About Sarah Simi
Sarah Simi is a knitter extraordinaire and the creator, director and producer of nudinits, the world’s first all-knitted animation. She learnt to knit from a young age, mainly Starsky cardigans, Clangers and even an outfit for her guinea pig that it sensibly refused to wear. After working as a stylist, writer and designer for many years, an idea formulated in Sarah's mind for a knitted village full of eccentric British characters. At first the village was more of a traditional affair but after reading an article about free hiking (hiking in the nude) Sarah's villagers lost their clothes and nudinits was born.
Sarah then collaborated with animator Ed Hartwell to make her first film, 'Tickled Pink', which went on to win a Best Comedy and a Best Animation award, and nudinits have never looked back. They've now become an online hit with further films, awards and lots of nudinit products to enjoy including knitting pattern books, calendars and cards.
Together, Sarah and Ed now run Woolly Vision, a stop-motion animation company in London which specializes in making animation with wool, fabric and felt. Their films are multi-award winning and have been shown at film festivals all around the world.
Sarah also loves making sceramic animal sculptures, collects panda Christmas ornaments and presents a podcast about the 1970s.
Sarah is an Essex girl by birth, Londoner at heart, and currently living in the US.
- For more nudinit fun go to: www.nudinits.com
- To see all that Sarah gets up to go to: www.woollyvision.com
About Little Woolly Vision
Woolly Vision is a multi-award winning, stop-motion animation company specializing in making animation with wool, fabric and felt. Based in London, everything they do is made by hand and animated by hand. They launched Little Woolly Vision with the aim of putting a new spin on nursery rhymes and to move away from the computer generated animation so often associated with children’s songs online. Every nursery rhyme on their channel is animated using traditional stop-motion techniques and each puppet and set hand sewn with felt; the songs are recorded live by musicians Steve Pretty and Gemma Storr, which all contributes to producing a heart-warming, nostalgic feeling in every song.
Woolly Vision is run by animator Ed Hartwell and writer and designer Sarah Simi, Leeanne Bell is a freelance crafter who has worked with them on many of their projects.
Ed is an experienced filmmaker who wrangles the puppets into shape to produce the animations; Ed also arranges all the music and tests his ideas on his own two young daughters who often provide sound effects for the characters and animals. Ed lives in London, UK.
Sarah makes lots of the puppets and sets for the animations, she has also written four books with their rather more adult characters of Nudinits; a keen knitter taught by her mum at an early age, she has also recently started making ceramic animals. Sarah lives in Kent, UK.
Leeanne started making felt toys 10 years ago after becoming a stay at home mum. She has made many of the puppets and sets for the nursery rhyme animations and has written all of the patterns for Old MacDonald; making a pattern for a horse poo has been the highlight of her career to date! Leeanne lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
