New Children's Craft Club

Last Wednesday I started, with a couple of very helpful school Mum's, a Craft Club at the local school. It was open only to children from Year 5 and Year 6, and low and behold, 40 (!) children turned up! It was great! I have worked with all of these children before on large wall-hangings, teaching them different craft techniques over the 6 weeks of making the hangings, and I was pleased to see that they had obviously had so much fun making them, that they have come back for more! The first few sessions, we plan to make some embroidered pictures in hoops bought from (very prompt service). The children are designing their own pictures: some football themed, some for friends birthdays, some are just very cute! As well as this, we are setting up a mat-frame for children to work on when they have had enough of close stitching or would prefer a different project. This is to be a picture of the school crest.

This is a picture of the 'Shipbuilding' wall-hanging I made with the children from Year 5, last year at our local school. They learnt how to batik, quilt, embroider, fabric paint and 'prog' to make the hanging over six weeks. Tomorrow, I am back to Sunderland for the Traditional Mat-making course I am teaching at the City Library. The students are about to start putting pen to hessian to get their design onto the mat-frame. This is when it starts to get exciting! Hope the snow doesn't hinder our progress!