Session Planning!

Finally we have begun planning sessions!! I feel like we've been building up to this point for so long that I'm really glad we're getting going with it and it feels like this is the first step of realising our idea!

We've confirmed the following dates for sessions with the Live at Home group with Julie:

- Wednesday 2nd April

- Thursday 3rd April

- Wednesday 9th April

Although these sessions run past our original cut off date for workshops (4th April) we felt it was really important to be able to give out the 'envelopes' after the sessions while leaving enough time for everyone to work on them. We'll give them out on the 2nd and 3rd and collect them back at the session on the 9th. We've also decided to use this date as the deadline for the packs being given out at University to be handed back to us so that we can make sure we have time to split the materials between us before we all go our separate ways for the Easter break (beginning on the 11th).

The option of working with the After School club is one that we have unfortunately had to let go of. In the time we have left we felt it would be better to concentrate our efforts on the Live at Home group and the envelopes to be given out at University. It's unfortunate as it would be fantastic to get 3 very different communities involved in the project however logistically within the time scale it just doesn't seem possible. At the beginning of the project we agreed to be ambitious, but not over ambitious in terms of what we could complete in the time scale and organising session with this group as well would most likely be biting off more that we can chew.

The date we have decided on for handing the items back to June, Julie and Ben at Inn Churches is the 24th April. As Rhi goes on tour for the first week of the break and my work commitments are through the roof (working in a bar when there are so many bank holidays around the Easter period is not ideal!) this should give us all enough time to work around our other commitments and really invest some time making the items.

We started generating ideas for activities we could do with the men to engage them in the crafting process. I came up with tie-dying however when we all discussed this and actually looked at the amount of equipment this would require we realised it wasn't a practical option and it was back to the drawing board!

No good plan should go to waste and so we've decided to what was our plan to do drawings with the After School club and adapt it for the Live at Home group! We're going to explain that the images will be transformed into fabrics and ask that they 'doodle' as they chat and drink cups of tea (sounds like a ideal afternoon to me!). We're limiting this to black marks on white paper as Rhi has informed us that the sublimation printer will pick this up best. Rhi also suggested that we have templates in geometric shapes for them to draw into which can then be cut out and appliqued onto the items. This will create a strong aesthetic for the items. We're going to provide examples of marks they could work with as sometimes it can be intimidating to be asked to draw onto a white sheet of paper with no further instructions. The drawings will also be labelled with the artists name and the marks they've added so we can include this information on the gift tag at the end of the process. It's my job to research geometric shapes that will be appropriate and create templates ready for the workshops.

Tomorrow we are meeting at 7pm at my house to prepare everything for the envelopes and Live at Home sessions. We've all got jobs to do for tomorrow so we're ready to crack on and have a productive evening.

To Do:

Rhi: needles, threads, hole punch, card and scissors.

Claire: envelopes, fabric and safety pins.

Me: fabric, iron/ironing board, card, geometric templates.

Today in our session with Claire the nitty-gritty areas of working with the public such as ethics and health and safety were raised. We're going to look into this more after we've got the workshop plans and envelopes prepared. Rhi has agreed to complete the risk assessment form for next week.

Live at Home/Reminiscence session

Earlier this week (Thursday 13th March) we visited Julie Maude and the Live at Home group at the Great Horton Village Hall in Bradford. We arrived as the group were about to have their lunch and had a cuppa and chatted to them during their meal. We told them a little about ourselves and why we were visiting them and they seemed interested in getting involved with the project. They told us about a project they were currently working on where they were knitting squares to be turned into throws for the pews in one of the churches involved in the winter shelter scheme. This existing engagement with Inn Churches is reassuring as it shows they are practically engaged with helping the homeless already. It was lovely to sit and chat with them, as they discovered we were textiles students they began to tell us all kinds of stories about the mills they'd worked in. One of the men, Jim, had managed weaving mills all around the world! It was fascinating to hear about all the things he had done a reassuring to find that they had such a keen interest in textiles as a lot of them had spent their working lives in this area.

After lunch we spoke to Julie and ran through our idea to do a workshop with the group where they would stitch into fabric swatches and how this would strongly embed a feeling of love into the project. She responded very positively and told us how the group were very interested in crafts and loved making things. However she did also mention how the men may not want to get involved in embroidery and this is something we're going to have to consider and adapt to in order to encourage everyone to get engaged with the concept. We also ran through how we were going to create packs to give out at University to explain how we were getting other communities involved with the project. Julie then mentioned that a lot of the group have a lot of spare time during the week and that they enjoy being given something productive to do at home, especially something which is rewarding. One lady had been so taken with creating the knitted patches to make the throws for the church that she went home and made 150 in a single week! We're now considering how we could roll out the packs to be given to members of this community too. It all seems very positive and I feel like we're going to generate a lot of love filled pieces through this process!

