Nearly There

The trail is nearly ready to be revealed. I’m still awaiting information from one or two stragglers – you know who you are so I’ll not be doing any ‘naming and shaming’ here - but most of the scarecrows have now been located, either on private premises or up at All Saints’ Church. Soon, I’ll be pestering competitors who have not, as yet, given me a title for their entry.

Flying Pigs

I just had to snap some shots of these fantabulous pigs that I found today at Frost’s Garden Nursery in Woburn Sands. Made from recycled cans and other metal containers, they are an object lesson on how to make something creative out of discarded materials. 

Now that I’ve explored scarecrow making, making scarecrow animals is now on the agenda. I’ll be drawing inspiration for these colourful and amusing pigs. 

Thank You, Home Retail Group!

I’m thrilled to hear that the Home Retail Group has agreed to provide some top up funding for our Scarecrow Trail. The Home Retail Group comprises Argos, Homebase and Habitat. The Group describes itself as the UK’s leading home and general merchandise retailer. They aim to shape the future of shopping by investing in a range of in-store and on-line options to browse and purchase their retail offering, by developing their product ranges and services, and by ensuring that they bring unrivalled convenience to customers' everyday lives, whether shopping at home or on the move. My thanks especially to Ruth, who put in this successful bid for sponsorship.

Rosettes

I’ve just ordered our personalized rosettes from Castle Rosettes. Everything is coming together nicely!

Parish Council Update

Yesterday evening I attended a regular monthly meeting of Loughton and Great Holm Parish Council, to give the councillors an update on how the arrangements for the trail are progressing. As my report gives a good ‘potted summary’ of what is planned for the trail, I though I’d publish it here.

1. There will be a good display of scarecrows

To date I’ve had 59 entries for the trail, including:    

• 29 adults / families
• 8 children
• 10 businesses
• 12 schools and children’s organizations

More actual scarecrows will be on show, as several entries are tableaux.

2. We have a Scarecrow Trail

The trail has been provisionally mapped out. The extended trail is about 5 miles long. Of the 59 entries, only 17 are outside the old village and the Bradwell Road, so it is possible to see 70% of the ‘crows’ by walking a shorter route within the old village core. I am working on a car trail that will take in the longer route and checking its accessibility for wheelchairs, scooters etc.  Certificates will be awarded to those who complete the extended trail!

3. There will be prizes!

Prizes will be awarded to the winning ‘crows’, but I have settled on vouchers to spend at leading MK stores, rather than cash prizes:

• ·      The first prize in the Family competition will win £50, with two runners up each winning £20.
• ·      In the Children’s class, the winner will receive a voucher for £20, and the two runners up £10 each.
• ·      The winning Organization will receive a £50 to spend at a leading luxury chocolate retailer.
• ·      The winning School / Children’s Organisation will win a voucher for £80, and the two runners up £30 each.
• ·      Finally, the scarecrow that receives the most votes in the Visitors’ Choice will receive a gift voucher for £50.

There will also be plenty of rosettes to award to other scarecrows.

4. Judges

Three Judges have been appointed, one from MK Arts Gateway and two from MK Gallery. 

5. Raffle

Tickets are now available for sale at 50p each. Prizes already pledged include: a first prize of £100.00, a summer hamper, an adult and an under 16 Go Kart Experience at Daytona, a month’s free subscription to Fusion Fitness and a stylish, contemporary quilt.

More prizes will be added closer to the event.

6. Timeline

Between now and the end of June - just over a month to go – all the entrants onto the trail should be busy building their scarecrows. The event proper kicks off on Friday 28^th June.

Noon on Friday 28^th June – all scarecrows to be on display for judging. This will take place during the afternoon. Winners announced and rosettes awarded to prizewinners on Friday evening.

10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. on Saturday 29^th June and Saturday 6^th July, and 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. on Sunday 30^th June – All Saints’ Church open to trail visitors.

Daylight hours from Monday 1^st July to Friday 5^th July. Scarecrows in private gardens and at local schools and business premises will be out on display. However, All Saints Church will not be open during the week.

7. Goings On Up at the Church

When the Church is open at weekends visitors will be welcomed to the following additional attractions:

• ·      Trail Guides and Raffle Tickets on sale,
• ·      Plant Swap Stall,
• ·      Crafts Stall
• ·      Second Hand Book Stall
• ·      Embroidery Exhibition
• ·      Refreshments and Cakes on sale in the Church Room in the afternoons.

