Generating Ideas!

Earlier this week (19th Feb) we had our first meeting as a group with the aim of generating ideas for the project in preparation for our meeting with June, Julie and Ben at the Hope Centre, Bradford next week.

We all agreed that we wanted to aim to create objects for the Home Starter Pack. This way we could actually impact on the lives of the individuals receiving the objects by hopefully reassuring them with a comforting object embedded with sentimental value through the use of craft. To achieve personal value within a inanimate object we agreed that it would be beneficial to get different members of the community involved. The volume of people taking time to get involved with the project would create a real feeling of care. This idea was developed and we decided we could use donation boxes to collect various materials with sentimental value or a story. Tags would be provided next to the boxes allowing those donating to explain a little about why their donation is special and where it has come from. The information from these tags would be relayed using a gift label on the final item, allowing each object to have its own unique story.

Items we would hope to receive would include:

- fabric swatches/samples. The samples could also be ones which individuals have started but perhaps not had the time to complete.

- good quality clothing which is no longer of use.

- threads

- embellishments

We then thought about where we could put the donation boxes to allow us to reach a wider community. Some would involve communication with other businesses such as fabric shops as donation boxes in these locations would be seen by individuals who are interested in crafts and likely to have interest in getting involved with a community textiles project. These locations included:

- Fabworks, Dewsbury

- Samuel Taylors, Huddersfield Market

- University Campus, within the Textiles, Costume and Fashion departments

- Inn Churches, Bradford

- The Hope Centre, Bradford

We would then divide the donations between ourselves to be turned into objects for the Home Starter Packs such as cushions, blankets, draft excluders and lamp shades. Each with a gift tag explaining it's individual journey conveying the care the wider community has put into creating the item. We also discussed the idea of potentially using smaller fabric swatches to create Sewing Kits which would allow individuals to repair worn through clothes and other items while stitching in a fabric piece with a unique story.