Charity Event: Jewellery Making for Cancer Research

Monday night sees another one of our charity project evenings which always prove to be great fun and a guaranteed good night out. Here is a review of our last charity evening making Pillowcase Dresses.

Last summer, over several craft cafes, a lot of new jewellery was created which we donated to Cancer Research in East Street. Victoria, the manageress there, reported that they had all sold really well so we thought that we would hold an event dedicated to making them some Spring/ Summer jewellery so that they can raise even more money for Cancer Research.

Local Jewellery Designer Kathy Thoms is very kindly coming along and giving her time to show us how to make these 3 items of jewellery.

These beautiful items (appologies for the terrible quality photos!) are made with new fittings and using recycled beads from old broken jewellery. There are 15 places for this part and if you wanted to keep the items you make the workshop will cost £10.

(please email us at makehorsham@yahoo.co.uk for a booking form).

If you are making the items for Cancer Research then there is no charge; just please email us to let us know that you are coming.

We will also have additional ‘stations’ where you can learn how to make simple repairs to broken jewellery, fabric necklaces, large brooches and we will also be giving old bangles a new lease of life using colourful embroidery thread, like the pictures below. Again, all to be donated to Cancer Research for them to sell.

(Fabric necklaces made using recycled large beads from broken necklaces and strips of scrap fabric)

(Old bangles wrapped with embroidery thread)

 

(Large brooches suitable for coats made from felt and large kilt pins)

It sounds like fun! I’d like to come along?

You would be most welcome, please just email us to let us know that you are planning to make it at makehorsham@yahoo.co.uk or put a comment in the comment section below.

Do bring along any broken jewellery if you have any to donate to recycle during the workshops too.

 

So what are the details?

 

Monday 3^rd June 2013            from 7pm – 9.30pm

in the Main Hall of the Brighton Road Baptist Church, entrance is in New Street

 

Cost: FREE, however we would really appreciate a donation of at least £3 to cover basic costs such as buying all the new jewellery findings/ hall hire/ tea & cake etc. if you are able.

 

Basically, it’s a win-win situation. Come and learn some new jewellery skills  whilst doing something good for our community. And all for only £3 with tea or coffee and plenty of cake (not to mention fabulous company!)

 

Please tell all your friends about it, share this on facebook, let’s see how much jewellery we can make for Cancer Research in one evening – the more the merrier!

Another Pillowcase Dress workshop for Charity

As our first workshop we did for charity this year on 28th January went so well we are doing it again on 29th April! We had over 26 people who gathered to make  pillowcase dresses for Dress a Girl Around The World charity and we sent over 30 dresses to Louise of Sew Scrumptious (who is the UK Co-ordinator). Lets see if we can get even more people and make even more dresses to send to them this time? Here is the review of our last charity workshop.

“It believes that every little girl should own a pretty dress”

The ‘Dress a Girl Around the World’ charity, which was founded in America and is part of Hope 4 Women International, encourages people that can sew to make simple ‘pillowcase’ dresses which are then distributed to girls living in poverty in developing countries like India, Malawi, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya etc.  It believes that every little girl should own at least one pretty dress. They have recently started making shorts for boys too.

 

Louise Horler from ‘Sew Scrumptious’ is the UK Co-ordinator and has now collected over 3,000 dresses from all over the UK and Ireland. Louise joined up after reading about the charity in Sewing Magazine last year. If you haven’t heard of this project, then check out the US website here, and Louise’s page on her blog about it here or on her facebook page here.

So what are the details?

Monday 29th April 2013            7pm – 9.30pm

in the Main Hall of the Brighton Road Baptist Church, entrance is in New Street

Cost: FREE, however we would really appreciate a donation of at least £3 to cover basic costs such as bias binding/ thread/ elastic/ hall hire/ tea & cake/ postage etc.

 

Please tell all your friends about it, share this on facebook, let’s see how many dresses we can make in one evening, the more the merrier!

 

But I can’t sew?

No problem, there are plenty of jobs to get involved with just come along and chose which part you’d like to get involved with. Plenty of tea making skills are needed as well as ironing, cutting  out the patterns, making fabric flowers to go onto the dresses, cutting lengths of elastic and bias binding. However at our workshop in January everyone (the majority hadn’t been near a sewing machine before) had a go and everyone ended up making a dress. Victoria from Cuddle Monsters and myself will be on hand to guide you through the simple steps.

 

Want to get involved?

Just follow these simple steps….

