HMD week 2 .

Having a second day with a group is wonderful. Having bridged the gap with the children and getting to know them a little is always a joy. The personalities and characters are more comfortable with new ideas .

The morning was a new venture in textiles and pulling out a silk 'hanky' to an enormousness web gave the children the idea of how strong silk is.

I had an intact silk cocoon complete with rattled dried larvae . There were many uggs and yeuchs but when we talked about farming in general and some of the children came from farms ...the idea that insects could also be farmed was borne.

The silk tissue was laid down on the net as a stabilising background to fine layers of felt that were laid on top. having had the previous weeks workshop the children were confident handling the medium of wool and the laying down period went smoothly.

In the planning of colours, we talked about contrasting colours and how best they work in designs....

The coloured layers had some curly wools placed on top and then we used a bit of glittery angelina around the edges.

The layered 'star shaped 'flower is covered with more net and then water and soap is pressed into the fibres and flatten the soft bundle

After some rubbing and rolling the flat piece is felted . Then the work really begins with the flat piece sculpted in the hand, rolled and hardened. The petals are shaped using the finger tips or rolled in the palm of the hand.


 Bead and stitching is a difficult option in some schools for safety issues these days. To overcome this obstacle I use wire instead of thread and this means with the beads paced on a recycled pringle lid ( to stop them rolling around) the beads can be stitched directly onto the wire and end crimp beads used to keep the beads on.

This was just one of the stages towards completion of the 'field of flowers'

The next stage was to wire the flower to stand upright and thread a leaf onto the wire and place the wish labels onto the stem so it could be read .

Some very deep sentiments were written on the 'gift tag' of the flower, the children were wonderful and achieved a high level of finish to all their work.

We had to prise the children from their seats to go home as they were enjoying the 'question session far too much'. Then it was the time for the teachers to have a go.

What a lovely ethos in the school and it was a pleasure to work with both the staff and the children. well done all round and thank you

some beautiful designs were created and stitched

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