Visit to Sow Sew Exhibition at Gallery Oldham Thursday 23rd October 2008

We all enjoyed this visit to Gallery Oldham, although a great many of the exhibits lacked definition for us and tended to be quite dark. Ann gave us a description of all of the Felts on show and told us how they had been made. There was a photograph of the old machine which had been used.

After a stroll around the exhibition, we adjourned to the education suite, where we were each given our items in order to make our own felt. We teased out various colours of wool and laid them on a rectangle of bubble wrap and then sprayed it with very hot wat and soap suds. There were many pieces of material, silks and odds and ends we could use to create our own pictorial vision, with a great deal of help from Gallery staff and volunteers. After many soakings with water aand rolling and squeezing, we ended up with the beginnings of a felt. Most enjoyable.

Whilst all of this hard work was being carried out, we were plied with drinks and buscuits and finallymade ourway home. Our sincere thanks to Mary and her drivers for getting us there and to all of the Gallery staff and volunteers who helped us to create our masterpieces.