The View From Here - Celebrating Our Time Together

Everything changes and life is punctuated by beginnings and endings

We have had a wonderful two years working on the Grange Estate and at The Green Patch

The View From Here was funded by the HealthBelief which is a Community Interest Company committed to raising money to address health inequalities in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. 

51 Community Interest Companies raising money to address health inequalities across England, Scotland and Wales through The Health Lottery.

Through this funding we have been able to bring high quality arts / crafts workshops to members of the community in a deprived area of Kettering, We have strengthened our links with The Green Patch and have made public artworks that have brought life, colour and joy to this wonderful community growing space. 

Everyone felt proud and happy to see what they had achieved

We had a fantastic celebratory picnic and we know that project participants from the Grange have made a great connection with staff and volunteers at The Green Patch. Rick, Jenny, Michelle, Bekka and all the children will be visiting, volunteering and taking in community events at The Green Patch in the future which feels like a lovely legacy to leave, apart from all the artwork! 

Back To Books would like to thank Sue, Nigel, Kate, Becky, Lucy from the Groundworks team who have made us so welcome at The Green Patch, Rik and Jen who have been our stalwarts at Grange Place, Michelle who has been our Pied Piper bringing our participants from Kettering Buccleuch Academy, but most of all we would like to thank our artists Carole Miles and Phiona Richards who have made this project so special.

Although our funding comes to an end in mid 

August the relationships we have forged will continue 

and we will be actively looking for funding 

to continue delivering exciting community based projects. 

If you like our work you can make a donation 

towards future projects via our Local Giving Page

You can revisit all the seasons and activities we have travelled through here  

Threads and Chatter - Squares With Flair Part 2 and 3

Artist Phiona Richards is a firm believer in taking time to pass on skills and cleverly broke down making our Squares With Flair into three compact sessions.

We had drawn our designs and they 

had been ironed onto the calico.

Our next task was to design and 

cut out hands and feet from felt.

Our characters would also need 

eyes, nose and mouths

Choices, choices - so many decisions, 

many threads and much chatter!

In week three Phiona brought her beloved

hand-crank sewing machine Jones

and we had great fun learning how to sew 

our seams together before adding the filling.

As you can see our Squares With Flair

have bundles of personality, just like our group!

 See all of the images from this project here

If you live in the Avondale / Grange ward do join us again

for our next Threads and Chatter session 

1st of March 3.30 - 5.15

The Resource Centre, 

9 Grange Place, Kettering. 

NN16 0NT

The sessions are free.

Threads and Chatter - Watch the Birdie!

We've been threading and
chattering with the ever inventive

 Phiona Richards who
showed us how to make 

birds from wool, wire, paper and felt.

We wound lengths of wool 

around pieces of card

snipped the ended and kept 

them together with a band.

Carole's bird was a wee bit plump!

Here here some some more rare birds !

If you live in the Avondale / Grange ward do join us again 

Tuesday 26th January

The Resource Centre, 

9 Grange Place, Kettering. 

NN16 0NT

Phiona will be running her inventive, creative 

session between 3.30 and 5.00pm

Sessions and refreshments are family friendly, fun and free!

Threads and Chatter - Pompom Bag Charms

Inspite of the dark stormy afternoon we had a lovely turn out for out first Threads and Chatter session of the New year in our new venue, The Resource Centre in Grange Place. Artist Phiona Richards lead us through an intriguing method of creating small pompoms using wool and a fork!

We added beads and a keyring attachment 

to create stylish bag charms

See more from the session here

 Phiona was highly amused at the amount 

of tying off thread Abby had left her!

It was also great to catch up with Rick who shared photographs of his wonderful, award winning wildlife garden. He was full of hints and tips on what to plant and showed us the wide variety of moths that had been seen in his garden. We have invited ourselves round for a tour this year when the garden is in full bloom!

If you live in the Avondale / Grange ward do join us again 

Tuesday 19th January

The Resource Centre, 

9 Grange Place, Kettering. 

NN16 0NT

Carole will have the kettle on between 2.30 and 3.30 pm

Phiona will be running her inventive, creative 

session between 3.30 and 5.00pm

Sessions and refreshments are family friendly, fun and free!

Sign Up For free Threads and Chatter Family Sessions!

As part of Back To Books Project The View From Here, Phiona Richards and I will be holding free Threads and Chatter sessions at a as yet to be determined venue in the Avondale Grange Ward. If you live in this area and would like to take part follow this link  and fill in the days that best suit you. These are free, family friendly sessions please add each adult and child that will be taking part. Particpants must live in the Avondale Grange Ward.

You can see some of the things we made at KBA and The Green Patch here and here

Please feel free to share the link with anyone else in the Avondale / Grange area you think might enjoy taking part.

This project has been made possible by funding from Health Belief - 51 Community Interest Companies raising money to address health inequalities across England, Scotland and Wales through The Health Lottery.

Threads and Chatter at KBA With Phiona Richards

A lovely box of threads, a room full of chatter

during our May session at KBA

where artist Phiona Richards had the group 

in stitches as she showed participants

 how to design and make

a beautiful felt bookmark.

You can read Phiona's lovely Blog about the session here

and view the whole photo set here.

Image above courtesy of Phiona Rhichards

Stealing a March Out on the Grange

Out exploring the Grange we met Mark Dainty

who has just opened a new independent bike shop, Cycle Mad.

Mark believes is in the same unit as a bike shop in the '50s - Garleys and showed us a photograph of another branch of Garleys which used to be in Kettering town centre. Cycle Mad has charted its opening via its Facebook page. The shop is located on Hampden Crescent, Kettering.

Mark is a mine of information and well worth a visit!

We also spotted a tree being felled

Racing cars

and a bear which we shared with Grayson Perry's 

Twitter feed @AlanMeasles!

All the images from March walks can be found here

Here's a Snapshot of January on the Green Patch, Our Project Base

You can see the full set here