1. Mark the date in your diary
2. Let us know that you are thinking of coming in the comments section or via email (makehorsham@yahoo.co.uk), just so we can make sure we have room for everyone and more importantly that we have enough cake and tea for everyone!
3. Find an old pillowcase (or more) that is clean, without marks or stains and not too see-through. If you haven’t got any some charity shops still sell them I know that Horsham Matters sell lots in their upstairs section. Alternatively please bring some fabric, 1m plus. We also have some spare pillowcases that you can use if you wish.
4. Please bring your own sewing machine and fabric scissors if you have them.

 

You can also look at it this way……. why not come and learn how to make a simple dress for your daughter or shorts for you son whilst doing something good for our community? And all for only £3 plus free tea or coffee and plenty of cake not to mention fabulous company!

Also if you’ve been watching The Great British Sewing Bee and feel inspired to start sewing then this is the perfect start.

 

March’s update on workshops

We have loads of exciting workshops coming up, check the ‘Future Events’ tab for more details. There are lots of workshops still being planned such as chocolate making and cupcake decorating and details will go up as soon as they are finalised. We are running the hand and body cream workshop and the beginners crochet workshops again due to popular demand. Most of the upcoming workshops are fully booked, mainly due to the workshops being small and only for 6 people, however we do have some spaces left on some of the larger workshops:-

–          Beaded Jewellery – 18^th March – details here

–          Paverpol Vase – 15^th April – details here

–          Lampshade making – 17^th June

–          Natural Hand cream and Body Cream  – 17^th June

Do email us at makehorsham@yahoo.co.uk if you are interested and we can email you a booking form. We’d love to reach more people in Horsham (and surrounding area) particularly men folk and anyone who would like to bring their teenage children are very welcome! Please do share with your friends and neighbours. We are also busy planning more events for charity, another Pillowcase Dress night on 29th April and Upcycling Jewellery for Cancer Research shop in East St on 3^rd June.

We also have a few spaces on 2 of our childrens workshops, our collaboration with Makers & Creators. Block printing on a Tshirt which is this saturday and then Book Binding during the easter holidays. Details are here.

Our ‘thank you’ card from Big Knit 2012

Look what we got in the post last week ………..a lovely personalised Thank You card from Innocent and Big Knit 2012.

 

Collectively we knitted 200+ last Autumn in aid of Age UK. I love the bit…’ Questions were raised about you potentially being a knitting machine due to the sheer volume and quality of hats you sent in (the Octopus was genius).’ – that will be our lovely Irma Westerdijk then! Well done everyone!

Does anyone fancy joining us this year? We’ll start in July/ August and if you want to start now then here are the details and patterns from last year.

 

Dressing Girls Around The World

Wow, our first event of 2013 certainly went with a bang! What a great way to start the year by helping others. 26 of us gathered on the last Monday evening of January for a community sewing evening, all with a common aim, to make a dress for a little girl somewhere in the world who had never worn one before. This event had obviously inspired a lot of people in Horsham, many of us had young children and some had daughters so it had struck a chord. The majority of people hadn’t even touched a sewing machine before, despite this in 2 hours we ended up with 24 dresses and to date we have over 30 dresses to send to Louise of Sew Scrumptious for Dress a Girl around the world charity.

Everyone pitched in, from bringing home baked cookies to putting on a big pot of tea. New friends were made and time was spent with old friends. Lots of laughter and learning new skills going on, a normal evening for our Make workshops!

A huge thank you to the lovely Victoria of Cuddle Monster Crafts who suggested this project in the first place and then came to show us how to make them.

Everyone had such a good time most people asked when the next one would be! I know lots of people couldn’t make this evening either so Watch this space as we’ll organise another evening making these pillowcase dresses in March or April .

Our new sewing project for charity: Pillowcase Dresses for Dress a Girl Around The World

Our involvement with the ‘Big Knit’ campaign last August/ September went so well that when Victoria suggested that we should get involved with making pillowcase dresses for Dress a Girl Around The World charity we thought it would be a perfect follow up for our next big community charity project.

“It believes that every little girl should own a pretty dress”

The ‘Dress a Girl Around the World’ charity, which was founded in America and is part of Hope 4 Women International, encourages people that can sew to make simple ‘pillowcase’ dresses which are then distributed to girls living in poverty in developing countries like India, Malawi, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya etc.  It believes that every little girl should own at least one pretty dress. They have more recently started making shorts for boys too.

 

Louise Horler from ‘Sew Scrumptious’ is the UK Co-ordinator and has now collected over 3,000 dresses from all over the UK and Ireland. Louise joined up after reading about the charity in Sewing Magazine last year. If you haven’t heard of this project, then check out the US website here, and Louise’s page on her blog about it here or on her facebook page here.

So what are the details?

Monday 28^th January 2013            7.30pm – 9.30pm

in the Main Hall of the Brighton Road Baptist Church, entrance is in New Street

Cost: FREE, however we would really appreciate a donation of at least £3 to cover basic costs such as bias binding/ thread/ elastic/ postage etc.

