Following 8 weeks of Story and Play sessions for under 5s at the Old School in Warrington, we have created a Parenting Playbook to support Parents and Carers with establishing play at home.
Thanks to funding from Cheshire Community Foundation, you can download your own copy to support play with the little ones in your life.
Combine all the dry ingredients and mix well
Add the food colouring to the water and then add the vegetable oil and water and food colouring to a large pan and mix together.
Add the dry ingredients and mix well
Cook over a low to medium heat until the dough starts to form and becomes dry.
Once all the dough has formed a ball, remove from heat and let cool.
Once cooled, knead the dough for 5 minutes to soften. If the dough is still sticky, put back in pan and heat for a few more minutes.
Wrap in clingfilm and store in air tight container and keep in fridge for 1 week.
Dilute the White Vinegar – 2 parts water to 1 part White Vinegar
In a Zip lock freezer bag, add a cup of rice, a tablespoon of diluted white vinegar and a few drops of food colouring.
Seal the bag shut, ensuring all air is out of the bag and spread the food colouring across the rice
Once throuroughly mixed, empty the bag onto a baking tray and leave to dry for a couple of hours.
Store in an air tight container for up to a year.
Want to download a free copy of our Parenting Playbook – A guide to support play at home? Follow this link
Fee: £50 per 90-minute session (+ 30 minutes setup/pack down)
Location: The Old School, Warrington
Discipline: Open to all art forms (Storytelling, visual arts, music, movement, writing, performance, etc.)
Commitment: Regular sessions over the project period (November to June)- afternoons, evening and weekends (schedule TBC)
Requirements: Public Liability Insurance, DBS Check, and two references
Deadline for applications: 5th November
Workshop Interview: 11th November, 1.30-4.30
We are looking for an Apprentice to support a creative community space in Warrington, engaging three community groups:
Building on the success of a pilot project with ND families, this new initiative funded by Lotteries Community Fund, will expand our Story Stitchers approach to foster confidence, creativity and connection through regular arts-based sessions.
Our listening-led, storytelling and co-creation method helps participants express themselves, share stories and build a sense of identity, belonging and wellbeing in a safe, inclusive environment. You can read more about what this looks like in practice here.
As an Apprentice Facilitator, you will work alongside an experienced lead artist to:
This is an opportunity for an emerging artist interested in developing community facilitation skills and working with diverse groups. You will gain hands-on experience in socially engaged practice and learn how to deliver inclusive, participant-led creative sessions.
We welcome applications from emerging artists working in any creative discipline who:
We are particularly keen to hear from artists who have cultural understanding relevant to the communities we are engaging with.
Date: 11th November
Time: 1.30-4.30
Location: The Old School, Warrington
We will host a workshop interview in the afternoon. In this workshop we will share more about the project and invite you to lead a 15 minute activity relevant to your creative discipline. Applicants will need to be available for the duration of the workshop and expected to join in the session.
Please email your application to hello@storystitchers.co.uk by 9am, 5th November including the following:
We look forward to hearing from you.
Like stories, beginnings are important. We are often asked
“How do we start a project? What approaches do we have? What attitudes do we foster?”
So this is how we unpack the beginning of things, how we establish relationships and cultivate joy and wonder.
If we support folk to discover joy and curiosity, they are more likely to connect with meaningful creative activity. The word glimmer entered our vocabulary from the trauma informed community. For those who don’t know, a glimmer is considered to be the opposite of a trigger. While a trigger may cause trauma, stress or anxiety to surface, a glimmer is considered to be micro moments that induce happiness. Once we become aware of those glimmers, we can start to build upon them and make more time in our life to do the things that generate those glimmers.
However, some of our participants are not ready for glimmer hunting. They are so bogged down in the stresses of life that even a glimmer is beyond them. So we will look for a Spark. If a glimmer is a micro moment, a Spark is a nano second. A flashing twinkle that may fizzle out before the participant has even recognised that jot of joy in their body. As facilitators, it is our job to seek the Spark in our participants and build upon it.
This is a very watchful practice. These Sparks might be a widening of the eyes, a satisfied sigh, a flicker of a smile or a leaning into the work. It cannot be achieved if we are too busy teaching a refined artistic skill or aiming for an explicit finished piece of work. In this stage this is how we establish a relationship, we want to connect to the human before we connect to the artist. This early stage of creative collaboration is built around accessibility and appropriateness for the participant. We call this Scrapbook Storytelling.
This could be a prompt sheet to encourage words or drawing their favourite things or telling us about their favourite character from a film, TV or book or collaging an object that they use everyday. From this moment we can really start to tailor the creative offer to match the common interests of the group. This is where the glimmers emerge and the participants begin to recognise the joy they are discovering in their creative practice. With our encouragement, we as a group start to seek the joy out.
This is done authentically. We, as artists, are also seeking joy. Instead of commenting on whether someone’s outcome is ‘Good ‘ or not, we give feedback on the approach: “I can see how you have made those dots using the pencil” or “You look happy. Is it the colours that you have used that are making you so happy?”
Once there is a collective feeling of joy seeking amongst the group, we are ready to access the next level of an artistic practice – Wondering. Wondering is our way of describing a creative curiosity that is born out of an artistic practice and exploration of an idea. It is not just about the participant wondering, it is also about the facilitator providing high quality artistic stimulus to provoke wonder. It often begins with a Wonder Box. A Wonder Box is a vessel filled with objects to provoke conversation. The box should reflect the conversations and interests that have been discovered in the previous sessions, curated to provoke a more in depth decision. This may evolve into something more specific like the inside of a carriage clock that houses clues to a secret character or a piece of audio that invites inspiration.
