Last week I was invited down to Leicestershire to visit the Cosby Quilters to give a talk on the Tuesday evening and run a textile workshop on the Wednesday. The workshop they chose was “Tall Trees”, based on one of my early art quilts, which involves painting fabrics such as cotton, interfacing and muslin which are then layered with organza and free motion stitched.

Normally this is a two day class but occasionally, as with Cosby, it’s booked for one day with the students happy to finish in their own time. The ladies have made a great start with their pieces and I’m looking forward to receiving photos as and when they get finished.

Pat Screaton, one of the Cosby Quilters, lives in the village and is also heavily involved with the Cosby Yarn Bombing. It’s a joint effort by members of the Cosby Crafters & the social enterprise Gather Create Grow, which uses arts & crafts to improve wellbeing & reduce isolation.

When the workshop ladies stopped for lunch Pat said she needed to pop out for a few minutes to go round to “the barn” and suggested I go with her to get an idea of the scale of their yarn bomb activities.

The barn itself was crammed with box after box of knitting/crochet wool and there were ladies sitting on the grass all around knitting, crocheting or sewing granny squares together…..it looked a proper cottage industry! It turns out that there are regular sessions for folk to attend as well as the group reaching out to the wider community, including schools, to get everyone involved. What a fantastic enterprise!

They don’t appear to do anything on a small scale, all the characters, animals, plants, etc, etc, that they create are life size.

Everything is carefully stored between events and everything gets recycled over and over again, being reincarnated as something, or someone, different the following year.

This is their life size model of our Queen, complete with Corgi’s, made to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee…….I love the detail they include such as the Queens monogrammed gloves and the royal “posh poo” bag!

…..and a few photos from last years Nativity Scene……

The local community are currently well on the way with their 2022 ‘Make a Splash’ themed installations which will be decorating the beautiful village of Cosby this August. Back at Pats house I was given a sneak preview of a few of the pieces and they are looking impressive…..including schools of fish, a massive crocheted coral reef and a huge wet felted Lochness Monster!

The “Make a Splash” Yarn Bomb will run from 13 August to 4 September 2022 and will stay up for 25 days. It’s all outdoors, it’s going to be spectacular, and it’s completely free so if you are in the Leicestershire area it’s well worth a visit.