Well, Tuesday was another sunny day in Birmingham Cathedral Square. We can’t believe how lucky we are.

Hayley Beckley, another of the Continued Collective graduates from the School of Jewellery started the day. She roared into action with her sewing machine at full pelt.

Hayley had her work cut out for her (please forgive the pun), as she intended to create one of her signature pleated collars, but this time it was to adorn a tree!

Hayley didn’t move from her sewing machine all day, except to do the odd bit of pressing. After 7 hours of cutting, sewing, pining and pressing she managed to finish just on time and beautifully present her work.

Dora Burns arrived next. A textile graduate from Chelsea College of Art and Design, Dora had her own team, all wonderfully presented in matching hand created uniforms.

Dora interest lies in the role of pattern in communities and her intervention was based on interpreting peoples journeys through this busy City Centre park. Dora had created pattern templates inspired by the Cathedrals stain glass windows. she invited members of the public to choose a template and asked them to plot their walk through the park. She then printed this journey onto her canvas using a resist.

Once she was happy with the number of journeys on her artwork she then carefully dipped it into an indigo dye bath. once the resist had been cleaned away she presented the cloth within the square.

Also working today, Member of the Continued Collective ran participatory workshops, encouraging passers by to try their hand at some of the techniques they were employing during their commissions. They had a bit of a slow start, but as the day developed they became increasingly popular attracting people young and old. by the time we had to stop their stall was inundated. More members of the collective will be giving people a chance to have a go on Thursday.

Stefanie Cheong, our One-Year-On graduate from Glasgow School of Art also made an appearance to test out some of the ideas she had been developing the day before with members of Craftspaces own Shelanu Women’s Craft Collective, but more about that in tomorrows blog post.