8. The Grand Finale of a Scarecrows’ Supper.

This will be held in All Saints’ Church between 7.00 p.m. – 10.00 p.m. on Saturday 6^th July. There will be a ‘Bring and Share’ supper, in which all the basic ingredients like bread, butter and spreads, dips and pickles, nibbles and crisps, salads, fruit and soft drinks will all be provided and each family, couple or individual who attends will be asked to provide a small sweet or savoury contribution to the feast. We are hoping to emulate the ‘miracle of the loaves and fishes’ in ensuring that, by asking for a small additional contribution from supper-goers, everyone will have enough to eat!

Tickets will be available soon at a price of £4.00 per adult and £1.00 per child. After the first 2 children, the rest come free, so a family of 4 or more can come to the supper for £10.00.

After supper, there will be entertainment that will include:

·      an ‘All Saints’ Variety Performance’;

·      the winner of the ‘Visitor’s Choice scarecrow will be announced;          

·      The Grand Raffle prizewinners will be drawn;

·      There will be a Scarecrow Auction; and

·      An Auction of Gifts and Promises. (an hour’s gardening advice, unique car trips with ‘Mr. Toad’, more Daytona experiences, and a patchwork quilt have already been promised)

9. Thanks

Finally, I thanked the Parish Council for its support of the initiative, for arranging publicity in the Parish Magazine and on the Parish Website, and especially to the Parish Clerk for pinning up posters on all the Parish Notice-boards. 

A Good Time Was Had By All

Yesterday afternoon we held a Scarecrow Making Workshop up at All Saints’ Church. 

The seven adults and two children who came along made six scarecrows altogether, assisted by three stalwart helpers, Valerie, David and Julienne. 

Rev. Dave Bell and Labrador Cassie dropped in to admire the results and thanks to everyone’s generosity we raised £60.00 for the Church.

The following scarecrow building kits, left over from the workshop, can be purchased from Julienne for the princely sum of £10.00 each:

• ·      2 x Kirstie style freestanding armatures (timber frame)
• ·      2 x Mister Softee soft- bodied armatures (pipe insulation)
• ·    2 x basic t-shaped scarecrows, each of which comes with two pairs of tights (for arms and legs) and a pillowcase (for a torso)

The demonstration Kirstie style armature together with its stuffed scarecrow body, which can be seen in the background to the second photo down, is also for sale at £15.00 if anyone wants to make a flying start on their entry. All the proceeds from any sales will be given to All Saints' Loughton.

Cut Piece Cut!

Recently, MK Festival Fringe put out a call in which they would fund a proposal by an artist or arts organisation to create an unique installation in a vacant retail unit in the Theatre District, in Central Milton Keynes. The installation built by the winner of this small grant will form part of a three day Fringe programme of performance, dance, music and visual arts, that will take place between 19th -21st July 2013, within the Theatre District

I submitted a proposal on behalf of All Saints’ Loughton and the local community, to take about fifty of our scarecrows that had been offered for auction, to the shop in order to build an installation that would have reinterpreted the scarecrows, en mass, into a fascinating and colourful narrative about scarecrows. 

Visitors to the installation would have encountered a multi-sensory experience that included viewing the scarecrows, touching some of them and/or the materials from which they were constructed, and listening to a soundscape, produced specially to accompany the exhibition. The installation could also have included demonstrations of scarecrow making and storytelling on scarecrow-related themes.

The 'piece de resistance' would have been to facilitate visitors to the shop in joining in the performance by embellishing a large scarecrow figure with pieces of fabric and other unique, hand made decorations – the opposite process to Yoko Ono’s famous 1960’s art performance, ‘Cut Piece’.

Unfortunately, I was not successful with my application. So that’s less work for me, then!

Mister Softee

I’ve made some modifications to the soft-bodied armature that I used for Farmer George (see my blog for Monday 8^th April 2013). A visit to B&Q established that Climaflex foam pipe insulation comes in 2 metre lengths, and a variety of at least three diameters: 48 mm, 65 mm and 78 mm.

