10 year old Maia shares her handiwork

My lovely next door neighbour Maia is ten years old and already a talented make and mender. She showed me her hand made book cover, purse and a beautiful pottery jug. All of these were made by Maia at her school, St James.

When we started Make it and Mend it, we wanted to ensure that skills and crafts are passed on to new generations and we were bemoaning the fact that so rarely are skills like this taught at school. Maia is certainly benefiting from a great art teacher (Mrs Hay) and sewing teacher (Mrs Pickles) at her school.

Maia made a delightful Binca cross stitch book cover for her copy of her favourite Paddington Bear. This is a sampler of a number of different stitches, including herringbone, zig-zags and magic stitch. Binca fabric is a great way for children to get started on sewing and embroidery.

The Peggy purse is also made using Binca and again has a great range of different stitches.

Finally Maia told me she made the pottery jug by cutting out 2 cardboard templates and using these to cut the sides of the jug. The patterning on the jug was made by rolling a piece of lace over the clay, before joining the pieces together and adding a base. They were joined using slip (clay mixed with water). The clay handle was added, again after using lace to pattern the edge. The piece was finished by firing in a kiln, then painted and glazed and fired again. Maia tells me putting the pieces together was the most tricky part of the operation.