OMG! Commemorative Artwork
My dear friend, Lorie, established a charity called Project 71 which supports war veterans who, for the most part, live in our local area. She works tirelessly to raise funds and raise awareness of the charity so that, at no cost to themselves, the veterans can enjoy lunches together, trips abroad, for example to Normandy and Arnhem, for the veterans to pay their respects to those who didn’t return home. Project 71 also provides assistance to the veterans in the form of lifts to places, providing mobility scooters, doing the shopping or just visiting at home or in hospital to have a cup of tea and a chat. Lorie has a group of volunteers from all walks of life that help her to provide these things for the veterans. The work they do is humbling and amazing in equal measures. Please visit their site via the link above to see the wonderful things they do.
Just over a year ago, Lorie sent a request out to crafty types via Facebook, to see who would be interested in producing some fabric artwork to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of Operation Market Garden. The artwork is based on the plate produced by the Market Garden Veterans Association for the 50th anniversary.
The only rules were that the finished badge should be 6” tall and as wide as necessary to keep the proportions right. Any crafting media or technique using fabric or wool could be used providing they could be joined together as the finished badges would be sewn together and mounted onto a background of parachutes and aircraft. The finished article will be donated to the National Liberation Museum (Nationaal Bevrijdingsmuseum 1944-1945) in Groesbeek, Netherlands in September 2019 as part of the 75th anniversary weekend.
I chose to make the 50th Infantry Division
and 101st Airborne Division.
The 50th Infantry Division was a division of the British Army whose insignia features two Ts which apparently represent the three main rivers, the Tyne, Tees and Humber, from the recruitment area of the Territorial Army, of which the division was a part before the Second World War. I immediately saw this design as a crocheted piece and set about creating a stitch grid onto which I could transfer the design. Then it was simply a case of single crocheting the stitches in the appropriate colour.
The 101st Airborne Division (“Screaming Eagles”) is a light infantry division of the US Army who were engaged in numerous operations during World War II. This insignia cried out for appliqué so I got out my felt and Bondaweb and got to work. First I scaled the insignia on the computer so that the image was just under 6” tall. I then traced this onto tracing paper as the reverse image is needed to trace onto the Bondaweb due to it being attached on the back of the fabric by ironing.
The next step was to carefully cut out the images and adhere them by removing the backing and ironing them in position.
I hit a slight snag when I started to appliqué the letters as the felt was not holding its shape and the resulting mess was not acceptable! I experimented with various styles of attachment and found that stitching over the entire letter produced the best result, but not using felt as the fibres stuck up through the gaps between the thread. I remade the letters using yellow fabric, coloured the centres of the letters with black sharpie (cheat!) and sewed over the whole letter using a closely spaced zig-zag stitch.
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| Top shows the experiments, bottom is the finished piece |
The edges of the piece were finished using the overlocker to get the piece to the correct size.
These are some of the other pieces of work that other crafters have made.
I’m looking forward to seeing the finished piece once Lorie has finished the construction.
Project 71 is a small charity where 100% of the money donated goes to supporting the veterans. If you would like to donate and help out this very worthy cause, please click on the link below. Any donation will be much appreciated.
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