Please tell all your friends about it, share this on facebook, let’s see how many dresses we can make in one evening, the more the merrier!

But I can’t sew?

No problem, there are plenty of jobs to get involved with just come along and chose which part you’d like to get involved with. Plenty of tea making skills are needed as well as ironing, cutting  out the patterns, making fabric flowers to go onto the dresses, cutting lengths of elastic and bias binding.

Want to get involved?

Just follow these simple steps….

1. Mark the date in your diary
2. Let us know that you are thinking of coming in the comments section or via email (makehorsham@yahoo.co.uk), just so we can make sure we have room for everyone.
3. Find an old pillowcase (or more) that is clean, without marks or stains and not too see-through. If you haven’t got any some charity shops still sell them I know that Horsham Matters sell lots in their upstairs section. Alternatively please bring some fabric, 1m plus.
4. Please bring your own sewing machine and fabric scissors if you have them.

You can also look at it this way……. why not come and learn how to make a simple dress for your daughter or shorts for you son whilst doing something good for our community? And all for only £3 plus free tea or coffee and plenty of cake not to mention fabulous company!

September Update

Wow, where do I begin as September was a very busy month for Make especially following August where we didn’t have any events, as it was the main holiday period for everyone. We distributed our new autumn leaflet… have you seen it around Horsham?

One of our main focuses was on knitting/ crochet for the Big Knit campaign which raises money for Age UK to keep people warm this winter. Some people started knitting over the summer and then we used the craft café on 17^th September and the two Craft at The Crown evenings on 12^th and 26^th September to get together to knit more. We ended up sending off 206 tiny hats which, once sold, will raise £51.50 for Age UK. Thank you so much to everyone especially to Irma who gets the title of the ‘fastest knitter in Horsham’ with Liz getting the silver medal! Don’t forget to visit Sainsburies where they will be on sale covering the Innocent smoothie bottles in November there have been some wonderful creations this year.

We are planning to start on our next charity project at the next Craft Café on 15^th October which will be Pillowcase Dresses. Do come and join us even if you can’t sew as there is plenty to do and plenty of help available to help you to sew. More information is here.

We also had a very successful workshop at the beginning of the month making lampshades with Michelle Cresswell of Owl & Slipper, you can find the review here. The Making bunting workshop was last Monday and the review is to come.

September also saw the launch of our new event ‘Craft at The Crown’, more information is here. This is a free event (plus The Crown put on a buffet for us free of charge!) and was to cater for those who wanted to meet up and do some knitting/ sewing/ crochet whilst socialising. The first two evenings have been slow with not that many people coming along but we hope that more people will join us in October, November and December? Here’s a picture of some of the food to tempt you!

 

 

Another donation of jewellery to Cancer Research

Last week I dropped off another large bag of new jewellery that we had made in the last few Craft Café evenings. As I hadn’t been for a while it had mounted up and totaled 6 pairs of earings, 9 brooches, 13 bangles and 2 necklaces – all up-cycled from broken jewellery. I hope they sell as well as the last lot we donated to Cancer Research as I was told that they had sold quickly! Do take a look in the Cancer Research store in East Street, Horsham.

Old bangles bound with colourful embroidery floss to update them.

Big Knit 2012

Kate approached me with a brilliant idea some time ago for Make to join in with the Big knit campaign… what a great idea! Innocent Drinks team up with Age UK each summer to knit mini hats for the top of smoothie bottles to be sold during November and December. Innocent give  Age UK 25p from each smoothie with a hat sold and this goes towards helping older people keep warm and healthy this winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So we would need to package them all up and send them at the end of September in order to meet their deadline so we wanted to know who was up for knitting and crocheting some with us? We were also thinking of putting on some extra Make nights in September for everyone to knit and crochet together and we were going to see if we could get some donated wool too? Let us know your thoughts.

Here are some links to knitting patterns  if anyone wanted to get started over the summer. Crochet patterns to come….

Basic

Intermediate

Advanced

they also have some other fun ones like the watermelon pattern as well as a pineapple and a bunch of grapes.

 

Another successful Craft Café evening…

On 28^th May we had another successful craft evening involving more jewellery making for Cancer Research plus some alfresco knitting and crochet as the weather was so lovely!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone also got a chance to have a go at screen printing some cards. Annalees from Makers and Creators, who will be running our Silk Scarf batik workshop in July, brought along some screen printing equipment with her and showed us some basic techniques.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last two Craft Café evenings of the summer are 25^th June and 16^th July and we are planning some other activities so do get in touch if you’d like to join us. Here are some details of Annalees’ workshops that she will be holding in her Horsham Studio in September and October.