VI work bits

Some more bits made for work recently ~

Many of our children use a set of 7 books called Finger Phonics, the originals of which have quite busy illustrations.
They are a slightly more up to date version of the Jolly Phonics series.

For a child with visual impairment, any overwhelming, dark or seriously multi coloured illustrations can make using what eyesight they have, 
that much more difficult.
So I make adapted versions with simplified illustrations for our children to use and lay Braille over the text.
You can see the originals being used in this short video clip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdjUODdNyz4

and here are some pages of the adapted books I make with some tactile elements.

The bird bit is to symbolise the oo in cuckoo and the bird waggles to and fro.

This is a black out blanket I was asked to make with an emergency foil blanket stitched to the underside.
It is to be used to cover a child's head in a wheelchair, so the teacher and child are tucked beneath it, probably with a UV light I imagine.
Actually I had a length of grey suiting and ironed black Vilene onto it to give it more density, then spray glued the foil onto that, then machine stitched the edges with a hem.
It has a better drape to it with the suiting, rather than using the black out fabric you get nowadays.

And this below is a prototype chair back hold all, for some of our PD children to use in class.
The teacher gave me measurements, which were wrong lol so I had to reduce the width and adapt the pocket sizes to get it right.
Now it's the correct size and design needed, I have made a pattern and  will need to make several more but in less "vibrant" fabric apparently lol.  

Lucy Anne Harding at Cober Hill - 2

Right let's see if Blogger will post the pics the right way up for me this time : )

I screen printed 6 pieces of fabric and worked on 2 of them but can only show one of them at the moment.

Rather than machine applique the one (on the right) that I can show you now, I hand stitched this one and this is it so far.
The door fabric, screen printed as a background, is a design that Lucy created herself and it represents all the various doors of customers that she, her father and her grandfather delivered milk to!
Don't you just love that nostalgic commemoration in fabric of what was a whole village life, a social history of times past.
Lives lived, often well off the beaten track and away from the urban towns of supermarket living.
Where communities relied on each other to get through the winter weather or family crisis!
The times they are a changing ....
Lucy gave us all a tote bag and had designed a logo for our group weekend, which thrilled us all no end!
We could choose our colours and screen print them ourselves too,
so a double bonus! I chose purple : )
She also gave us a Guterman goody bag each with brochures and a spool of 100% recycled Sew-all thread! Recycled thread!
Cober Hill three chocolate puddings - 2 were delicious!!

some shots of the gardens

This was the closest thing I could find that even resembled a hexi over the weekend lol

Some of the lace makers work below .. and Bloggers posting the pics skew whiff again : (

And this is a huge aerial shot of Cober Hill and Cloughton, great idea for a quilt yes?
No. I wont be making it lol

Lucy Harding at Cober Hill, Cloughton, Scarborough

Our stitchy club has a weekend away, with a tutor, each year and this year I went along  : )
Many of you overseas call this kind of gathering together, a 'retreat', which always makes me think of spiritual yoga poses and meditative stitching lol
Well we did the meditative stitching ( and screen printing with the lovely Lucy Harding who was our tutor for the weekend) without the yoga!
Although some of us did raise our arms repetitively at meal times when the bar was open, despite the Rowntrees having been well known Quakers, who of course didn't drink.

We went to Cober Hill which is in Cloughton, just north of Scarborough and is a delightful old building. 
John Wilhelm Rowntree, of the York chocolate family had the idea that there should be a centre where people who worked in education, social service, voluntary and charitable activities could go to have conferences and training.
His cousin Arnold was the one however who in 1920 bought a lovely old Victorian House and provided families and groups with an alternative family holiday venue as well as conference facilities.
He was very keen on adult education and I'm sure the trustees have successfully fulfilled his wishes and groups like our own, are able to stay, hire a workshop room and be well fed whilst there in a charming old house with quite delightful grounds.
A lace making group also stayed last weekend and Cober Hill offer several tutor led craft courses of their own too. We had arranged for the tutor for this weekend after she had given an interesting talk at club for us.
Here's Lucy helping one of our group.

I found this really lovely blog post about Lucy and I couldn't do a
better job, so please nip over to Creative Recycling and see Lucy's
work so beautifully presented, for yourself.
Gosh Lucy, hasn't your hair grown!!
http://www.creativelyrecycling.com/2012/07/lucy-anne-harding.html

Lucy patiently taught us how to screen print and brought screens for us to use and play with. It was really good fun and she actually made up a screen for me from a drawing I had done, which was really kind of her and others used that one too.
The idea was that we could learn to screen print, make a few prints and then she talked us through her technique for appliqueing things onto the screen prints.
Well here's a few members work and honestly there were some fantastic pieces, some of which were virtually completed by sunday afternoon!

From this

                                                    to this!

                                                From this

                                                   to this

                                            and here's some more!

Above is a picture of the flat capped giant statue, that was donated to Scarborough by a lady who bought it because she so loved the seaside resort.
http://www.thescarboroughnews.co.uk/news/sculpture-to-get-thank-you-plaque-1-4056554

 

 

                          Oh Blogger! why this way up? ~#'><

 

 

Okay Blogger is playing up so going to try and split this post!