Commission from Essex and South Suffolk Community Rail Partnership for East Anglian Railway Museum's Railway 200 Celebrations. July 2025

Genuine delight is a fitting description of the experiences shared amongst people engaging in the community craft activities.

Reclaimed fabric was used to create vintage style tickets in colours that matched the ESSCRP lines and stations. Throughout the day, visitors aged between 4 to 84 years stopped to personalize a ticket flag. From the joy shared by the first visitors (a grandchild proud to show his Grandad that he could write a large capital T for his name!), to the suprised (by the opportunity to be creative and leave their mark!) family of 5 visiting from Hong Kong who added pictures with their names in Chinese, to the last visitor - the Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Essex (in full regalia) who drew a Steam Engine for his Grandson ….the range of people who engaged through the activity was wonderful!

The tickets were made into celebratory bunting to commemorate the R200 event. It was great to hear that the bunting was used to decorate Greater Anglia’s themed train excursions during the Summer.

Over 30 children aged between 3-8 years old made RAG FLAGS that they waved at or from passing trains. A great (zero-waste) activity that meant there were smiley faces and pops of colour along the platform as very excited children waved at the train!

There were other activities too…a Community Weaving station -with scatter cushions both sides of a wire framework - encouraging people to sit and weave strips of fabric to create a wall hanging for the Museum. As expected, the weaving was not completed - the Museum plan to use it for Community Outreach workshops.

The last activity was designed with the niche event audience in mind! A table top sized grid with circle shaped Stations and Railroad Crossing symbols (like Noughts and Crosses!) proved popular with train enthusiasts! People who had attended alone made connections whilst playing…

Overall, a great day! On reflection; recognising the activities were well pitched and confident that the brief was met!

First Thursday's Festival

Building on the success of the Music and Mending collaboration in 2024, Creative Colchester invited us to take part in 2025's First Thursday's Festival.

More info on this collaboration with local band SHED at the THREE WISE MONKEYS to follow

The brief; to devise and facilitate a community project for the All Saints Church ‘Tower of Strength’ Heritage Project - must include a connection integral to the architecture of the church.

Exploring how textiles featured resulted in a deep dive into Heraldry - based on Brightlingsea’s Coat of Arms featured in the church.

Local businesses, community organisations and families created their own crests and Coats of Arms using reclaimed textiles. Collectively, the banners featuring their hand stitched designs celebrated their role within the local community. 21st Century Heraldry.

'It was great to see our regular walkers particularly engaged with you, something that I have not seen before!' E.Wingate(Engagement Manager) 2024

Colchester Community Hub provides a wide range of programs, services, social and wellbeing activities to support the community in Colchester. Providing an activity for their Wellbeing Day was a pleasure. Why slow stitched hearts? With the calming effect of lavendar's aroma helping to put people at ease, the basic level of sewing needed to sew the hearts meant that beginners and those lacking confidence could take part. More experienced stitchers were able to enjoy the process of choosing haberdashery to embellish their hearts. Genuine joy and apositive sense of achievement was shown by all who took part!

'It really helped with my anxiety. There's no way I'd have sat and made this at home!'

Commissioned by Be Fibre to devise and facilitate Craft activities that engaged young children and suited being at an outdoor festival. They also wanted something on brand! Windmill Wands and Button Bees proved popular! Bees and other bugs emerged as children threaded old buttons onto reclaimed wire from spiral notebooks and tied on net from a veil cut into the shapes of wings! The Windmill Wands were made from recycled sugar paper that was folded onto willow sticks and secured in place by wooden beads. People were invited to take one and make one to plant in a Windmill Wand 'flower bed' in front of Be fibre's pitch. Aswell as sparking curiosity, the Windmill Wand flower bed was a visible way of showing how Be Fibre were further supporting the community as when I proposed the workshop ideas I also asked if Be Fibre would donate Wildflower seeds for every Windmill Wand planted! Sustainable craft activities plus investment in a nature space for Brightlingsea's community. On 8th October I'll be joining the local Nature Network group at the Millenium Gardens to prepare the soil for sewing the seeds. Children from the Junior school will be involved in sewing the seeds after then!

As part of a project led by Environmental Artist Jane Stewart, I delivered two workshops on Sustainable Fashion using materials found during a beach clean up. Materials included a discarded beach tent, inflatables and crisp packets!

To find out about this and other projects funded by Essex Culture click here.

