Celebrating Our Senses - Walk 7 - Direction

Our Mindfulness meditation - Direction - was lead by Carolyn Bantin Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one's attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment, which can be developed through the practice of meditation. It was a dreary day, we were coming to the end of the project, we decided to take things slow.

We retraced part of a walk made with Miles and Dacombe during Light Walks For Dark Days using a Fortune Teller to guide our steps. 

We collected a series of images of interesting doors

see more here

We visited Dulleys Museum,  played the penny arcade machines.

looked at the old school books, remembered favourite toys.

We made plans for the end of project celebration in March 

and made button tree keyrings.

and were able to have our picnic in the Museum.

Horsing Around at Grange Place

A lovely up-cycling / recycling project at Grange Place,these plywood hobby horse heads came from the local scrap recycling store. They provided a great support for pattern making and paint. They were going to become planter markers at The Green Patch but everyone was so proud of their work they wanted to put them in their own gardens! You can see more here

Bunting for the Green Patch Spring Fete Part 1

Sue at The Green Patch asked if we might be able to help create lots of bunting for the Green Patch Spring Fete so Carole showed us how to use glittery fabric paint, rollers, stamps and brushes to create our own lengths of fabric.

Once dry and ironed the fabric was cut into pennant shapes

ready to be sewn into lengths of bunting.

Our lovely Michelle made a beautiful crochet and appliqued line of bunting with letters spelling out The Green Patch and adorned with gardening inspired buttons. Here are Abby, Brendan and Holly proudly holding it out for us to see. Wonderful work! 

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

for our next Threads and Chatter session 

May 3rd 3.15 - 5.15

The Resource Centre, 

9 Grange Place, Kettering. 

NN16 0NT

The sessions are free.

Heart Felt

Carole worked with people at 

Grange Place and The Green Patch

where pairs of felt hearts were chosen

and a design applied by needle felting.

 Lots of care was taken not to stab fingers in the process!

The pairs of hearts were then sewn together, a small

gap was left open to add stuffing then sewn up.

 If you would like to show someone a little love

Grow Wild have a downloadable card to colour here

Hearts and wild flowers, what could be nicer!

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

for our next Threads and Chatter session 

Tuesday 23rd of February

The Resource Centre, 

9 Grange Place, Kettering. 

NN16 0NT

Phiona Richards 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 - 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!

Solar Print Bags

Sue had found some small pillow cases at the local scrap store and suggested to Carole that they might make good eco friendly shopping bags. Carole had some solar paints in her box of tricks and sent the group out to collect interesting leaves, flowers and grasses to make our solar prints from. 

The fabric was dampened and the pint was applied 

the leaves and flowers were laid on top and the pieces were carefully taken out into the sun so the paint could work it's photo magic! There were a few tricky moments, the wind kept twitching at the fabric, moving the carefully places stencils, the sun rain in and out of the clouds and finally everything had to be brought back inside as it began to rain!

After the shower passed and the sun returned the bags to be were taken out again to complete the developing process. We managed to create some beautiful, almost under water images and it was intriguing to see which leaves worked best.

we attached handles

stamped on The Green Patch

and left them ready to be fixed with a hot iron.

Great work everyone!

April Blooms - Out and About on the Grange

There have been some gorgeous blooms

in gardens and pathways in 

our postcode area this April.

Artist Phiona Richards paid another 

Threads and Chatter visit to KBA

creating books from recycled papers

and demonstrating how to make an origami butterfly

you can see a slightly longer clip here 

and more photos here

Carole Miles joined the gang at The Resource Centre

for some knitting and nattering - rumour has it Carole

was cutting out fabric to up-cycle at The Green Patch

Open day whilst there

she managed to snap a rare red lurex hedgehog.

Meanwhile down at The Green Patch 

baking was taking place

the children made Rhubarb crumble - yum!

They have also been adding to 

their View From Here books.

We can't believe just how fast the year is rushing past.

For more of the flavour of April out in our postcode area

follow this link and see what has been in bloom this spring.