A blanket that embodies community

Thamesmead Community picnic blanket

The Thamesmead community picnic blanket was made for the 2024 Thamesmead Festival. Here is a little bit of a story of how we got there.

I was born and raised in Thamesmead and the town has provided me with endless sparks of inspiration as I aim to encourage people to love what is theirs.

Thamesmead has always been a special place and I enjoy taking the most ordinary of things, isolating these as shapes, patterns and colours and then working them into a beautiful artwork, mural or composition.  My proposal for this years festival was to create a community picnic area in the form of a huge floor blanket. A physical space where people could meet, eat, chat, play and form new connections.

After working for such a long while with mural art it was a pleasure to get back to working with fabric again (Textiles is what I did my degree in, my first love if you like.)

I begun by drawing all kinds of illustrations. Some delicate drawings of architecture, some blocky graphic shapes, patterns made from mark making and illustrations of local people drawn and stored on my Ipad.

Then it was all about repeat pattern. I hadn’t made a repeating pattern since I finished university but it was like riding a bike. I created a composition and got to work on making it a seamless repeat design. This was all done on both my Ipad and Mac using photoshop and procreate.

Perhaps the most exciting but nerve-racking part now, sending off my files to be digitally printed onto the fabric. Its exciting because you get to see your ideas come to life but jheeze the anxiety you feel of ‘will it look okay’, ‘will the colours be right’, ‘will the fabric be thick enough’, ‘will it arrive in time for me to sew’ the questions and worries go on and on. BUT it arrived from a company I used called Jelly Fabric and the fleece was vibrant, good quality and looked FAB.

Next was the part I was dreading.. sewing it all together. But actually it was simpler than I thought. Although the panels I needed to stitch together were HUGE I managed. Using my trusty Bernina machine I turned 3 panels into a massive blanket. Then, I added some eyelets that meant I could use tent pegs to attach the blanket to the ground without damaging the actual blanket.

Then it was festival day and what a magical day it was. I got there super early to help pin down the blanket in front of the acoustic stage. ITV News London came and recorded some footage of me and the blanket. It was from that point on a full on day of chatting and showing the blanket to friends, family and local people who I’ve gotten to know over the years.

I was THRILLED to see that the blanket was in use for the whole festival. There wasn’t a moment where I saw the blanket empty. People (and dogs) of all ages were enjoying the space. Some took their shoes off, some lied down, some ate their lunch, some danced, some laughed and they pretty much all clapped along to whatever treats were on stage. Most importantly the community came together and the blanket was just a tool for that. It wasn’t designed to be the main event. It was designed to be a reason why people gather, once they did, the blanket and my job was done.