Pathways to Prosperity was funded by the Coastal Communities Fund and Essex County Council's Coastal Forum. Aiming to raise awareness about the Essex coast and the creative opportunities there are for locals and visitors, the project involved a team of Artists, Craftsman and Photographers. Each focused on different sections of the Essex coastline taking groups on walks along the coastal path and then delivering creative workshops in nearby community venues. I delivered three workshops as part of this project. More info to follow!

Making PROTEST PINS is a great example of how engaging in craft can be instrumental in giving people a voice! This community workshop in the Sailloft @Navistitch was attended by people aged between 6 - 60 yrs. Using reclaimed buttons as the base, statements were hand embroidered onto circles of vintage fabric. These were used to cover the buttons. Brooch pins were sewn onto a piece of reclaimed leather or wool felt which was stitched onto the reverse of thd button. There were Protest Pins about local matters ‘Save our Swans’ and ‘Keep Rivers Clean’…social, ‘PRIDE’ and global ‘Save the Earth’. All had something to shout about!

The opportunity to collaborate with local singer songwriter Jack Walsh was a natural fit for the Visible Mending workshop. Jack's debut single ‘Kintsugi’ is about embracing flaws & remaking what is broken. Literally, the art of kintsugi embellishes cracks, making them visible with gold.

The event featured in the First Thursday's Festival bringing together audiences who may not ordinarily mix. Thanks to funding from Creative Colchester and the generosity of the brilliant hosting venue patch. You can see their current programme of events here.

UPDATE!!! Jack Walsh now fronts a four piece band SHED. You can listen to their debut EP, featuring KINTSUGI here.

Libitina specialize in raising awareness of options that are available to people faced with bereavement. As the number of ‘Death Cafe's’ that have emerged since the pandemic continues to grow, Libitina offered not only information about alternatives to mainstream services but also, a solicitor was on hand to answer questions on legal issues. Taking a creative approach to engaging people in discussions about bereavement, I was employed to devise and deliver a series of craft workshops. Giving people opportunities to create heirlooms and keepsake decorations to leave for a loved one or in memory of someone lost.

To see highlights of one of the workshops, click here!

In early January 2022 I met with Brightlingsea Museum's curator, Margaret Stone. We discussed what could be done to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. By the end of the month I returned to the Museum with a plan for a community project!

The idea? Hats and Regalia - inspired as I began researching the Queen's reign. There were a few things that really stood out! Firstly, the Crown - as an iconic symbol of the Queen and the fact that the Platinum Jubilee marks 70 years since the Queen first wore it at her coronation. As one of many glorious and ridiculous hats that the Queen has worn over the years that seemed a good place to start! I also noticed that the Queen wore single coloured outfits. In fact, there were lots of articles about the ‘rainbow Queen’ that popped up. I also thought about Jubilee medals - an insignia of royalty which capture the essence of uniforms worn by the Queen on formal occasions. From these ideas, a plan evolved!

By working in partnership with Brightlingsea Museum provided an opportunity to apply for funding from the Arts Council England's Let's Create Jubilee Fund. Made possible thanks to National Lottery players, the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund was designed to help voluntary and community organisations develop creative and cultural events to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June. I am delighted that we are one of 738 projects whose application was successful! The funding was aimed to help build community cohesion by connecting local artists and voluntary organisations that had not previously collaborated. We worked with 4Youth, Brightlingsea Church Lads and Girls Brigade, Age Well East and Friends of Brightlingsea Museum.

After two years of pandemic restrictions, the activities aimed to provide much welcomed in-person public events in preparation for and over the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend in June.

During May, Brightlingsea Museum started a series of outreach workshops with members of 4Youth and Brightlingssa Church Lads and Girls Brigade. I had the pleasure of working with members across the organisations to create a collection of crowns. Working together to create willow frameworks, the groups also decorated crowns in the style of somevofvthe Queen's hats. To add to the challenge, the decorative work was all created from household recycling and reclaimed materials!

Members of the public collected a free Crown Trail map from Brightlingsea Museum over the Jubilee weekend. There were twenty crowns to find on the trail! Each had a letter of the alphabet attached Once found , the letters formed a word there was a puzzle to solve!!

People taking part could choose to enter a prize draw by adding their name and contact details to the map and returning it to the Museum. They could win the opportunity to plant a Museum tree for Jubilee! As a tribute to the Queen it should be a memorable experience to mark this special occaision!

