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  

Bunting For The Green Patch Part 2

Phiona Richards lead a lovely outdoor session at The Green Patch to create more bunting, here are some of the fabulous designs made by the children.

You can see the full set here 

Threads and Chatter - Moon Rabbits

Phiona Richards had us hop to it this week!

Take one sock

snip a bit off here and there

take some wool and make a tail

add some stitches and stuffing,

draw a face and a neat bow tie

 and a neat bow tie

give each other a helping hand

and Hey Presto you have a Moon Rabbit

....or a hat!

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

for our next Threads and Chatter session 

15th of March 3.30 - 5.15

The Resource Centre, 

9 Grange Place, Kettering. 

NN16 0NT

The sessions are free.

Threads and Chatter - Paper Plate / Woven Tree

Another inventive session with our lovely Phiona Richards who showed us how to create a colourful tree from a paper plate, paint and threads

We chose a limited palette of paint

and painted a geometric, abstract background

taking care to make distinct areas of colour.

we cut slots in the top and bottom of the plate

 and added a series of horizontal threads.

Phiona then showed us how to weave our tree,

it took patience and concentration

and the results were just fabulous!

See more images from the session here

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

for our next Threads and Chatter session 

8th of March 3.30 - 5.15

The Resource Centre, 

9 Grange Place, Kettering. 

NN16 0NT

The sessions are free.

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 - Character Squares

Our lovely artist Phiona Richards decided that our next Threads and Chatter project would be a three session event. She thought it would be great fun if everyone designed and made a square character soft toy.

We wrote words to describe our characters

then drew our designs, 

using fabric crayons on paper, 

inspired by our words.

 Everyone drew very different patterns and 

Phiona took them away to be 

ironed onto the calico. 

We can't wait to see how they turn out!

As an added bonus Phiona taught us how to fold a square Flexigon

here is a lovely video tutorial if you would like to try it yourself!

Did you know that flexigons can help you with your maths?

You can download and print out a ready designed one here

Our group thought they also made good square masks!

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

Tuesday 9th of February

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!