


Pimm’s and Needles were fortunate enough to receive funding from The Let’s Create Jubilee Fund from The Arts Council to offer a range of creative activities to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We were really excited to be able to offer three different strands to the project, the first was open to schools and community groups and was based around making bunting to represent each decade of the Queen’s reign.
We had lots of interest in this project and it was a difficult decision to select 10 groups to take part. It was great to have Primary Schools, Brownie and Girl Guides as well as Women’s groups such Darlington Women’s Shed taking part in the project. With our funding we were able to buy all the supplies needed to send each of the groups a craft pack to create a length of bunting accompanied by pre-recorded video tutorials and an inspiration video interviewing some of our members about their memories of jubilee celebrations over the years. The groups used the resources and worked on their bunting panels within their own groups and the posted them back to us. It was fabulous to see what everyone had created and the lengths of buntings looked stunning when they were hung up inside the marquee. We were so trilled to see that the groups had put so much effort into their creations and had used materials and techniques such as fabric paint, applique, embroidery and stencilling.
The second part of the project was to create a ‘Timeline’ patchwork quilt. This engaged 70 people though live workshops at various locations around the region. Each participant was given a year as inspiration and created an embroidered and embellished patchwork square which was later sewn into a large quilt. The years started at the beginning of the Queen’s reign and ended with the present year 2022. We asked participants to think about something poignant that had happened within that year and depict it on their fabric square. We were blown away with the results and it was great to see the squares all sewn together to create on big timeline quilt with a red, white and blue colour theme. The quilt was displayed in the craft marquee in Darlington market square over the Jubilee bank holiday weekend. We received some fabulous feedback and everyone who took part was very proud of their contribution to the quilt.
The third and final part of the project was the delivery of the live workshops in the market square over the jubilee celebrations. Over three days we engaged hundreds of children and adults in creative workshops such as stencilled t-shirts, decoupage plant pots, decorated cookies, embroidery, felting and tea blending. These workshops were a huge success and it was just brilliant to see so many local families taking part and learning new skills!