Friday 12 May 2017

Let's go fly a kite!

In the UK, next week is Dementia Awareness Week (May 14 - 20).  My dear Mum developed dementia towards the end of her life, and was cared for very kindly and lovingly in a home for people with that awful disease.  Last year I started volunteering with our local branch of the Alzheimer's Society, and on Thursday 17th May our local Dementia Action Alliance are holding an awareness day in the Bay cafe, which is on Weston-super-Mare sea front.

Our theme is 'Let's go fly a kite', which is of course the title of a song from the Disney film of Mary Poppins.  We have been thinking all things kites for several weeks.  I thought that knitted kite badges would be a good awareness raising idea, and after several different attempts, came up with a basic mitred square with a crocheted tail and small button for decoration.


They each have a badge back or a safety pin sewn on the back.


I've done them in variegated yarn, glitter yarn, snowflake yarn, tweedy yarn made from several strands of coned yarn, and some of them are sitting in their box (above) waiting for Thursday.  Several other people are making these too, so we should have quite a wide choice available.

Laura, the manager at the Scrapstore, has made us this marvellous fish kite from offcuts of hot-air ballon material, which Cameron Balloons kindly donate to the Scrapstore.  She has also made several others which we can use to draw attention to our event on the sea front (it is always breezy on our sea front!)


We thought it would be good for people to make or decorate kites for us to display on the day.  Luckily the Scrapstore has loads of sticky-back plastic in a range of colours, so we have cut out lots of stars and hearts, and I've been busy cutting A5 card into kite shapes.  In my stash I had an amazing ball of yarn that is like ribbon decorated with bows, just perfect for kite tails.


And in best Blue Peter tradition, here's one I made earlier! Can you see the tiny little bows on the tail?


We have a large piece of netting all ready to display the decorated kites.  We are now keeping our fingers crossed for a fine day.  If you are in the area, please do come and join us!


2 comments:

  1. I hope it all goes well and the sun shines all day long. I have just spent the afternoon reading your Dads story, it was so interesting and brought tears to my eyes, you and your family must be so proud of him and it's lovely that you have this written account of his experiences. My Dad served in Burma and I know he went through hell but he never shared his experiences with us, it just wasn't talked about which is a shame but I guess each person has to deal with their own particular nightmare in their own way. Have a great weekend. :) xx

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  2. Dad always found that the best way to cope with what he went through was to talk about it. When we were young, my brother and I used to roll our eyes to each other when Dad told his prisoner tales, but as we got older (and possibly wiser) we realised what he had been through. I am glad you enjoyed reading his story x

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