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!

Twiddling!

Last week a lady from the Alzheimer's Society came into the scrapstore.  Our local branch are preparing a display of 3000 knitted and crocheted forget-me-nots to go on Weston's pier during Dementia Action Week in May.  She was looking for something to use as a backing to display the flowers.

 We got talking, and I mentioned that I had made a couple of twiddle mats and a twiddle muff.  These are used by people with dementia to keep their fingers and hands busy and stop them picking at their clothes.  I offered to show her some, and asked for her input on whether I have got the activity level right.  So on Saturday I got the sewing machine and my box of bits out, and started twiddling.

These two are ones that I made a while ago:

The top one is rather 'loud' in that there are lots of different patterns and textures, but there are lots of things to discover, including the crocheted dog who lives in a pocket.  The fleece muff in the lower picture is very soft and comfortable to have over my hands, but the standard of sewing is sadly very poor because I got the dimensions and construction of the muff totally wrong - and on top, my sewing machine decided it didn't want to sew through several layers of fleece.

For the ones I made on Saturday, I used an old valanced bedspread that I had bought in the scrapstore.  I started with the intention of making a muff, but again, got the dimensions wrong, so I ended up with a long and narrow mat.

There are lots of things to fiddle with, including metal buttons on a thong and a large bead underneath the fleece heart on the right, which can be pushed around within the shape.

Not to be defeated, I cut out yet another piece of the quilted bedspread to make a muff.  More success this time, and as you can see, there are lots of things to twiddle with both inside and out.

I hope to get some feedback on these this week from the Alzheimer's Society, and then I can make some more.