Arthur Ridley

On the 29-30 June I worked with 120 year 6 children on a landscape project. I chose to work with them on a technique I have used a great deal in my own art embroideries, using adhesive felt. It is a technique that is easy to do but requires careful setting up. I started my two days by giving the children a talk about my work and showed them examples of my own art embroideries. The two days were split into four two hour sessions with 30 children in each class and the aim of the two days was to get the children to produce a piece of textiles work using various yarns, felts and fabrics. Two people in each class were asked to work on a large scale piece 30×45cm. The results were outstanding and some examples are shown below.

As part of the two days I also introduced the children to machine embellishing. I took along four machines on loan to me from Janome to use in schools and one machine of my own. I worked out a project where all the children had 25 minutes experience on the machines and made a product, in this case it was a bag, purse, mobile phone/Ipod holder. All this was made possible with careful planning from the head of department and help from all year 6 teachers and teaching assistants. By the end of the two days all the children had made a finished article and produced some outstanding textiles work.