THE BY YOU TAPESTRY EMBROIDER YOUR EXPERIENCE OF ISOLATION Want to do someth ing creative at home? Want to be part of an international community project? JOIN US to make the BY YOU Tapestry. Stitch the story of your daily life during the Coronavirus pandemic. Your individual embroideries will be joined together by us into a giant, historic textile, made by all ages across the globe. It will be exhibited and celebrated together, when ‘normal’ life has resumed! You will need: STEP 1. Pencil and ruler Scrap paper Choose your design - What represents this time of isolation to you? Needle and scissors Here are some ideas... Cotton/embroidery threads What do you see? The view from your window? White cotton ideally, but another colour if not. At least 22cm x What do you do during your 'new normal' day? Cook, work, 22cm. You could use an old garden, facetime friends, try a new skill, exercise videos? pillow case, bed sheet or an old shirt. What has become important now, what do you appreciate more? Friends, family, NHS/Health Services, delivery drivers, Embroidery hoop, if you have Internet? one Where are you isolated? Embroider the house number you are N o e isolated in, and decorate with images of isolation, or the front xpe A rien door? ll a ce n ges eed we ed! lco me! STEP 2 Your design must fit within a 20cm x 20cm square. 22 cm 20cm Draw a 20cm x 20cm square on a piece of paper, and plan your masterpiece, or use our template on page 4 STEP 3 Cut out a square of fabric at least 22cm x 22cm (fabric can be cut bigger if needed, to use in an embroidery hoop, but no smaller!) STEP 4 step 8 Please include: Your name, Copy your design onto your fabric, leaving Post it to us at: a 2cm gap with NO Sewing in it around the Your address, edge. Your email address, so we If your fabric is thin, you might be able to The Old Limehouse can let you know about the see the pencil lines through it to trace. Town Hall, project. Or trace it by taping your image and fabric 646 Commercial Road, and a little about the to a window and trace using this light. London, E14 7HA UNITED KINGDOM inspiration behind your ST EP 5 embroidery Press very LIGHTLY when you draw on the fabric. Don’t press hard or it will show after Posting WITHIN THE UK: you have finished your sewing. To be able to use a 1st/2nd class stamp - make sure you use a envelope within these limits: STEP 6 Weight - 100g Get Sewing! Use Google or Pinterest to find Length - 24cm some embroidery ideas, guidance and Width - 16.5cm inspiration. We'll post some how to's on our social media pages too. Depth - 5mm If you don't want to go to the post office, Google 'Click & STEP 7 Post Royal Mail' to print the postage. Stand back and admire your handiwork! Take and send us some photos! If posting internationally please check your local POSTAL specifications around SENDING to the UK. T ag us on: Instagram @stitchesintime_ If you have any problems posting or questions, email us at Twitter @StitchesinTime_ Facebook [email protected] https://www.facebook.com/StitchesinTime London/ We'll accept submissions until at least September 2020. the final OUTCOME! We will join your pieces together to create a huge tapestry, for public display in a celebratory exhibition. Our local community and charity’s beneficiaries will work together to do this. When social distancing is over and it's safe to meet, this will give people some desperately needed social contact. A piece from our founding project - Tapestry for the Millennium Who we are Stitches in Time began as an experiment to see if sewing could start conversations between strangers. This small experiment in 1993 turned into our giant founding project, the creation of 50 tapestries made by over 3,000 local people. Communities who wouldn't usually meet formed groups & sewed together: school children and elders groups, unemployed migrant women and bankers from Canary Wharf, mothers with young children and teachers, groups of different religions. Some of these groups still meet today. 