My whippet Logan investigating Common Dog Violets growing wild under trees on our morning walk. I had been thinking about the Suffragette colours and the type of flowers we could sew onto our Made in Corby PROCESSIONS banner. The group want the banner to be simple, striking and effective and decided that each participant should make a flower to represent themselves on the banner. These beautiful little wild flowers jumped out at me - I had hoped that they might be Viola Odorata which has many Uses and Recipes but these had no fragrance so I assume they are Common Dog Violets.
Photo by John Groom’s Crippleage And Flower Girl’s Mission.
Image courtesy of People’s History Museum
I made a pattern for everyone to use during our session
and played with some different colours
and textures using silks, linen and felt
showing that they could be hand or machine sewn.
We want our banner to have lots of different textures so we also invited all of our group to make a gutta outline of our flower on silk. Some of the silk had been donated by a friend who's dear Aunt had passed away last year, she was an avid crafter, very stylish and her nephew lives in the Old Village in Corby so it is lovely to be able to up-cycle a little of her legacy within our banner. Next week we will paint them with silk paints.
We had asked our group to raid their button tins as we felt that all these collected buttons from garments saved by women who were dear to us would make a fitting tribute to their strength, fortitude and inventiveness. See how we use them as our project progresses.
Our group cut out their patterns, chose their materials and were introduced to the wonders of Bondaweb a double sided iron on adhesive attached to a transfer paper which makes bonding tricky fabrics together so much easier.
Fabrics ironed onto Bondaweb
then cut and placed on a support fabric
and ironed into place.
Our fabric basket after participants had made their choices!
We are very lucky to be able to have our sessions at Swan Gardens and as you can see we are surrounded by variations of violet, white and green!
One of the beauties of being able to work as a pair and as the Eloquent Fold is we are able to circulate, share our skills and collect stories as we move from table to table. Last week were joined by some of the residents who shared their memories about changes in Corby and in the lives of women since they were girls.
"I have just realised that all women only got the vote after I was born in 1926, women over 21 only got the vote in 1928."
"Women didn't talk as openly in those days as they do now."
"Mother and Grandmother were strong women and I had a great friend who was so kind, would do anything to help you if you needed help"
"Granny was a strong woman"
"I must have knitted miles of wool in my lifetime, but my hands are not up to it now."
Many thanks to Emma Gough and Tess Porter
for sharing some of their thoughts with us.
We gave those that wanted some, embroidery threads so they could continue to work on on their pieces at home. Phiona and I are very excited to see how each flower will be transformed! It was another excellent evening, lots of conversations took place whilst all the choosing, outlining, cutting and sewing was taking place and everyone pitched in to help where they could.
100 Hundred Years 100 Hundred Banners
