sheep,birds and other weighty matters

I've been asked to lead a day's rag rugging workshop in February in a school, which is a bit of a departure from the short sessions I've led so far.

Creating a workshop that will run all day - while maintaining the pupils' enthusiasm and energy -  along with how the children can get the best out of the experience, has given me lots of food  for thought.



I'm having a large frame made (6' x3') so that the pupils can design and make a large  communal rug as well as taking along
some interesting things that they can make
as individual pieces to take home with them.



Looking for inspiration and ideas has made me go through my sketch and clippings books as well as all those carefully saved, sorted and stored bags and
boxes of interesting treasures, fabrics, textures and
bizarre oddments  that I've been collecting for
lord only knows how many years.


There are beads, button, shells.
teesdale fleece both undyed and dyed -
it's been so lovely to look through everything and feel again the delight of what drew me to them in the first place.



This is the first trial piece, a 24" x 40"a naive
'primitive' rug full of bright coloured fabrics, the design augmented with buttons,
voile, fleece and net.I'm planning to take the finished rugs into school as a
talking point for their own designs.