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School's out for Summer
(and the teacher gifts were a hit!)...
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| Could you have drawn a more diverse and beautiful collection of flowers yourself? Me neither! |
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| I love these little guys. Their faces are adorable, aren't they?! |
Picture the scene: it's a hot, sticky afternoon and The Boys and I are watching Girl at her first proper school sports day. Between races, the parents, grandparents and childminders are enjoying the chance to have a little natter and a catch up in the sunshine on their bonus afternoon off work...
"Have you thought about a present for their teacher at the end of term?" asks a Grandma. "Yes," I say, "I'm going to make something." "Do you think you could make something from all of us?" Erm, I wasn't sure! Could I? I thought I probably could, but I had no idea what could be special enough that it would be able to come from a big group. I did have a plan for our own gift, and it will be no surprise that it involved
Doodlebroidery: Beatrix had asked me if she could do a wall picture
for her teacher and an apron for her TA. Actually, she swapped and
changed between a wall picture and a rosette for her teacher, but I
managed to pin her down! A couple of years ago, when she left
pre-school, we decorated a big plant pot, wrote "Thank you for helping
me grow" on it and filled it with a lovely hibiscus that would flower in
the staff room for a few months of the year. We planned to do a
variation of this as a Doodlebroidery for her class teacher this year, and she was going to draw flowers for me to embroider.
It dawned on me that I might be able to adapt this idea slightly to incorporate more flowers, and make a pretty, embroidered flower garden with the same sentiment on the picture. I talked through the idea and there it was, a plan! Facebook and text messages started flying back and forth between tip top organised mums, and very soon I had a pile of 27 flowers drawn by 27 little artists on my desk. These were soon followed by a pile of beautiful self-portraits after some parents discussed what the TA might like to have to remember our children by, and decided upon a cushion. Their TA has been completely amazing: she is a Nursery Nurse and has been with many of the children since January 2011, moving with them from the nursery class into full-time school. It's not enough to say that she's been a rock.
So, there you have it, and here it is! The picture took about eleven hours of scaling, planning, embroidering, appliqueing, ironing and framing to complete, and the cushion was around 6 hours. I have to tell you, though, I enjoyed every minute of both project. I think they are so very beautiful, and reflect the personality of each child who contributed to them. I could not have drawn 27 more different flowers or 17 more different faces if I had tried, and together their beauty blows me away.
To see the original drawings on which these Doodlebroideries are based, please join me on Facebook, where you'll see the whole bunch!
