Processions: Making the letters and tassels

So the plan had always been that we would have letters spelling out the phrase ‘Smile, it confuses your enemy’ individually decorated by the women.  These letters would then be placed on a digitally printed cloth featuring the smiles of 100 women that the women saw as role models or aspirational figures.

I had printed out the letters on paper to use as templates.  We cut them out and then the women choose letters.  Artichoke, organisers of the Processions march had asked for the suffragette colours of Violet, Green and White to be used.  I had bought a load of fabric in those colours and let the women choose what colour their letter might be.  They could decorate the letter however they wished…..and some really went to town with appliqué fabrics, jewels and chains.

Women hard at in in Holy Trinity, Shirebrook

So on some of the workshop session women were working on their letters whilst others were making wrapped cords that would be eventually be made into tassels that would form a fringe along the bottom of the banner or large tassels for the side poles.  The photo below shows the Rev Karen in action on a Pfaff Passport 2.0 sewing machine zigzagging strips of fabric to make wrapped cords.