Each ‘crow’ takes one thick tube cut in two for the legs, half a thinner tube for the torso, one thin tube for the arms and half a thin tube for the hips. The finished ‘crow’ is light and flexible. I’ll be offering him as an alternative to the freestanding ‘crow’ at tomorrow’s workshop.

This scarecrow’s torso can be strengthened by pushing a length of wooden dowel up the centre of the pipe. The dowel can either be short, just long enough to stiffen the neck whilst leaving the ‘crow’ able to bend at the waist, or long so that the whole of the torso is strengthened. The dowel can even be long enough to act as a centre post that can be pushed into the ground to support the scarecrow.

Remember to drive a hole into the ground using a separate piece of dowel or rod, as the ‘crow’ itself will not be able to withstand being driven into hard ground.

The hips and legs are made by cutting the thickest diameter pipe in two to make two legs, each a metre long, before winding the half of the thin tube round the top of one leg, interlacing it at the bottom of the torso, and then again at the top of the other leg, securing each twist with strong twine or string as you go. The hips hold the legs in place by natural friction.

Two pieces of wooden dowel can be inserted, one down the centre of each leg, so that the legs are stiff and can support the scarecrow when the free ends are put in the ground. As before, the holes needs to be made first, so do not try to push the dowels that stiffen the legs straight into the ground without first preparing two holes to receive them.

The arms are made by overlapping two of the thin pipes to form the shoulders and taping the ends. The torso pipe can then be inserted into the space formed between the shoulders, where the arm pipes overlap. The arms can be posed. 

At this stage, if gently encouraged the shoulders will slide up and down the torso. Slide them down, and place a face bag lined with a plastic bag over the top of the torso, stuff it with scrunched up newspaper, and seal the neck end with builder’s tape. Trim away any surplus and slide the shoulders back up to the neck. Secure the shoulders more firmly at the neck with builder’s tape.

The torso can be ‘dressed’ with a T-shirt, and stuffed. The arms and legs can also be padded out in the usual way, but depending on how you want your ‘crow’ to look, this may not be necessary. The arms, legs and torso can all be trimmed shorter with scissors if a 'crow' of smaller proportions is required. 

'Thank You' Routeco!

Our grateful thanks go to Routeco Limited, a company based in Knowlhill in the civil parish of Loughton, whose Chief Executive Officer has donated £50.00 to All Saints’ Church to support our Scarecrow Trail. Routeco was formed in 1978 and has established itself as the leading supplier of industrial control, automation and process products in the UK. It is amazing to see all the products that are shown on their website, http://www.routeco.com/, where it is possible to source everything from cables to computers, light bulbs to motion controls and sensors to wiring accessories. Routeco is one of a small number of generous sponsors who are helping to make our Scarecrow Trail a financial success. Thank You, Routeco!

Finishing Kirstie's Freestanding ‘Crow’

Yesterday's blog left the scarecrow at the bare armature stage. Here's what happened next.

Step Five – Make the Body.

For this, I used a pillowcase. My method was slightly different to Kirstie’s in that I stapled the back of the opening to the scarecrow’s shoulders, put a bin sack inside to waterproof the newspaper stuffing, and filled up the pillowcase. The body hangs down in front of the vertical support, from the shoulders, and will be held in place by any clothes that are used to dress the scarecrow later. Meanwhile, the torso is very easy to stuff. It is surprising how much paper it takes to stuff a scarecrow!

Step Six - Attach the legs

These were made from a pair of old, thick tights. The first step was to stuff the legs of the tights firmly with newspapers contained in smaller plastic bags, up to the top of the legs. I put the scarecrow’s tights on when the pillowcase was about half full of newspaper. The tights give the ‘crow’ a nipped in waist. They are self supporting, but if you are worried about them staying on, you can pin them in place with safety pins.

More newspapers were added to the pillowcase, until the scarecrow was stuffed full up to the top. At this point, the bin sack and the front of the pillowcase were stapled to the shoulders to close up the body. If you want a fatter scarecrow, you can add more plastic bags containing newspaper to the tummy or hips, between the pillowcase and the tights, to provide additional padding.

If the legs stretch, as sometimes happens with tights, you can adjust their length at any point in the ‘build’ by squeezing the papers up from the toes, and tying a knot at the foot end, to shorten the legs. Remember, though, to leave enough length of ‘leg’ to form a foot. The same applies to the arms. You can see the knots where I have shortened by scarecrow's arms.

