Craftivists rock!

I went to the unveiling last night of the #imapiece jigsaw pieces at The Peoples Museum in Manchester and it was brilliant. There were over 600 pieces there and it was fabulous to see them all displayed together. I'm just going to show you lots of photographs now :)

This was taken outside looking in as I left. You can see the scale of the installation.

Sarah Corbett (white t-shirt) is the organiser and craftivist who organised the whole concept. She is pictured with her crafty avengers Mr X Stitch, Deadly Knitshade and Hilary from Craft Blog UK.

The lady being photographed here made over 22 pieces for her friends and family to embroider and stitched quite a few herself.

I saw loads of pieces that I really liked so here are some pictures of those.

You can see better pictures on my Flickr stream. And of course here's my piece in the installation.

If you want to join in then there is still time - the installation is going to Belfast at some stage in May so you can get stitching. Find out all the information here. And if you don't want to be involved in this particular project, check out lots of other ideas here.

My first piece of craftivism

I wrote about #imapiece the other day and here is my finished piece. It's not perfect as this is the first embroidered piece I have done with words (I'm normally a straight stitch kind of girl!) but I think it works.

It reads 'Live simply so that others can simply live' The quote really appealed to me and I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be the one that went on my piece. It needed something to make the words jump out and as I was out and about with my sewing box, the only thing I had was sequins. Not sure they work with the simple quote or not - maybe buttons or ribbon would be better?

I may keep this one for myself and make another to send off for the installation. If I do I will embroider the words onto a piece of white fabric and then attach it to the patterned fabric as the wording kind of gets lost! Also if I get chance then I will send one to my MP - if not then he will get a photograph of the work with an explanation of why it is important to me.

Have you made one of these? Ever used crafting for good? I have a few ideas of things I can do in my neighbourhood using craft and it's quite exciting - maybe only to me though!

#imapiece

I found out about Craftivism a good few months ago by watching a video called Stitched Stories (really worth a look - you won't regret watching) and by subscribing to the blog I found out about #imapiece

So what is #imapiece? It's basically a campaign by a group of well known crafters (you included!) along with Save the Children to help raise awareness of world hunger and injustice.

Picture from @craftteaviv

Basically, you create a jigsaw piece (to be included in a large collective piece of work) with a slogan on. Dead easy! All the information you need (plus helpful slogans) is HERE and I think it is a very worthwhile project to be involved in.

You can even shop on Folksy and get a jigsaw kit sent to you :) I have only just cut out the fabric for my piece today but I know what slogan I am going to use and once I have found my special embroidery pen I will be off (despite my embroidery skills being a bit rubbish!)

If you don't have any spare time or inclination to join in with this project then can I ask you to spare one minute to sign the petition. Thanks!