The Caritas Quilt - Younger Conservation supporting a textile community project that encouraged young children to sew - a skill increasing ‘left out’ from the school curriculum!
From the drawing board …. four large trees with shields growing out of ‘Love’.
Based on the idea of the Jesse Tree, as described by the Prophet Isaiah, ‘A shoot shall come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.’
Each tree is about 1.5m high and they can be hung separately or brought all together on the floor.
The shields are the story boards… designed to carry painted pictures from the Old and New Testaments. They are also take the form of very practical pouches that will allow resources to be tucked away to support bringing the scriptures alive to the parish children.
The Children’s Liturgy group in front of one of the four completed quilts with shields attached. The removable shields represent stories from all the different Liturgical themes throughout the year such as: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, certain Feast Days and Ordinary Time.
Whilst the hand sewing was only a small part of the quilt, because the children found painting easier, I am hoping it will help to kindle an interest in textile craft within my wider community, in Perth.
The project reached the local Dioecies newsletter:
…. Mrs Younger, always enthusiastic to encourage the next generation to like sewing brought in her team of professionals, to work with the Children’s Liturgy Group, to create the design framework on which the young peoples’ ideas developed. At the start, the work involved children in the parish youth group. Next, it was the turn of pupils from St John’s Academy and Kilgraston School who were working to achieve their Pope Benedict Caritas Award, for service to the Church and finally the wider community, both groups and individuals in the parish were needed, due to the scale of the project.
“It definitely became a labour of love,” said Sophie. “Old and young were working together. The completed project will provide an excellent resource for the parish’s Children’s Liturgy Group as well as full filling my desire to introduce and encourage youngsters to try their hand at sewing.”
Anne Mitchell, Children’s Liturgy coordinator at St John’s, was delighted to see the project reach fruition. “There has been a great amount of work and commitment behind this project,”, said Anne, not least from young people. We are deeply indebted to Sophie Younger for her generosity, not just in time and materials, but in developing and sharing a great idea and seeing it through to its fruition.”
YCL continues to work within the community on textiles projects.
March 2018
Sophie Younger, Director
