We Remember Them - the poppies project

Last Friday (22nd June) was the Centenary Service for We Remember Them 1918 - 2018, the University of Chester's commemoration of the 77 staff and students who lost their lives in World War One. The university sewing group's poppies project has been part of this.

77 poppies - one for each of the fallen

Most of the poppies were three-dimensional, but three had been worked in cross stitch. These were sewn flat onto the wreath, and the others attached around them.

The wreath with the cross stitch poppies and the third row attached

Once the wreath was complete, it had to be sewn onto the backing fabric. Because the backing would be laced across a board for the display, it needed to be stretched before the wreath was attached. Otherwise there was a danger it would tear when it was pulled taut. I got round this by pinning the stretched backing fabric across a large notice board, and then sewing on the wreath (with a metal ruler underneath where I was sewing, so that I didn't accidentally stitch the whole thing to the felt cover of the board). It was quite a stretch to reach across at the corners!

Attaching the wreath to the backing

The completed wreath sits inside a beautiful oak cabinet made especially for the project by Rob Nicholas, a very talented cabinet maker from Liverpool. Rob based the cabinet on World War One campaign chests; the wooden boxes soldiers were given to store their belongings. The cabinet can be displayed flat, or raised like a lectern in keeping with its academic surroundings. There is a poppy on each side of the base, and the names of the 77 are carved into the interior. It is a lovely piece; when Rob delivered it we were all thrilled.

The cabinet

Friday's commemoration began with a service in chapel, which had been specially decorated for the occasion. Because the university was originally a teacher training college, many of the 77 were teachers. The display included 77 crosses decorated by children at some of the schools where they had taught, along with more of the poppies.

The display in chapel

As part of We Remember Them, members of the Alumni Association had researched the names on the war memorial, and had been able to trace a number of their descendents. Many of these family members were able to come to the event, including one lady who travelled all the way from Australia! After the service there was a lunch in the dining rooms, and a chance to look round an exhibition of the information found so far.

Part of the exhibition

Posters about individual alumni

The poppies project display

All in all, it was a lovely day. It really brought the 77 to life; no longer just names listed on a  memorial, but individuals with stories and families, and lives cut cruelly short. It was a real priviledge to have been involved.

The wreath inside the cabinet

The poppies project - making the wreath

I've been very bad at posting about the Poppies project, the University of Chester sewing group's project to commemorate the 77 university staff and students who died in World War One.

In my defence, it's been difficult to post about. Unlike our previous project, this time most of the work has been done by group members at home. At each meeting more poppies were added to the collection, but not much actual sewing or knitting took place during meetings. One exception was when Nicola brought in her embroidery - her poppy was made up of four embroidered petals with wired edges.

The first petal of Nicola's embroidered poppy

We ended up with well in excess of the 77 poppies we had been aiming for; more than 100 over the target in fact! For various reasons, I hadn't been able to get fully involved in the project last year, so I offered to make up the wreath of 77 poppies which will be displayed in the campaign chest. The remaining poppies will be used in displays for the commemorative event, which takes place later this month.

The chest is being made specially for the project. I was given the internal dimensions, and decided that the simplest way to ensure that the wreath fitted inside was to make a mock-up from a cardboard box. It soon became obvious that the poppies would need to be tightly packed on the wreath; they completely filled the mock-up when laid flat.

The 77 poppies inside the cardboard 'chest'

The wreath base was made up from rings of 'bump'; thick curtain interlining fabric, sewn onto a base ring of heavy interfacing. The rings grew narrower, to create the curved shape - it ended up reminding me of the ending of Looney Tunes cartoons!

That's all Folks!

A final wide ring of bump was sewn over the top, to smooth the edges out. Fortunately bump both stretches and contracts quite easily.

Now looking more like an iced doughnut

Because the bump is quite fluffy, I had to cover it with a layer of cotton. This did not stretch to accommodate the curves, so I pleated it as I went round. To me the end result was reminiscent of puttees, the leg wraps worn by soldiers in World War One.

The completed wreath base

This gave me a base onto which I could sew the poppies. I sorted them by size and technique, and placed 12 of the smallest ones around the inner edge, and 26 of the largest ones around the outside. (Although the maximum size was meant to be 8-10cm diameter, there were some, ahem, 'generous' interptretations of these measurements!) As the photo shows, they had to be overlapped to fit them all in.

The first two rows of poppies

Sewing the poppies in place was hard work. Not all of them had backs which were easy to sew through; in some cases I had to attach a felt backing first, and sew that to the wreath. A lot of the time there wasn't room to manoeuvre the needle easily, so I had to use tweezers to pull it through the fabric.

The remaining poppies were attached in two further rings, of 17 and 22 flowers. These were even more awkward, as the space I had to work in got smaller and smaller. It was one of the trickiest things I've ever worked on, but the end result was worth it. I will post about that after the commemorative event, which takes place in a couple of weeks.

The poppies project

It's been a while now since the last items for the University of Chester chapel were finished, but the sewing group has a new project!

Next year will be the centenary of the end of World War One, and the project is to commemorate the 77 staff and students who died in the war, and whose names are listed on the memorial in the chapel. We intend to do this by making 77 poppies, which will be set into a display in the chapel.

The project is being coordinated by Pat Ransome of the Chester Alumni Association. To give us an idea of the end result, Pat cut out 77 poppy templates from red card, and we tried laying them out. It quickly became obvious that the original idea of arranging them into a cross would create something far too large. The current plan is to place them in a replica of the 'campaign chest' which every soldier had to hold his possessions. The chest will measure 24" by 24", and with a certain amount of overlapping, the 77 poppies will fit into this.

The templates laid out in a 24" square (marked onto the fabric)

So far we have four completed poppies, but we have until mid-January 2018 to complete the other 73.

The first four poppies

The only limit is that finished poppy should be 8-10cm in diameter. The poppies can be made in any medium: embroidery, knitting, tatting etc. In fact, the more diverse the techniques the better, as we are keen to remember the 77 as individuals. To this end, the Alumni Association has been researching the names on the memorial, and has even managed to contact the descendants of three of the men listed.

One thing which intrigues me is that the poster shows the memorial with the original 78 names. The story goes that at a reunion of former students in the 1920s Mr R. N. Bullock turned up, saw his name on the memorial, and confirmed that he was very much alive! We haven't yet decided how, or if, we will commemorate this detail.

The original memorial

How it appears now, with the name removed (far right column)

The next meeting will be held on Friday 21 July 21, 12-2pm in CSH111.