The pleasures of plain sewing

I've been doing some plain sewing today, which is really a big change for me after so much experimenting the last few months.  It's been quite restful.  I have been asked to assist a group to make a textile book which I designed and made for dementia patients a few years ago.  I always meant to do more with it but after selling the original and donating the other one to the same Residential Care home, I went back to work full time and never did contact any other group about it.  So now my daughter was talking about it to someone in a care organisation, and they have asked me to assist a group to make their own.  So I have been cutting out calico and sewing it together, embellishing it - it will be different to the originals because I like to work with what I have as much as possible, rather than keep buying new stuff all the time.  There's so much wastage that I try to minimise my own.

The original book looked like this:

"Treasury of Experience" closed  

©Christine Linton

The idea is to stimulate and interest dementia patients with items they can relate to, especially stuff from their own lives such as their old jewelry, a mothers day card, feathers for touching, bells to listen to, and so on.  It is designed to be used with a carer to provoke memories and talk about what they see and feel.  I'm so pleased I've got time nowadays to participate in something like this.