So Summer is officially over, but to try and keep that sunshine feeling, let’s look back over some of the great things we’ve been up to over the summer holidays!

A lot of the Stitched Up crew have been off on their summer holidays, with Bryony spending a month cycling around Spain, and Emily building a house in France! And others of us have been enjoying the festival season with Jacky heading to Bestival, and Kelly returning to Shambala as a punter this time.

But it’s not all been sunshine and tunes, we’ve also been running a variety of workshops in and around Manchester.

At the beginning of August we spent a week at Walkden High School, running workshops for all the new year sevens, to introduce them to their new school. We made a great selection of upcycled accessories and photo-booth props throughout the week, while at the same time letting the kids get to know each other, ready for the new school year.

Over the weekend of August 16th-18th we headed down to Cheshire for Just So Festival. This was a magical children’s festival set in the beautiful fields of Rode Hall Parkland. We set ourselves up in the Barnardo’s tent where we ran our recycled accessories and photo prop workshops. Alongside our workshop there was music, campfire story telling and spellbound theatre productions, all culminating in a fancy dress parade of owls, foxes, fishes, stags, frogs and lions on the Sunday, with the owls being the champions!
This is a festival that Stitched Up has fallen in love with, and we would love to return to next year, even bigger and better!

At the end of August we headed back to Walkden High School to spend another week with the year sevens. During this week we created pin cushions, needle books, cushions, monsters and eye masks, all made from recycled materials. Some absolutely amazing creations were made, including a fantastic hand stitched dragon, that one dedicated student worked on almost all week to complete! We had a great time with all the students, and were amazed and inspired by their creativity. A great group all set to start at secondary school!!

To end the summer we headed back to The Wigan Diggers festival for the 2nd year running. It was a bit chillier this year, but we still had a great time making upcycled bracelets and bangles. The bracelets were made out of paper beads that can be made out of all the junk mail you receive every day, and the bangles were made using plastic bottles or Pringles tubes, and then wrapped in scrap fabric to decorate. We hope this will become a regular in the Stitched Up calendar!
All in all it’s been a busy but amazing summer, and here at Stitched Up HQ we’re looking forward to what the autumn will bring. And as always if you would like us to come to your school, workplace, community group or party etc then please drop us an e-mail here.