Somme 100: Poppy Patterns

Work in progress on patterns

I love the diversity of my work, I love the different opportunities that come my way and the chance to work with lots of different organisations on different projects. I have just finished designing two patterns for Cumbria's Museum of Military Life, which records the history of Cumbria's County Infantry Regiment. The patterns I have designed are a knitted poppy and a crocheted poppy.

Working on the train: Trying different shapes

The patterns are available on the museums website and are part of a larger project commemorating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. The aim of this part of the project is to create a knitted or crocheted poppy for each soldier of the Border Regiment who died during the Somme. The poppies will be displayed from the windows of the museum building, each month more poppies will be added to the display, corresponding with the number of men who died that month in the Somme 100 years ago.

Knitted Poppy

Detail

In total the museum are aiming to make 1700 poppies. It is very difficult to know exactly how many people died and when they died. A soldier may have been injured during the battle and died from his wounds many weeks or even months later. There were also of course other Cumbrian's not in the Border regiment who died in the Somme but in order for the project to work there has to be some parameters. I hope that rather than getting caught up in agonising over exact numbers people will recognise that a huge number of individuals lost their lives and each of those lives was significant and this project commemorates them all.

Crocheted Poppy

Creating these patterns was surprisingly challenging, not because they were difficult to make but because part of the brief was to make the patterns accessible to beginners. I spent a lot of time stitching and un-stitching trying to get a shape that worked but that would be easy to re-create. Hopefully I've managed that but we will see! As part of my efforts to keep the pattern simple I chose to use the stylised shape of the poppy used by the British Legion.

If you'd like to get involved with the project please contact the museum, there are a lot of poppies to make!

Knit fast, Die Warm

My completed jumper

I began this jumper in January last year (2013) and have finally finished it. I don't have a great track record with finishing jumpers in a timely fashion, I get distracted and do other things and so although this project has taken over a year and a half for the vast majority of that time it's been sat in my knitting bag doing nothing. I realise it is therefore somewhat contradictory to have 'knit fast' knitted on it but it amuses me, and it is very warm. Also, one cardigan took me seven years to complete so actually this was pretty speedy in comparison! Knitting is my therapy, I do it to relax and for enjoyment so I don't really mind how long something takes.

Knitted hot water bottle cover

Getting started

A few years ago I designed and made a hot water bottle cover with a very similar design on the front. I thought at the time it would make a good jumper but knowing the chances of me making it any time soon were slim it stayed as an idea for quite a while. Eventually, many projects later, I decided the time was nigh and I started to look for basic patterns that I could just add my chart to. I was going to design a pattern myself but decided that this would increase the length of time it would take me to complete the jumper by too much, I actually quite wanted to wear it.

Chart knitted, now all the black...

After a bit of interwebbing I found a free pattern on the Lion Brand website that I thought would work. It is knitted all in one piece and is nice and slouchy, which is what I was after. I'd never knitted a jumper that was all one piece before and I don't think I would again. Because the sleeves aren't set in (the jumper is a classic 'T' shape) it is a bit bulky under the arms but this is a minor niggle and I think I will get used to it. I also found that the sleeves were very short (or I maybe just have monkey arms) so I ended up extending the cuffs by about 30 rows. I used Fashion Aran by King Cole, a wool/acrylic mix. It feels very nice, hopefully it will wash well too. I also re-charted my design as the needles were a bit wrong on my first attempt for the hot water bottle cover. I used knitters graph paper and drew out my design in pencil, altering it until I was happy.

The jumper on

Monkey arms

One 'slight' mistake I made was starting the chart too soon, so there is quite a big gap between the neck edge and the design due to a slight mathematical miscalculation and being over cautious ( I didn't want to run out of space for the chart.) However, I have decided to embrace this space as my necklace space, and I shall just wear a pendant necklace kind of thing when I wear this jumper. I should also have worked backwards and done the back first because then I would have got my chart in the right place and had something to look forward to; because I did the chart first I then just had acres of boring black stocking stitch!

Cuff detail

Side detail

Overall I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out, I wanted a cosy casual jumper with a funky design and that's what I've ended up with.

Design detail

Chicken Bunting and even more Exciting Interiors!

Mirror of Bling

If you loved the chicken wallpaper you are in for a real treat, this week the No Borders art group came up with more excellent ideas and continued to create beautiful things. Having completed her kitchen the lady who made the chicken wallpaper was ready for another challenge. The group are working towards an exhibition and I've always thought of exhibitions as rather celebratory events and what celebration is complete without bunting?

Chicken drawing

Cutting stencils

Cutting stencils

Following a similar process as for making the wallpaper we started by drawing chickens, we then used the drawings to make stencils to print with. One of the aims of working with the No Borders group is to help develop the support workers skills as well as the skills of the service users so I asked the support workers to make the stencils, it is quite a difficult task as it is often hard to visualise what the stencil will look like when printed up and it is difficult to work out which bits to cut out and which bits to leave. I considered this a successful session because both support workers made stencils that will work really well to print with and both hopefully feel more confident.

