An apology and an explanation

I know, I've been really lax, but in my defence we have had the in-laws here (hello!) and I've been busy working on the most enormous project that has taken me the entire year (although not every minute of every day - that would be insane!). Last September I mentioned to a teacher at the middle one's school that I thought it would be a lovely idea for there to be a feltmaking project that all the children could contribute to. After a bit of backwards and forwards chatting, we decided that each child (there are 270 of them!) would make a piece of felt and they would all be sewn together into a banner for the school hall. I offered my time, and away we went.

What started as a small idea became a monumental task, teaching children (aged 4 - 7) the basics of feltmaking, and encouraging them to rub a little harder, bash it a little harder, keep going, the meaner you are to the felt the better it is (they liked that one!). After three terms of this all the pieces needed to be trimmed and sewn into banners, which took about another two weeks.

Finally, this week, it went up on the wall in the school hall - just in time for the end of term, and it looks fantastic. The children are so proud of their work, and I am so proud of all of them. There were times when I felt that if I had to teach one more child to make felt I would scream, but (like childbirth) the bad memories are fading.


Although, when the reception teacher asked me to teach feltmaking to the new intake of children in september it all suddenly came flooding back!