Happy New Home!!

Today we received the news that the first of our pieces had been given out! June kindly emailed us with the news saying:

"Hi All

Sorry not to be in touch before but just wanted to say how thrilled everyone is with the cushions and draft excluders - bit overwhelmed really - and that's just the team!

Julie will be in touch very soon if she hasn't been already, but I know she's already given out the first cushion to a young man. She let him choose which he wanted and says it really meant a lot to him. He started by saying 'They're all so lovely' but decided on one because 'it was a bit special'. She then talked to him about the label and he was very touched by the people who had put time into making it.

Thanks for taking up the brief. Its been a read encouragement to Julie and Ben as well. They really value being able to give what Julie describes as 'little pieces of art' to people who may feel vulnerable as they move into a new place. We'll feed more info on as it comes.

If there's anything else you need, please just get back. Good luck with everything around the end of the year.

All the best

June"

I'm thrilled to bits with this news and so happy that he's found a special piece to move into his new home with! I think it's fantastic that they are being offered a choice of item, it increases the personal value as they've been able to select a piece that resignates with them on a individual level. The feedback of them being 'little pieces of art' is really encouraging too and I'm very pleased that both the team and the people moving into their new homes are so touched by the project we have run.

After going through the highs and lows of working through this project (part and parcel of any project!) I'm so pleased that we've successfully translated out concept and made inanimate objects personal and filled with emotion and sentimental value. I'm excited to hear more feedback as the pieces are given out, hopefully they will continue to have a positive impact. I honestly can't express how thankful I am to everyone who has helped us achieve our end goal!

Time to Donate!

Today we met with June, Julie and Ben at Inn Churches HQ in Bradford. For the first time we saw all the pieces together and I think we were all truly impressed by what we'd achieved! From the start of the project we had aimed to have enough objects to contribute to a substantial amount of Home Starter Packs (while bearing in mind the time scale we had) so when we totted up 13 cushions and 2 draft excluders I think we all felt we'd achieved this. This was definitely reinforced when June, Julie and Ben saw the volume of items we had created. They told us they were amazed by the amount we had achieved and how it was so much more than they had expected.

We hadn't actually seen Julie and Ben since our first meeting with them in February so we ran through what we had been aiming to do, how we came up with our concept (thanks again Ben!) and what we'd done to achieve it. They were really pleased with the amount of people who had engaged with the project and loved the envelopes we'd made to give to people (we took one along as a example). Julie even described them as 'pieces of art' which was a fantastic compliment after all our hard work! They fed back that they thought the gift tags were a brilliant idea and that being able to see who had contributed their time to the items would really impact on the people receiving the items. Our end goal all along had been to create items to be included within the Home Starter Packs, however Julie and Ben told us they didn't want the items to just be put in with the Packs. They want to be selective about who they give them to, so that they go to people who will really cherish and be impacted positively by the time, care and love embedded into each piece. They also told us they would give each piece to these individuals personally so they could explain the work we'd done and the meaning behind each piece. I think this is a much more successful outcome than any of us could have anticipated and it feels so rewarding to know they're going to provide reassurance and comfort to those in vulnerable situations. The images below show all the items together being donated at Inn Churches HQ.

The Journey

Now I've finished my cushions ready for donation to Inn Churches tomorrow I can't stop thinking about the journey this project has taken and the variety of different communities we've managed to get involved.

Communities which we've worked with:
- Inn Churches: They set the brief, and sparked the entire concept with Ben comment about how a little time invested in making something means so much.
- Live at Home: Our workshops with the Live at Home group have produced so much of the material for this project. The samples created within them really feel embedded with emotion and care as we engaged with them directly and experienced their positive reaction to the project. These workshops took place in two community based environments, The Hope Centre and Great Horton Village Hall.
- University: Fellow student at Huddersfield University have engaged with the project. It seems to have had a positive effect on their emotional well-being as in a period filled with deadlines and pressure they have been able to use the project as a way to have some 'down time'.
- Family: Envelopes were given to our families all located in different areas and therefore members of entirely different communities.
- Friends: Our friends have engaged positively in the project, they have responded well to our concept and embedded love in each sample they've created.

The variety of communities means the various components of the items have journeyed through such a variety of locations and been involved with so many individuals that each one truly captures the care taken to make something especially for those receiving Home Starter Packs.

Crafty Couture!!

