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

Shelagh's Morsbag Pod

After The Green Patch Open Day our lovely Shelagh was so inspired by the Morsbags that were given away she decided to set up her own Grange Pod.  Morsbags help us to use up materials that may be languishing in a cupboard and help to create shopping bags that are a joy to use and don't add to the problems created by environmentally harmful plastic bags.

Carole popped along to donate some material for the venture.

Here are some of Shelagh's first bags

made following the Morsbag pattern

You can watch a How To video here

What a great idea!

Later, at The Green Patch 

we made peppermint creams

and our gift bag project continued!

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.

December Threads and Chatter at KBA

 Working with artist Phiona Richards young people 

and their parents from the KBA 

have been exploring threads and making conversation! 

we have been recycling cardboard, making patterns 

and winding threads to make decorations for the festive season, or any season!

 

After all our hard work we deserved a healthy snack!

As you can see we all had a fantastic time 

creating and recycling together!

You can see more images from this set here 

Hanging Out on the Line

Working with artist Carole Miles young people from the Avondale Grange Ward have been making screen prints for Christmas stockings and sacks at the Green Patch Community Allotments in Margaret Rd / Valley Walk, Kettering. We cut paper stencils and used textile inks and screen printing equipment to transfer our designs onto fabric that had once been covers for shelving units.

Prints drying in Carole's living room.

All prints were ironed at The Resource Centre, fronts were trimmed and backs were cut from a fabric sample book before being sewn together to create stockings or sacks. 

The stockings then became a temporary installation hung on a line attached to some trees growing just off Stamford Rd, very cose to a textile recycling bin and within our postcode area for the whole View From Here project. 

The installation gave us the opportunity to talk to passing members of the community and to tell them about the project. 

The children will take their stockings home just before Christmas to share with friends and family during the festive season.

This has been the start of The Binding Thread aspect of our project in which we will be using textiles to explore toughts, feelings, memories and ideas.  

This installation was an simple and effective way of altering the view, caused a few raised eyebrows and sparked some interest in our project. You can see more images here.

The View From ... KBA

Artist Phiona Richards supported by Carole Miles had their first Threads and Chatter session with a group of parents, grandparents and children at Kettering Buccleuch Academy in Weekly Glebe Road.

It was a lively, intergenerational session and we were made very welcome by KBA's Rob Walker and Jenny Wallace. Button tins were once a common feature in every household and older members of the group had fond memories of sorting through family button tins, finding treasures like mother of pearl shirt buttons, carved wooden buttons, large plastic or jet coat buttons and dainty facetted crystal buttons cut from clothing and saved for sewing or knitting projects. 

Phiona gave everyone a jewellery mat to prevent buttons escaping across the table and onto the floor, she also asked everyone which colour elastic they would like to use, turquoise, red, purple, green - oh the choices!

We soon discovered that buttons with four holes

were easier to thread than those with two holes!

Everyone helped each other

"It was great to see children, parents and grandparents learning and having fun together! " Rob Walker

We had a marvellous time and can't wait to visit the group again in December!