The next step was to discuss logistics with Julie, we needed to pick her brains to find out when the group met and where we could fit our workshops around their current planned activities and our individual timetables! The schedule for the Live at Home sessions is:

Monday - exersise classes and bingo.
Julie mentioned that this may be a ideal time to host a workshop as those who don't take part in the exersise classes can sometimes feel left out and it would be nice to have a activity for them to take part in. The session runs from 10am - 2.30pm and Julie mentioned it would be preferable for us to do the workshop before lunch.

Wednesday
Julie said that she'd really like us to run a session on this day as it has a lot of people attending it who really enjoy crafts. It would again be preferable for us to run the workshop before lunch. This means we could do it between 10.45am and 12.30pm.

Thursday
The available slot for this day (before lunch) would be 10am-12.15pm.

Julie told us that a hours workshop would probably be best to maintain engagement and that we could come on any day, we just needed to drop her a text before and that not much notice was needed. This is fantastic news as we've got a lot of deadlines coming up and it provides us with the flexibility we need to work around these.

A lady then arrived to run a reminiscence session with the group. She had visited the library and picked up 'reminiscence packs' which contained various items from 'back in the day'. The group then looked at the objects and discussed what they were, telling stories about them from when they were younger. The majority of the objects were a mystery to me but it was fantastic seeing how they triggered memories from decades ago and how they all seemed to light up telling their funny anecdotes! Seeing this reiterated how a story can be captured bringing emotional value to a inanimate object. It was really encouraging to see as it's what we're aiming to achieve.

Just before we left Jim caught us to chat again, we told him we were planning to come back to do a workshop and when we told him about the plans to do stitch (along with something more aimed at the men that we were yet to think of!) he told us to 'remember he's 92!'. After leaving the session I mentioned to Rhi and Claire that we were going to have to adapt the equipment for the workshops and the envelopes being given out at these, needles would have to be bigger, with bigger eyes and it would be ideal if we could thread them up before going in order to help things run more smoothly.

The three of us also discussed our upcoming deadlines and have agreed to take a week off from meeting up for this project in order to elevate some pressure and give us one less thing to think about over the next seven days. The aim after this is to focus on creating the envelopes to be given out at University and after the workshops.

I feel like the projects progressing well although I really want to get cracking giving out the envelopes and doing the sessions so there's some physical evidence of what we've been up to! Looking back at my blog I can see we've done a lot of work generating ideas and researching for this project but I can't wait to actually see some products being developed!

Light-bulb Moment!

I found this image today and feel like it pretty sums up our feelings about our group meeting this afternoon!!

After a positive response from Julie Maude about us completing some workshops with the Live at Home group we have arranged a meeting with her on Thursday 13th March. We decided to meet after our session with Claire today to really try to bash out some ideas so we could have a clear plan for what we'll be planning to do at the sessions in order to gain feedback from her as to whether she thinks they will engage with our concept.

We recapped our idea for a reminiscence workshop. This would involve the participants bringing in fabrics, embellishments and unfinished samples which had some sentimental value to them which they would explain to the group and then donate for us to upcycle and create new objects embedded with the individual stories ready for the Home Starter Packs. However we were concerned about how this would actually work. Items which have strong sentimental value are often treasured and kept for a reason (personally I would be unwilling to let go of a item of such value to me) and so we think we will struggle to get a volume of donations with a actual story this way. There would be no coherency with our concept if the items being donated had no emotional value which is really the whole point. 

We then went back to the drawing board considering other options of how we could work with the group. We had already considered working with the After School Club, getting the children to work on drawings which we could turn into fabrics using sublimation printing for the production of the end items. Why couldn't we do something similar with the Live at Home group which involved engaging them directly with the production of samples which could be transformed into objects for the packs? We looked at our individual specialisms and with two embroiderers and a weaver in our group we decided the most straight forward option would be to run embroidery workshops with the group. Ben had said in our first meeting with Inn Churches that it was 'the time and care taken by someone to create a item' that really had a positive impact on those receiving it. By working with the Live at Home group to create embroidered samples each individual stitch would be embedded with time and care. Labels would be attached to each sample allowing the creator to add their name, information about the stitches they had added and a kind message for the receiver. We discussed how the samples could be combined together or worked on by multiple participants in order to really build up the time invested in the objects.

