The Warm and The Cold art project

My good friend Hayley is part of an art project in Manchester called The Warm and The Cold. She is working with fellow artists and homeless people at The Booth Centre and Big Issue to create quilts and blankets documenting their stories, particularly their relationship with and feelings of being cold.

I had already donated an old pair of jeans and Hayley asked me to embroider one of the pieces which will form part of a quilt

The text was written by one of the homeless people involved in the project and says "warm", although Hayley couldn't remember the language.

I chose this piece to embroider as I like the smooth, flowing lines. Initially I thought I would use stem stitch, but as I looked at it a bit more it made me think of neon signs at the takeaway. Bearing in mind how they often say things like "hot food", I thought that worked quite well with the project and decided I would try to emulate that effect of the light, giving off warmth in itself but also as a pointer to how to get warm.

So I went for a neon embroidery thread and couched it down on to the denim.

Here is my finished piece.

A very enjoyable bit of hand embroidery and I am glad to help this interesting project. You can find out more on Hayley's blog.