27 yrs later, we now engage with over 2,000 people per year. But the support we offer is much more than just sewing. We offer a safe, supportive space to develop, share creative skills, and to support the ranging needs and aspirations of our beneficiaries. Our core weekly programme supports children living in poverty, marginalised women facing multiple disadvantage and elders at risk of isolation. Read more about our work on our website. Donations Why the community needs us We hope that many people will participate in this tapestry piece marking a moment in our Tower Hamlets faces some of the toughest global history and we don’t expect people to challenges in the UK, with child poverty and have to donate to us to do so. unemployment at record levels. Whether it's the small steps of raising the confidence of However, if you’re in a position to also give something towards the work we do changing someone in long-term unemployment and lives through our innovative projects then getting them into work, or battling social please do consider making a financial isolation for our elders, we produce direct contribution here: results that benefit our communities and help other organisations learn from our work. https://localgiving.org/charity/stitchesintime/ Disclaimer reusage - By submitting a piece to us, you give consent for us to share pictures of the piece, and information about the inspiration behind it. We will not share your contact details with any third party. We will aim to use all pieces that reach us, except if we decide the piece is inappropriate or offensive then we reserve the right to exclude it. We will not be able to send tapestry pieces back to you, but they will form part of a piece that will be housed in the Stitches in Time textile archive. WWW.STITCHESINTIME.ORG.UK Old Limehouse Town Hall, 646 Commercial Road, London, E14 7HA Charity Number: 1172056 Company Number: 10515657 20cm x 20cm square - design your piece in here! Make your fabric at least 2cm bigger than this square. If you are using an embroidery hoop, cut your fabric to fit that. THE BY YOU TAPESTRY DRAW, PAINT OR SEW K YOUR LOCK DOWN EXPERIENCE IDS p ack and become part of a global arts project, whilst at home! N! JOIN US to make the BY YOU Tapestry. FU LLY REA What have you done during the Coronavirus lockdown? Your piece will be joined together with others to make a giant, historic textile. Children and adults from across the world are making theirs. It will be displayed online and in London when it is finished. You will need: The Real Bayeaux Tapestry Pencil and ruler Before the Internet, newspapers, film and T.V - Scrap paper How did people tell their side of the story of important Scissors historical events, to make sure it wasn't forgotten? White cotton ideally, but another colour if not. At The 11th Century embroidered cloth tells the story least 22cm x 22cm. You could use an old pillow behind one of the most famous battles in English case, bed sheet or an old shirt. history, the Battle of Hastings, in 1066. Materials to decorate, which could be: Sewing, so you'll need a needle, thread, scissors, or Now, almost 1000 years later, we're making our own Painting and printing. You can use things found tapestry to tell our own story of this current important around the house to make paint, or print with. event - the Coronavirus Pandemic. See page 4 for suggestions of things you could try. We need YOUR HELP, so the stories of you children are heard! STEP 1. plan your design - what has lockdown meant to you? Here are some ideas for you to choose from! What does your new 'normal' day look like? Do you play games, facetime with friends, home school, play sports, exercise videos, music? Are you bored, or loving it? What has become most important to you now, what do you appreciate more? Are you missing friends, school or family more than you expected? Have you grown to love a game or activity more? Are you appreciating your family, your garden, your local park more now than ever? What can you see from your window? What would be your fantasy view you What have you done differently during would love to see from your window? Lockdown? Where are you spending lockdown? Birthday parties, Eid, school, seeing friends? What does it look like? Draw your home, your door number, your bedroom, your kitchen? What have you liked and not liked about Lockdown? If it would end tomorrow, what will be the first thing you would do? If Coronavirus was a MONSTER, what would it look like? How would you defeat it? A Rainbow! YIKES! Examples: STEP 2 Draw your design on the template on page 6 S TEP 3 - YOU MIGHT need an adult's help here! Cut out a square of fabric at least 22cm x 22cm (2cm bigger than the paper template) (fabric can be cut bigger if needed, but no smaller!) 22 cm 20cm STEP 4 - YOU might need an STEP 7 adult's help here! Stand back and admire your handiwork! Ask a grown-up to tag us in any pics they share on Copy your design onto your fabric, leaving a 2cm gap around the edge.