I've loved the entire process of this project but as mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts my strengths really lie in coming up with a concept and translating this through the making process. I absolutely love our concept of embedding emotion into a object through the use of stitch which translates the time invested in each object and have found it really exciting watching people engage with the project allowing us to realise this. Needless to say though, I've been really looking forward to the making stage of things where we can finally see what all our work has been building up to!

I've been working hard making my 13 samples into cushions the last two days, we're meeting with June, Julie and Ben to donate the items tomorrow. Ideally I'd have started sewing over the weekend however because it's been Easter I've been working crazy amounts so I haven't had chance!

I ummed and arred about how to go about making my cushions (I've decided to make all cushions because the fabric I've bought can be cut to just about squeeze 6 cushions on and I can't think of a way to rejig it to fit in any panels for draft excluders!). Because of work I've really had a limited time to make my items so sewing them on a machine would be the easier option! However because the whole driving point behind our concept is the amount of time invested in the items I can't help but want to stick to this completely and hand sew the entire thing! In the end I decided to hand sew, the small amount of extra stress for me would be nothing compared to carrying out the concept to the best of my ability and how this extra care could really positively impact someone's life. Therefore I have also decided to embroider my own button hole loops (I really like making things extra challenging for myself!) as well. I want the cushions to be entirely hand made, like crafty couture! These are the items I made...

I'm really, really pleased with how the items have turned out! It may sound silly but I was a little worried to begin with as I'm quite a perfectionist when it comes to my work and the colours used so I was a bit lost as to where to begin with some of the samples as they were really out of my comfort zone. I found the process really enjoyable though and it was a brilliant learning curve for me to have to complete something where I didn't have entire creative control as the pieces were created by individuals with their own unique style. The combination of these different styles really emphasises how many unique individuals have donated their time to the project and the quality of the samples really shows how much they care. I'm so glad I decided to push myself to hand embroider every aspect of the cushions! The extra time taken is really in keeping with the concept and I don't think I would have found the process as rewarding had I used machine embroidery, although that's just my personal interpretation of the concept I guess! The tags seem really effective on the items as the majority of them have a good 4+ names as contributors alongside the stitches which that individual has added. The exception to this is the cushion with the knitted sample, I fell in love with this piece so much that I really wanted to show case it on it's own cushion.

I'm so excited to see what the other girls have made when we go to Inn Churches to donate the items tomorrow! Hopefully June, Julie and Ben will love the items as much as I do!

Live at Home Session 3

On Wednesday we ran our final Live at Home session!

We're a dab hand at getting everything set up and ready to go now so the preparation of the workshop ran smoothly! We did have a few reluctant members this week asking 'is this just the same as last week?' however Julie reassured us that some members are just reluctant to get involved with anything and it wasn't to do with our workshop. Having been told this I'm pretty impressed we successfully got them to engage in both last weeks session and today's! I think this reflects positively on the activity and our concept as there must have been something which encouraged the women to actually take part!

The drawing templates were used more this week, however a orange highlighter appeared from somewhere and took over the designs! I guess this shows us that we should have perhaps considered including colour however we were concerned about the aesthetics of the pieces and how a miss-mash of colours could be detrimental to the end design - although our project is very concept led the end result still needs to be aesthetically pleasing! It was good to see they were getting involved and getting something out of the workshop but having looked at the amount of templates which were filled in we don't have enough to generate a large enough variety of samples to be able to create unique objects with them. Therefore we have decided not to turn these into sublimation prints and are happy knowing that they individuals completing them got something out of the activity.

The rest of the group were really happy to carry on working on the samples and I think they began to see more clearly what it was we were aiming to achieve. We took them some chocolates as a 'Thank-you' for taking part in the project and being so lovely and welcoming. I think it's safe to say they went down a treat!!

It's been really busy at the Live at Home sessions for Julie the last few weeks due to them being understaffed so today was the first chance we've really had to get some feedback from her about the sessions. She told us she thought they'd gone really well and everyone seemed to really enjoy them. She also reassured us not to worry about the ones who didn't want to take part as some of them are always reluctant to get involved in any activities. I'm glad she told us that as I was slightly concerned that they weren't engaging because of something we'd done wrong! I felt a little sad when we'd left as we'd met some really lovely people and had some fantastic laughs with them. They asked us to go visit again which we all agreed we'd be very happy to do, it was really nice to engage with a community I wouldn't normally be involved with.