I then thought about the 'Stitch and Bitch' society which is run at the University and mentioned about how we could engage other communities such as students at the University. The more communities we got involved the stronger the emotion embedded within the products would be. Each object would be made by a group of people, all from various communities and all engaged with creating something special for someone moving into their first home. How special could this item be?

The idea of involving other communities really got us excited. We thought of how we could do this effectively knowing that we have a limited time to generate the samples (it's 3 weeks until the last possible date for any workshops!) and baring in mind our commitments to other projects and work etc. Then it hit us, couldn't we create packs which would include everything the user would need to create a embroidered sample? These could be given out to students, friends and family for them to complete and return by a set date. The samples could be returned either to us or to one of our drawers in the Textiles department. This would allow us to generate samples without expecting anyone to donate anything but a little bit of their time and care without requiring us being their to monitor progress as the workshops will.

So, the new plan:

- Organise workshops with the Live at Home group where we will explain our project and how their contribution will mean so much. We will take fabric swatches, needles, threads etc. and engage directly with the group as we all create samples. The social engagement involved works in partnership with the organisations aims to reduce the feeling of isolation elderly people living independently can experience. This will be run by Julie on Thursday to see if she thinks it's appropriate and wants to give us the OK to go ahead!

- Create envelopes to be given out to friends, family and in University. These will contain everything needed to create a beautiful sample for our project such as a fabric swatch, needle, threads, embellishments such as buttons and beads and information explaining the project.

- Each fabric swatch (both for use in the workshops and the envelopes) will have a label attached to it which will be filled in by the participant saying their name, what stitches they have added and a kind message. These labels will provide the information for us to put on the gift tags included with the end object, translating the unique story. We are hoping the tags will offer reassurance, showing the amount of people who care about the individual receiving the item, as they go through what can be a very lonely process of moving into a house on their own.

As the Live at Home group is made up of individuals who can feel isolated at home it feels fitting that they will potentially be involved in a social project which is creating a object to reassure another individual who may be going through the same emotions. It feels like a very natural connection that will positively affect only those receiving the items but those contributing to the project too.

We recapped how we could get the After School club involved by doing a drawing workshop to create samples through sublimation printing. It would be good if we could do this as it would involve another completely different community (the children are aged 5-11, a complete contrast to the Live at Home community!) in the project, however I have concerns about the amount of time we have left to run workshops and whether we would be able to achieve this logistically.

I honestly can't wait for our meeting with Julie on Thursday now! I'm really keen to get the ball rolling with generating samples and products as I'm finding this concept really inspiring. Hopefully Julie will like our concept and think it will work well with the members of the Live at Home group!

Dress A Girl Around The World

To date Dress A Girl Around The World has delivered 200,000 dresses to girls living in poverty around the world. The foundation believes that every little girl deserves to own at least one pretty dress and asks volunteers to sew together a dress which could be made from something so simple as a pillow case. It's a cause that tugs on the heart strings as each dress makes the girls, who are often victims of neglect and abuse, feel like they are loved and cared for. It's amazing how something so simple can have such a positive emotional impact on a individual.

The project is another example of how a little time and care when creating a item can really positively impact on a less fortunate individuals life. It's a really inspiring way of working and really reflects the way we want our items for the Home Starter Pack to be embedded with love.

The Innocent Big Knit

Similarly to the way we plan to collect community donations, Innocent Smoothies have been running The Innocent Big Knit in collaboration with Age UK.

As many elderly people struggle to stay warm and healthy over the winter months The Innocent Big Knit asks volunteers to knit a little hat for one of their smoothie bottles to wear. A million of their smoothie bottles were dressed up in these little hats before they went on sale in November and for every bottle purchased Innocent Smoothies donated 25p to Age UK to help the elderly! Some of the amazing examples are shown below.

For those who don't know how to knit (like myself!) there is the Big Knitter. This gives options for hat styles, colours and embellishments for you to 'knit' a hat online. You can then share your knit directly to Facebook or Twitter and for every 'knit' shared Innocent Smoothies donates 10p to Age UK. I've really got excited about involvement in community projects while working on this brief and you can see my 'knit' below.

This project reflects how we are aiming to engage the community with crafts in order to create a positive impact on the lives of vulnerable individuals. the use of social media has clearly been successful for The Innocent Big Knit and I think we should consider exploring how we could utilise this within our own project. The Big Knitter also allows those who are perhaps less practical to engage with the project making it accessible to a wider audience, it's not limited to those with knitting abilities. This reflects how we are considering using donation boxes to generate materials for our project as this will also allow those who are less engaged with crafts to contribute to the project.