Strange Year by V Mitchell

During the last strange year, there have been many challenges and not all happy ones. Early in lockdown I made scrubs for Queens and King George's hospitals. As an occasional machinist, I struggled with Xxl  scrubs trousers. Then I volunteered to make caps, they were so fiddly with their elastic inserts. I am filled with admiration for the Sewing Bee contestants.
Later, I was given some wool, so every cat and dog I know had a crocheted blanket, some in their owners football teams colours, I even made a Joe Exotic crocheted doll. I joined various Facebook swap groups, mainly making paper projects and I found I loved the challenge of making to a theme, using materials from my collections of magazines, old books, and ephemera. I also signed up to make a four inch stitched heart each month to swap. It's been really interesting seeing how many different techniques have been used. I'm mounting the ones I receive in a fabric book and decorating each page
​ accordingly.

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My latest involvement has been with a local community group project making textile items for a church. This has been a real labour of love, trying to organise work for 16 members on zoom and emails. We have tutored each other on zoom, and swapped dyes, fabrics, threads by post.
I am really looking forward to being being able to meet with the groups face to face  and to plan new and exciting projects as we move forward.