When we got back to Huddersfield we headed to Rhi's house to divide up all the samples we'd generated. Out of curiosity I counted all the samples and we were all amazed when we realised we had almost 40 ready to be incorporated into items for the Home Starter Packs!! The fact that enough people had taken time to work on the project with us was a little overwhelming and I'm honestly so happy with the results and I think it's really achieving our concept! It looks like each gift tag with have a good few names of people who have contributed to making that item which will really demonstrate the time and care taken to create each piece. We discussed exactly what we're going to make today and have decided to go for cushions and draft excluders as the patchwork style we will be using lends itself well to these items. They're also associated with safety and comfort which are important qualities we'd like to capture to contrast to the other items in the packs which are purely practical.

Live at Home Session 2

Today we went back to the Great Horton Village Hall where we first met Julie Maude and the Live at Home group. Julie had said to expect about 40 people but due to medical reasons and the bad weather (unfortunately pollution from the Sahara has made its way to the North and people with health issues such as lung conditions or the elderly are being advised to stay indoors - of all the days!!!!) there was only about 15. It was much more difficult to engage the group today as there was a table set out for them to have their lunch and one for us to do the workshop separately. Everyone seemed to beeline to the lunch table and were a little reluctant to move! We did approach everyone, explain the project and ask if they fancied taking part and ended up with about 5 people coming to work on some samples with us. It was lovely talking to them again and engaging with them as we all stitched away but it was slightly disheartening that more of them weren't willing to be involved.

There were a few people who arrive late and we tried to tempt them with the envelopes to take home but were unsuccessful. The whole 'homework' idea really hasn't been as successful as we'd hoped! It seems that a lot of them enjoy knitting so perhaps the project could be adapted to utilise knitted samples should Inn Churches want to continue our work in order to encourage more involvement from this group.

Although we were a little dissapointed with the lack of involvement from this session we were aware that Thursdays were going to be a more challenging day due to the higher volume of men and the fact that the Wednesday group were the real 'crafters'. We're hoping that next Wednesdays session will be the best of the three. Fingers crossed by then we'll have generated enough samples through the workshops and envelopes which have been given out to friends and family to create a decent amount of items to give to Inn Churches!

Live at Home Session 1

This morning we had our first session with the Live at Home group. Before the session we were all a little nervous about whether the group would engage with the idea, after all the prep we'd put in it really felt like crunch time!!

The group was quite a bit smaller than we expected as a few members were under the weather. Despite this I think it went really well! The information sheets went down a treat! Some of the ladies had started picking out which fabrics and threads they wanted to use before we'd even introduced ourselves! As the workshop ran we sat amoungst everyone and mingled with the group. A lot of them were telling stories about things they'd made when they were younger and the different styles of stitches they would use. It was lovely to hear how our project was bringing back these memories and allowing them to take part in something they enjoyed doing.

Things I picked up on from this session:

- Threading up the needles was a brilliant idea. It allowed everything to run smoothly and made life a lot easier for everyone.

- We wanted to encourage people to sew in this workshop so we didn't put the drawing templates out at the beginning of the session. I suggested that we should perhaps include them at the beginning of the session tomorrow so that if people didn't want to sew, they wouldn't write off the project immediately as there would be another option available. Tomorrows session also includes a lot more men so we're expecting the drawing excersise to be more popular with them.

- The envelopes to do at home weren't quite as popular as we expected. A lot of people seemed to be quite busy with other projects such as home improvements so they didn't feel they'd have the time to complete any samples at home. However they did enjoy the workshop and were looking forward to working with us again! We also realised that we hadn't threaded up the needles in the envelopes we had given out and so tomorrow we're going to tell people that this is the case and offer to thread it up for them before they leave should they wish.

- Although we had put multiple tags on the swatches and explained that we'd like them to be passed around so multiple people could work into one swatch it didn't quite work like that! People seemed to be happy to invest a lot of time in one swatch so they could get it to a stage where they were happy with it. They would then move onto a completely new swatch. We're planning to put some of the plainer samples back out tomorrow so that they can be worked on top of.

- Having example samples on the table really helped. Before the session we'd all completed a couple of swatches to take in so that participants could see what sort of thing we were looking for. This seemed to really inspire everyone as they could see the various stitch types and what they could create with them.

- Everyone seemed to really enjoy that we sat and chatted to them, so much so that we got invited to stay for lunch!

So the first sessions down and it seems to have gone really positively with the group! I feel like we're really achieving the concept by combining these workshops with the envelopes as such a variety of people and therefore wide community have been able to get involved with the project!