Typ­ic­ally a Wel­ling­to­ni­an makes haste for the nearest air­port or road come Queen’s birth­day week­end, but the reverse is start­ing to hap­pen for those of a cre­at­ive bent as Hand­made hap­pens for the second year in a row. Hand­made is home to all sorts of mak­ing related things – from cook­ing to craft­ing they are cov­er­ing all basis at three ven­ues around town, with home base at Te Papa.

My pick for the week­end is hanging out at The Hol­land Road Knit Lounge, loc­ated in the Ocean­ia Room all week­end. Of spe­cial note is the Ravelry & Twit­ter Meet Up on Sat­urday from 12.30pm – 2.30pm. It’s free to one and all.


Read Auck­lander Gemma Stew­art’s thoughts on Hand­made after the jump.

It was a cold, wet day and I had spent the bet­ter part of my after­noon under a blanket and on the Inter­net. I was on a bad weath­er day mis­sion and I needed to trans­form a dress of mine that had seen bet­ter days.

I could have donated it to char­ity but I couldn’t part with it. I had vis­ions of turn­ing my out-dated dress into a new and improved McCall’s some­thing-or-oth­er and wow­ing every­one.

I typed ‘hand­made’ into google and was trawl­ing, when my browser delivered what could only be a gift from the web-gods onto my screen: The Wel­ling­ton Hand­made Fest­iv­al – and it was on this week­end!

The first thing that caught my eye when I clicked the link was the tex­tured fab­ric-like design and fea­tures, the ador­able and very clean lay­out and what looked sus­pi­ciously like unique font for the title. I kept dig­ging, flick­ing past the many excit­ing-look­ing classes on offer and for­cing myself to stay focused until I found what I was look­ing for.

And then, I saw it. The upcyc­ling and refash­ion­ing class which prom­ised to “Give your ward­robe a new lease of life!” That was exactly what I needed!

While the rain came down, I was cre­at­ing a dream list of all the work­shops I would attend. Jew­ellery mak­ing, cake bak­ing, icing and dec­or­at­ing classes, cheese mak­ing (be still my beat­ing heart!), wine tast­ing, under­stand­ing craft beer (hmmm, here’s a list of taxi com­pan­ies, just in case), a curds and cor­di­als class… I star­ted draft­ing a little week­end plan­ner on my sketch­book and was even writ­ing down classes for a friend of mine (who loves cheese with a pas­sion only seen very rarely) to come along to.

The tick­ets were very well priced: $299 for an entire week­end which included up to 8 classes, or $95 for a ‘twice as nice’ pass which included 2 classes and 2 lec­tures! I could go and not be broke (and be very well dressed) by the end of it.

There were oth­er options too, so it looked like you could pick and choose to suit what you wanted to learn; with single work­shops ($45), double work­shops ($90) or a 50 minute lec­ture for $10. The whole week­end pass included a ‘Meet the Makers’ party, but you could even buy tick­ets just to that it you wanted to.

I had decided that there was no oth­er way that I wanted to spend my Queen’s Birth­day week­end, and I began to click through to buy a tick­et, when I real­ised some­thing. I wouldn’t be able to go to this fest­iv­al. No way. It was just not going to hap­pen.
Why? Well, I um… I live in Auck­land. I was (fool­ishly) assum­ing that some­thing as amaz­ing as this must be run­ning in Auck­land. Alas, Wel­ling­ton. You have left a girl broken hearted (and pos­sibly broke), as there’s noth­ing for me to do except hop on a plane this week­end and head to Hand­made 2012. Rash? Pos­sibly. Worth it? Totally.
My dress (and I) will thank you for it.