Little Amal's Skirt; Chapter Two - The Sew In!

When I wrote my first blog post about making a block for Little Amal's Skirt of Welcome I never expected there to be a second part to the story from my perspective. But after posting a picture of the square that my Mum and I had made on my Instagram I was surprised to be invited by Annie Symons to head up to London to help out with assembling the skirt. I was even more surprised when after I jumped at the chance, my Mum said that she was also up for the adventure too, so in October we headed from Dorset to Highgate Library, with sewing machines in tow.

There we met up with a whole team of ultra talented creative people; some sewing, some ironing, some organising and all super friendly and welcoming. I was overjoyed to see our block coincidentally waiting at the top of the next pile on the table to be sewn in as soon as we arrived. 

I did various jobs throughout the afternoon, including sewing, trimming, unpicking and sewing again, measuring, cutting, making tea, hand gathering and ironing. Although I only had little jobs to do I had such a lovely time; I was really pleased that we made the journey, met some of the people behind the project and see how the skirt was made. Sometimes when you submit a piece of work and send it off for a larger project you sort of lose the middle part of the journey, so it was fascinating to see the process of all the small blocks join into bigger blocks and then come together to form the skirt shape. There is a lot of really beautiful work in those patchwork pieces, with every one having a unique viewpoint from the person who made it, which you can't really capture in photographs. But here are some photographs anyway:

Some of the fabulous work!

That's me with our block!

Some of the fabulous work and Margaux's fabulous shoe

Annie surveys the handiwork

Annie had put a lot of thought into arranging the blocks by colour so that they harmonised together in really beautiful tones and shades. Margaux, who was leading the construction of the skirt, also put in a lot of work (and mental maths) into making it into a wearable garment. 

The Sewing Nut with the skirt's finished waistband!

I really can't overstate how much love, creativity, time and energy went into the creation of the skirt and Little Amal seems pleased with it from her modelling so far, click here to see! Our square ended up being on the waistband - painstakingly assembled by The Sewing Nut! - so you can't really see it in that video, but I like knowing that it's there being a small part of a much bigger story with such an important message.

To learn lots more about Little Amal, her journey and to see more pictures go here. Unfortunately I won't get a chance to see her in person but if you have, please leave a comment and let me know about your experience!