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  • Writer's picturePewsham Belle

For International Women's Day


At the start of the year NFWI launched a creative challenge to all WIs for today's International Women's Day. Based around the concept of craftivism, it invited WIs to craft their own pennants and banners to highlight one or more of the many resolutions the WI has supported - and continues to support - over the years.


A couple of talks on craftivism, a BBC4 documentary on the same subject, a big stash of crafting materials, plus February's spell of extremely cold weather inspired Michelle to have a go on behalf of Pewsham Belles WI!


And... (drumroll)... tah dah, here it is!


Michelle also submitted 200 words to NFWI to describe what she did:


"I chose to represent the SOS for Honeybees resolution for several reasons. Pewsham Belles WI grew sunflowers last summer and they loved the bee visitors to their flowers. As a Wiltshire Federation WI, it’s good to support the resolution born in our county, plus as a gardener and garden writer it's one which particularly resonates with me. I was reminded by a bee expert friend that flower pollen is just as important as nectar; thus the basis for the pennant’s actionable slogan was born.

I’ve used the skills I've acquired since joining the WI plus challenged myself with some new ones for this make. I’ve used wool scraps and craft materials gathered to get me through lockdown, plus beads from my late mother’s jewellery. The design came to me quickly, and now I see I've also threaded other stories into it whilst stitching. The pollen-rich flowers have lots of bling and the double flower which has none goes unadorned. The crochet bee looks stern to warn the cross-stitch bee away from the flower it’s flying to. Some of the flowers and leaves extend off the pennant to show this issue is universal and not just of interest to the WI."


Around 50 WIs rose to the challenge and crafted a banner. Some managed to find a way to collaborate under lockdown which was particularly impressive, and around a third chose to feature SOS for Honeybees and/or other environmentally themed resolutions for their submission. The NFWI collated all the banners into an online display today across their website (in MyWI), Facebook, and Twitter. In time they may also appear on Instagram...

MyWI also has guidance on banner making for any future makes as NFWI's craftivism project - called WI Women in Activism - is set to continue.


Note you will need to log onto MyWI to follow the above links where attributed to this part of NFWI's website.


The base for the Pewsham Belles pennant was a craft kit from Lidl. Michelle originally intended to use most of its design and to simply change the wording in the middle to those used in the final design. Once she'd opened the kit she realised most of the felt was of too poor a quality and so a new design using her new-found crochet skills (thanks Happy Hookers!) was born. She also intended to embroider most of the rest of the design directly onto the pennant, but soon realised whilst working on the Pewsham Belles logo she was too slow, lacked the skill and was too nervous of mucking up the results! Thus the cross stitch and applique elements were brought into play to solve these problems.


The above photo shows the development of the early design. You'll see it's slightly different to the final one as it became clear the central slogan would be larger than initially thought when worked in cross stitch. Here's a final list of the techniques used, plus links to the patterns and guidance Michelle found via the power of Google to help complete the design. "New" shown in brackets shows the techniques she tackled for the first time.


Crochet:

Cross stitch:

  • font for the wording - clearer when viewed in Google images. The actual lettering needed was then copied onto squared paper prior to sewing this part of the design

  • bee (slightly modified design)

Applique (new)

Beading (new)

Embroidery:

The WI logo was traced onto some felt from NFWI's website, enlarged on screen by 10% to give the right size, and the Pewsham Belle's logo was traced directly onto the pennant from a printout of the logo's photo using a window for backlighting. To match the WI logo to DMC embroidery thread, NFWI messaged this useful website. For future reference the information to convert the WI Green (the main part of the logo) is given as R118 G136 B56 and the "Inspiring Women" lettering is converted from R0 G66 B54.


Thanks to the Crafty Crew and Happy Hookers chat groups on Facebook for ideas, problem solving and general cheering on, and to April for coming to the rescue with her black embroidery thread!


UPDATE 11/3/2021


AND it made this month's NFWI PR newsletter!



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