Printing

Yellow chickens

Red chicken

The mirror of great bling was also completed this week, it looks great in the 'room.' We also made a table covered with beautiful handmade paper and the group member chose designs for her sofa and chairs. It was a really good session because the person was able to start identifying exactly what it was she liked about the chairs and sofas she had cut out of magazines and this really helped her understand the design process.

The room so far

Table with handmade paper

Marvellous Mood Boards

Mood board for a bedroom

Back in 2012 I did a series of textile sessions with the guys from No Borders Art Group, a group from Carlton Day Services who have been working with Prism Arts  to develop their creative and artistic skills. I really enjoyed the project and was really pleased when I was asked back to do some more sessions with them.

Building  mood board layer by layer

Looking for inspiration

This time we are looking at interior design and we are going to make model rooms. This follows on from a project that the group did with another artist where they made model houses. So, to start off with I thought it would be very helpful (and fun) to make some mood boards. I think that mood boards are a great way of sorting through ideas as they help bring lots of different elements (colour, texture, shape and so on) together in a visual way that makes it easy to pick out themes and create an atmosphere (hence the name mood board.)

Working together

A very precise approach

We used papers, magazines, ribbons and fabrics in our mood boards and I love that each persons is quite different and the way they approached it was quite different. I'm really looking forward to getting going on the models and seeing their ideas come to life.

Finished mood board

Finished mood board

Finished mood board

Mechanical Circus: Automata Workshops

George slaying the Dragon Automata

Throughout November I was busy running a series of workshops in schools across Cumbria and up to Dumfries for Tullie House. The workshops involved me working with Keystage 2 children to help them make simple automata. In February Tullie House has a big automata exhbition coming up, called Mechanical Circus and the idea of these workshops was to stir up interest. The main exhibition will be in the art gallery and in the foyer some of the automata made during the workshops will also be on display.

My samples

My samples

I have blogged a little about this project before and it was something I was really looking forward to, and now having delivered the workshops I can say how much I enjoyed it. It was great working with all the different schools, the teachers and students were so enthusiastic and had some fantastic ideas. I was very impressed with the automata they have made and can't wait to see them on show in Tullie House.

Putting the mechanism together

Checking the mechanism is in the right position

In the workshops I introduced cams and then each child made their own simple automata with a cam mechanism that made an element either spin or move up and down. I designed the project so that it would be possible for each child to make a moving model and so I chose cams as it is a relatively simple mechanism and easy to get right. So, for more mechanically minded students they could see what they could make a cam do and for those more interested in visual things there was the option of really going crazy with the decoration. I did provide templates for the decoration but encouraged people to come up with their own designs as much as possible. There were some amazing creations including a chattering skull, a trampolinist and a beautiful ballerina to name a few.

Getting creative

Beautiful balloon and scenery

One of the things I really enjoyed about these workshops was how differently the students approached things and the different aspects of the project that they either excelled at or struggled with. Some groups got to grips with the mechanism straight away but struggled with design ideas whilst other classes were the other way round.

Seal balancing a ball

And a door to show how it works

I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project and I hope to do more work in schools in the future. All the schools I visited were friendly and welcoming and seemed to value what I was doing. I think that workshops like this are a great opportunity for the students to try something a bit different and really get to test their creativity. I was truly inspired and impressed with some of the work that the children produced and I'm excited to have been part of it, I hope that I have inspired some of the students to try new things and be a bit more confident in their abilities.

Seal with a bouncing ball

Twirling ballerina

George Howard Envelope Workshops #2

Mixed media collage

Last week I ran the second of my envelope workshops at William Howard School in Brampton. It was quite a different group to last time but once again they came up with some excellent ideas and made some lovely work. I'm really looking forward to seeing the work up in Tullie House for the George Howard exhibition in a couple of weeks.

Design inspired by Olympic stamp

Collage and pencil envelope

The workshop was inspired by George Howard's imaginative envelope designs that he created when writing to his children. It was interesting that to start of with this group chose to do their own variations on the designs I had done rather than coming up with their own ideas. However, as the day progressed and they became more confident they became more willing to try out different ideas.

Trying out 3D ideas

Experimenting with materials

There was a very large quantity of sequins used in this workshop, one group in particular were very keen on shiny things and it was amazing quite how much glue and quite how many sequins they could get onto one envelope! I like seeing how some of the students really respond to the different materials where as others are much happier with something they know, like colouring pencils. I think workshops like this are a great opportunity for students to try something different and experiment in a relaxed environment without fear of it being 'wrong.'

Imaginative fire design

Landscape Collage

Olympic inspired envelope progressing

Design inspired by 'lion' stamps