The Wondering stage is also there to encourage and cultivate creative skills. In this stage of the process the facilitator should begin sharing techniques to enhance the participant’s creative practice. In the previous stage, we may have used materials that are available at home – lots of recycled card, scrap paper, colouring pencils and pens. In the Wondering stage we will begin to elevate the materials on offer, Aqua markers instead of felt tips, Fineliners over pencils and introducing clay or acrylic paint pens. There is also some creative risk taking that comes with this practice. So we will scaffold this to reduce risk. If making a mark is too overwhelming for fear of getting it wrong, we will incorporate time and materials to practice.
As we work through the group’s Wondering era, the artist starts to see what the outcome could be. This is gently fed back to the group and feedback gathered about whether this idea is exciting to them as a collective.
We are thrilled to share news that we have received funding from Cheshire Community Foundation to pilot an 8 week project for families with children under five that puts imaginative play at its heart. Families will be invited to come along to our friendly sessions where we share stories, craft, sing and play. These sessions will take place at The Old School in Fairfield and Howley in Warrington.
The sessions will combine a more structured storytime session with a softer stay and play format and will be delivered by artists with experience as parents and working with Early Years families and settings. Every session will include open-ended play that sparks creativity, and storytelling that builds confidence and curiosity. We will provide a safe, welcoming space for all families.
There will be the opportunity for parents to play and craft themselves in a bite-sized way to give space for creative reflection. A no pressure activity that can be completed with a child on your knee.
At the end of the 8 week sessions we will take all that we have learnt and create a Parenting Playbook, this would be designed to embed play into the home. We will have digital copies and a limited number of printed copies that we will distribute locally through food banks and pantries.
If you would like to bring your family along or learn more about the sessions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Here we are on the last day of 100 days of our quest to seek joy. Over the last 100 days we have had over 10,000 interactions with audiences through social media. But what about us? How did we feel seeing those prompts coming in every day?
You see we played along too. We prepared these 100 days ahead over summer. Flick colour coded 100 lines in a spreadsheet. Tom scheduled the posts. A handful were spur of the moment when the scheduling failed. But while we want to encourage others to find joy, we need to seek it too.
When we started we could sense that society was feeling a pressure, and we knew that people were feeling the stress. We never saw these 100 days as a way to fix that, but we did think that it might bring a small moment of reflection, a small moment of happiness in what can sometimes feel like a marathon. And now we are at the end. And discontentment and worry is as vivid as that crunchy ice underfoot that this viscous cold snap is preserving. It did lift us, even for a small moment and when we logged in and saw the discussion that the Joy Seeking had provoked between others, people of different ages and sometimes living on different continents, it filled us up even more.
Our home is not untouched by the stresses of the wider world, we don’t live in a vacuum. Our work has us reaching out and lending an ear and finding ways for you to feel that your stories matter. That you matter. However, we see the burn out, the underfunding, the staff shortages, the stretched services and the low morale. We see that both within and without our sector. From our friends in Education and the NHS to our friends who look to bring a smile to your family’s faces as they spend these late winter nights wandering under winter lanterns, invoking wonder in the people they entertain. We know for many people Art can be a refuge.
So come January 10th we will be launching our Get Together Tuesdays at The Old School. Each Tuesday there will be a different group on offer. From social singing with Choir-Oke to an evening of play with Game On. We will still be hosting our Story Circle and we will run a creative writing group, Unscrumpled, for you to catch a story and put it on the page. We’re keeping these classes low cost at £5 a session and all these groups will run 7pm -8.30pm. We provide these sessions in the spirit of these last 100 days. Not because we think it will fix everything, but for 90 minutes every Tuesday, you can come and find refuge as the storm rages outside.
Game On!
1st Tuesday of the Month
7th Feb, 7th March, 4th April
Roll the dice, find the joy, play the game! An up on your feet social Games night for adults. Roll the dice, find the joy, play the game! An up on your feet social Games night for adults. Somewhere between Parlour Games at your Aunty Pat’s and an improvisation class.
Choir-Oke
2nd Tuesday of the Month
10th Jan, 14th Feb, 14th March
This social singing group has everyone belting out the bangers all together into a hairbrush. We have different rounds to get you laughing and the chance to win some fabulous prizes such as ornamental plates or a pack or Parma Violets.
Story Circle
3rd Tuesday of the Month
17th Jan, 21st Feb, 21st March
Open Mic for Storytelling. Our relaxed Story Circle invites you to either share a short tale or sit back and listen. From poetry to prose, songs to stories about holidays with your Nan, we welcome all kinds of tellers and their tales to add their voice to the evening.
Unscrumpled
4th Tuesday of the Month
24th Jan, 28th Feb, 28th March
A social creative writing group. This practical class will help you to create a database of ideas and develop your tool kit as a writer. Relaxed, social and open to everyone interested in creative writing
As primary schools are preparing to reopen its doors to children next week, we at Stitch have adapted some of our most loved drama games to get bodies moving, imaginations kicked into gear and children communicating at a time when social distancing is being practiced.
We have created a free pdf for you to download here and keep in the classroom.
Or you can simply browse through the selection below.
Story Stitchers 