and wind down after a hard day, stoking up the wood burner if it’s cold. Some people like to read or do jigsaws, others play cards but mostly we just chat. It’s great to hear other people’s stories.

Source: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk

Low carbon villages

Low carbon villages

LCV project video

What is a Low Carbon Village?

Turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, and you can hardly escape alarms about spiralling energy bills and stories of how climate change is already having an impact on our lives. But understanding what positive actions you can make in your day-to-day life, and being motivated to actually take them, is trickier.

In the Low Carbon Villages (LCV) project, along with former energy partner npower who provided £60.0,000 of funding, the National Trust worked with two Trust owned villages (Coleshill in Oxfordshire, and Cambo on our estate at Wallington, Northumberland), to tackle the disillusionment and helplessness that many people feel about climate change. Through a process of engagement over a three-year period, LCV aimed to develop positive and practical solutions that could set villagers on a journey to low-carbon living.

Source:http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk