Our Sewing Bee is involved in a very special project.
We've been asked by our Parish Council to make a quilted wall hanging to represent stories from our village from 100 years ago.
A group called Wendover Remembers have been working to document details about life in our village during the First Word War. The names on our war memorials have been researched, village school rolls and church records as well as pictures and documents from the local RAF base.
The first stage was that Claire from PlainStitch met with lots of lots of local groups, from the Art Group to all 3 local church denominations, to the curator of the RAF Museum and archive, and heard their stories.
We then worked very hard to take all of the rich ideas and images we had gathered and turn them into deigns that could be made in fabric.
We also planned a spectacular sea of fabric poppies made by the youngest and oldest members of our village.
We then took these ideas to our Sewing Bee and asked for volunteers..........
We had so many offers of help!
....all of the fabrics were donated by Bee members and generous interested members of the public
We traced and cut out almost 150 poppies, green backgrounds and brown centres.
9 kind people offered to sew the main blocks
Two very brave ladies took on the organisation of our sewing trips into local schools and a residential care home.
More than 20 people gave up their time in the hottest week of the year to come into school and sew with little kiddies
Today we gathered for our last Bee before the summer and we, for the first time, had all of the elements of our quilt together.....and it looks glorious!!!!!
From donated scraps of fabric to fabulous pieces of fabric art with just the addition of a little sewing magic. I couldn't be prouder of the wonderful women from our group.
We took the joy of sewing and creating out into our local community and we all had a ball! We sewed with little kiddies aged under 7, with bigger kids up to age 11 and with the most wonderful older ladies at our village residential home. It was an experience of the purest kind of joy. We had fun, they had fun, we shared a sewing experience and we all went home richer. It's what social sewing is about. The rather wonderful Jane from our village newspaper The Wendover News has documented the whole process with such wonderful photographs.
Now I have to turn it all into an actual quilt..gulp...I feel quite the weight of expectation on my shoulders, but can't wait to see it all together! We return to The Wendover Sewing Bee in Sept and i'll show you my progress then. In the meantime, over the summer....try and find a way to work some social sewing into your lives. Call a friend, invite a neighbour over, and connect- it's the best x