MAPS AVAILABLE FROM BRIGHTLINGSEA MUSEUM FOR THE TRAIL WHICH TAKES PLACE ONLY OVER THE JUBILEE WEEKEND!

Community workshops took place at Brightlingsea Museum during Half Term. To prepare for the Jubilee, free workshops were held creating Fun Fascinators and Medals of Honour. Nothing frilly or fru-fru…fun fascinators that stood out in a crowd! Medals to parade with pride! Both were made using reclaimed materials and household recycling! Local Enviionmental Artist Jane Stewart joined Vikki to lead the workshops and museum volunteers were involved, meeting and greeting people who attended. Photos of the creative process were taken by a student who was given paid work experience as an Event Photographer . This enabled her to add the experience to her college applications and explore taking live pictures for her Photography GCSE. Many of the images featured here were taken by her. For the museum, the workshops bought in people who had never visited before.

Community workshops took place at Brightlingsea Museum during Half Term. To prepare for the Jubilee, free workshops were held creating Fun Fascinators and Medals of Honour. Nothing frilly or fru-fru…fun fascinators that stood out in a crowd! Medals to parade with pride! Both were made using reclaimed materials and household recycling! Local Enviionmental Artist Jane Stewart joined Vikki to lead the workshops and museum volunteers were involved. Photos of the creative process were taken by a student who was given paid work experience as an Event Photographer . This enabled her to add the experience to her college applications and explore taking live pictures for her Photography GCSE. Many of the images featured here were taken by her. For the museum, the workshops bought in people who had never visited before.

Chavasse VC House Recovery Centre.

2014-2016

A monthly workshop for members of the Armed Forces (& family members) in recovery or awaiting discharge. Words or symbols pertinent to their recovery process were embroidered by hand or machine onto jigsaw shaped pieces of fabric. Colours from the Help for Heroes logo were used to pay tribute to the charity which had provided the participants with support in so many ways. With every patch there was a story.

Wayne Hemingway’s VINTAGE at the Wilderness Festival, Oxfordshire

I was delighted when Mae Kandoo’s proposal for a workshop embroidering Slogan Badges was accepted. The prospect of being involved in such a prestigious event was so exciting. The brief was to devise a workshop that used reclaimed materials which had to be in-keeping with Vintage trends. Music to my ears…Digging a bit deeper into the history of slogan badges, I was surprised that it was 1924 when the first slogan badges appeared. So, as far as the brief was concerned, literally hit the spot of many decades past. Being selected to run workshops by Jessica Aldred who was curating the Vintage workshops was fab; her work is inspirational. With the added bonus of taking an ‘assistant’ (Thanks so much Nic!) and nights off to dance, what a fabulous opportunity!

Family festival goers dropped in to hand embroider slogans onto vintage fabrics stretched over reclaimed buttons. JOY all round!

Help for Heroes, Chavasse VC House Recovery Centre, 2016-2020

Monthly workshops with Veterans, Band of Brothers, Band of Sisters and visitors to the centre which provided holistic care, supporting key elements of the recovery process with activities and life skills courses. Over six years I had the absolute pleasure of meeting so many people who had served in the Armed Forces. Wives and children too. More often than not, the initial conversation with (mostly) men taking part started with polite ‘I’m not really into Arts & Crafts’ comments. I can confidently say that almost without exception, the comments at the end of the sessions were so different. Two things were always clear; despite challenging circumstances the overwhelming attitude was ‘Why not give it a go?’ and best was the realisation that by focusing on the task in hand, time had passed without feeling the stress and anxiety that often dominated their minds.

Referencing every workshop would need a site in its own right! Instead, examples of skills included; SEWING, CROSS STITCH, FABRIC FLOWERS, CROCHET, MACRAME, WILLOW WEAVING, MIXED MEDIUM collages, STRING ART, BOOK ART, Cobble stone PAINTING, RAG RUG wreaths, LEATHER STITCHING, BEADED decorations, DREAMCATCHERS from reclaimed materials, POPPY’s made using traditional silk flower making techniques, BUTTON art, WOVEN bookmarks…and more!

I wanted to pass on my sincere gratitude to you as I am so appreciative of the important part you have played in the Recovery Journey. You have left your mark through the varied activities provided. Your knowledge and passion have been inspirational and you have made a difference, enlightening and encouraging interest.

Sandra Gosney, Activities Coordinator, Help for Heroes Recovery Centre, Colchester    5th Nov 2020