Many, many years ago I worked in a fabric showroom in central London, the giant textile factories were based abroad and I could see at first hand the speed & unnecessary waste of fast fashion. There were so many beautiful fabric samples that were put into rubbish as the pieces were “too small to make into anything.”

It was heartbreaking to bin these lovely pieces of fabric so I tried to save as many pieces and made these small rag doll/creatures type of things.

Thereafter, I worked for a small streetwear company (Spunky Store) that had a pop up store off Carnaby St and I sold a few of the creatures to people as they were “so unusual but jolly!”… Hence, the name Jolly Hockey Sticks.

They even got snapped in a Chinese Fashion Magazine called HOW. (Exactly my question too?!)

With my pile of fabric pieces, I thought it would be good to share the jolly joy of making things with Envision Charity who work with teenagers across UK. It was a great experience going into schools around London to work with students to see what creatures they could come up with. MTV Flux also came along to shoot a workshop, students sewing and stenciling were on the ‘Fashion Goes Green’ episode back in 2007!

Jolly Hockey Sticks also photo bombed a party night with Goldie Looking Chain and pics also ended up in NME magazine!

The Jolly’s have come back in this pandemonium in form of wool felted creatures, was thinking of ways to avoid buying more plastic toys for a theatre project, so I researched wool felting… it’s quite therapeutic. I highly recommend doing it! Watch how…

Visit the instructables website here to get my tips in how to make felt bees from wool, fabric bits, shoe laces and plastic from food packaging.

It was the start of Spring in London when lockdown happened, so there was plenty of time to sit and stare at the large bumble bees buzzing around.

Thought to save some loo rolls to make a bee hotel for a live Zoom storytelling/ puppet show call. It’s a cardboard box made to look like a stage! Watch Little Angel Theatre for more…! They inspired this…

Here’s another instructable link to make the Queen Bee.