Art in Action

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to take the Unfinishable project to Art in Action in Oxfordshire. Art in Action is a wonderful event which started in 1977 'inspired by the simple principle that people are fascinated when artists and craftsmen openly demonstrate their skills and discuss their work.' Its a 4 day event seeing approximately 25000 visitors. We had initially planned to camp but thankfully decided against it as the heavens opened up and let rip whilst we were setting up the exhibit. Luckily for us and our one bucket the rain eased up and there was glorious sunshine by the weekend.
We had some new Unfinishables, the five pieces that we showed were all on loan as they were all too precious for their owners to part with permanently.  We gave each the full works- in lovely gold frames for both the piece and the story. The project caused quite a stir, it was suggested that we should supply tissues on the stand because some of the tales were so moving .

 Ann Humphreys contributed a wonderful dressing table set and this is her story.

Ann Humphreys 

This dressing table set was given to me by my mum when I was learning to embroider. 

The needle got left in the middle and rusted, so when I came back to it after my uni years and wanted something to stitch I sort of lost heart and did get a bit bored of blanket stitch!

I will never use this, so don’t see the point of working on it even if I could remove the rust. But it is a record of my teenage stitching. I am impressed – there is some neat work here. Having filled in the Unfinishable Project questionnaire I realise I cannot part with the actual piece. This is part of my sewing story!

Josie Ireland

We met Josie at Art in Action and she was very interested in Ann Humphreys piece and story as she had inherited the finished version similar to the dressing table set that Ann Humphreys had started from her Grandmother. So here it is, an Unfinishable finished.