Rockcliffe Banner

Some of the students I was working with. This picture was in the News and Star

After much stress and stitching I finally got the rings finished for the banner I've been making with Rockcliffe C of E Primary School. One of the teachers very kindly saved me much stress by putting the banner together for me ready for the torch parade through Carlisle. Whilst making the rings I realised that there is a very good reason why people don't make 3D banners; they're time consuming and don't hold their shape easily! However, the finished result was (I hope) worth all the effort.

Patches ready for stitching

Stitching the patches together

Ring made and drying off

I enjoyed working with the children and staff at the school so much and hope to work with them again. It was great working with enthusiastic people open to giving things a go and getting involved. After I'd worked with the children we did a 'parents evening' for parents and members of the community to come and see what the students had been up to and to have a go themselves. The patches resulting from this session were made into the red ring.

The rings laid out in my living room-this thing is huge!

Detail of the rings

Red ring

Red detail

Green detail (collagraphs)

Red detail (screen print)

Can you guess what it is yet?

Small Puffer fish

Well it's clearly a puffer fish used as a ball during a game of underwater tennis. You'd have to be crazy not to know that! As mentioned previously (see Spheres) I'm involved in several projects connected with certain events occurring this summer in Londinium.

I've been working as a support worker for Prism Arts for a little while now and it's such a great job. The artists and service users are all fantastic and it's just so much fun. Our current project is a studio theatre taster course which will culminate in a street theatre performance in Carlisle when the torch comes to town. Our piece basically centres on the games being somewhat taken over by aliens, both good and bad, and us all being saved by power rangers. It has also resulted in my having a lot of fun with my sewing machine; making alien faces, puppets, fish rackets and an underwater tennis player, and with my felting needles, making the aforementioned puffer fish. I love my job.

Eyes

Tentacles

Large puffer fish

Another large puffer fish

Tentacles or spines?

Spheres!

Two of the completed spheres

Later this month a torch connected with certain happenings in the capital is passing through Carlisle (not once but twice!) I've managed to get myself entangled, sorry involved, with three different groups taking part in the celebrations. On the day I'll be involved with a street theatre performance with Prism Arts, I'm making a banner with Rockcliffe C of E Primary School (more on both of these in other posts coming soon!) and the other group is my 'day job' The Heathlands Project. For the parade we're putting up a marquee so my colleague Helen Tuck and I have been busy making a covering and decorations for the marquee. I thought instead of Olympic rings I would make spheres using fabric so that if it rains they can just get wet and drip dry afterwards. They will also be re-usable for other events. They're really simple to make, just circles of fabric and a bit of stitching. Stiffer fabrics work better and it takes quite a bit of fabric so I've been scrabbling around trying to find as many pieces as possible in all the relevant colours!

Thinner fabrics bunch up

Stiffer fabrics hold their shape better

Detail

Detail

View from above