This Christmas, we’re presenting the much loved fairy tale Snow White, which we’ve created with the wonderful theatre company New International Encounter. Take part in our Crafty Christmas project and help us decorate the theatre in style for this magnificently magical Christmas show!
Snow White is about growing up and growing old. And in our version it’s also about growing your own food and living in harmony with the land – because we all know why you shouldn’t trust a very shiny red apple of dubious provenance…!
We plan to fill our Theatre Bar this year with lots of handmade leaves, fruit, vegetables and snowflakes to celebrate the natural world brought to life in this brilliant show. And this is where you come in! We are looking for volunteers to help us create these decorations. If you would like to get involved, read on for more info and have yourself a Very Crafty Christmas!
Please drop us a line if you’re going to get involved so we have an idea of how many decorations we can expect: theatre@tobaccofactorytheatres.com
What are you looking for?
Ideally, lots of knitted or crocheted leaves, fruit, vegetables, snowflakes etc that can be used together or separately to decorate different sections of the Theatre Bar. But let your imagination run wild! All we ask is that the decorations have a ‘natural’ theme – think things that you’d find in woodland or growing in gardens/on allotments.
What if I want to get involved but I can’t knit or crochet?
No problem! If you can make decorations in some other way, we’d still love to hear from you and have you involved. For example, you could make paper snowflakes or make pom-poms that look like a snowflake or an apple. Again, all we ask is that the decorations have a ‘natural’ theme, are made from natural materials and are hand/home-made.
Do you have any patterns?
We have attached an example snowflake knitting pattern to the right of this page, which you’re welcome to use and/or be inspired and find your own. There are knitting books etc which contain patterns for fruit and vegetables but please email us at the address above if you need help with finding any.
We don’t have strict requirements for sizes or colours of the individual decorations – they should be big enough that they are easily visible but not too big so that they can be easily displayed. And in terms of colours – the choice is yours, but in general a fairly natural, earthy, autumnal palette will work well (see example photo below).
Can I get more info or meet other crafty volunteers?
You are very welcome to take part in this project from home by yourself (although we’d be very grateful if you could let us know if you’re doing this – see above!).
However we will be holding two sessions at Tobacco Factory Theatres in the next two months for people to come along and knit/crochet/get crafty together.
Fri 13 September 3pm – 5pm
Thu 10 October 3pm – 5pm
At these sessions, we will:
- Provide more information about the Crafty Christmas project
- Provide free tea, coffee, wifi and space for you to knit/crochet etc.
- Provide a limited supply of yarn (but please bring your own too if you are able)
If you attend, please bring:
- Your own knitting/crochet tools
- Your own yarn/materials (though a limited supply of yarn will be made available)
By when do you need my decorations?
We will need all decorations created for this project by Fri 15 November 2019. We will hold a drop off session on that day for people to bring along their decorations or, if you can’t make that session, please just drop your decorations into Tobacco Factory Theatres by that date.
Can I help you decorate the Theatre Bar?
Yes, the more the merrier! We will be decorating the Theatre Bar on Tue 26 November, just before Snow White opens on Thu 28 November. Come and join us!
Snow White was first performed at Cambridge Junction in 2018 and we are very grateful to the New International Encounter and Cambridge Junction teams for giving us the inspiration for our Crafty Christmas project this year.