The arms were made from another pair of old tights, with the pants cut off. As before, the tights were stuffed with newspaper, contained in small plastic bags. It is good to adjust the size of the bag to the size of the limb that is being modelled: larger bags for the torso and thighs, smaller bags for the arms. Likewise, it is good to scrunch smaller balls of newspaper for the smaller limbs and larger balls for the torso. When they were full, the arms were stapled firmly to each shoulder using a staple gun. This is a job for a grown up!

Step Seven - The Face.

Kirstie used a pillowcase for her scarecrow but I used a smaller rectangular face bag, with a finished size of about 400 mm wide by 600 mm deep. These were run up quickly on a sewing machine from flesh coloured cotton, calico or hessian. The face should be decorated before it is put on the ‘crow’. As mine is just a demonstration, I have not decorated my scarecrow's face. Buttons are good, or a painted face looks great.  

A few points to bear in mind:

·      The plastic bag that is used to waterproof the face needs to be thicker and stronger than those used to contain the body stuffing as it takes quite a beating when the face is stuffed.

·      I put the plastic bag onto the face plate, stuffed it with small balls of newspaper and secured it with builder’s tape, and then I slipped the face bag on afterwards, as it is easier to stop the newspapers from falling out at the neck if you are only manipulating one layer. If you do this, make sure that you don’t over stuff the plastic bag, though newspaper is very forgiving and can be squeezed small so that the face bag can be pulled down.

·      If you are making a larger than life sized head, check that any clothes that do not open down the front will go over the head before you attach it to the armature.

Step Eight- Dress The Scarecrow

At this point, almost anything goes. Safety pins come in useful. Clothes can be made to look older by sewing or gluing on colourful patches cut from different materials. I can’t wait to see what people bring to tomorrow’s workshop to dress their ‘crows’.

Kirstie’s Freestanding ‘Crow’ - Part One, The Armature

This armature is based on the frame that was made for a freestanding scarecrow, which featured in ‘Kirstie’s Handmade Britain’, first screened in 2011: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kirsties-handmade-britain/4od#3276655. Instructions for making the scarecrow can still be downloaded from the Chanel 4 website.

This armature is great if you require a really stable, freestanding scarecrow that need not be driven into the ground or propped against a support. However, be warned! This is not a project for a novice builder. Having road tested Kirstie’s instructions, David offers the following advice.

1)        The instructions for the cross-section of each of the pieces of wood required to build the armature should be read as millimeters (mm), not centimeters (cm). Our instructions are all in millimeters (mm), which is the unit of measurement used by the building trade.

2)        Step One - The Square Base. Kirstie’s instructions for Step One recommend that the two chunky, 900 mm long cross pieces, which make up the solid wooden base, should be half lap jointed (notched). In large cross-section wood (Kirsty’s was 70 x 70 mm in section, ours was 85 x 35 mm) this requires the use of a handsaw and a chisel, and some expertise in woodwork. The result is neat and this method is shown in our photographs. However, an easier alternative is to lap the timbers without cutting anything away, and to nail or screw two wooden blocks (each made from the same wood as the cross pieces and about 100 mm long) to the underneath of the upper cross piece so that the base will stand level.

3)        Step Two – Preparing the Frame. We’d recommend that the ‘arms’ of this particular armature should be cut to shoulder width (about 500 mm) so that the clothes can be put on more easily, and to enable the armature to be moved about, without any danger of bashing into anything or anyone. It is heavy and cumbersome to lug around.

Kirsty recommends that the upright centre post of the scarecrow and the horizontal cross piece that forms the shoulders and arms should also be notched like the base, before the two pieces of wood are glued or screwed together. There is no need to do this, other than for neatness. Laying one piece of wood on top of the other at right angles and nailing or screwing them together without a notch is stronger, and is undetectable when the scarecrow has been dressed and stuffed. You can see the result in this photo.

I’d recommend that a small rectangle of plywood or similar board be screwed to the top of the centre post above the shoulders where the head bag will be placed, so that the scarecrow’s head cannot swivel around once it has been secured at the neck. Don't make it too large if you are planning to dress your 'crow' in a T-shirt, or it won't pop over this face plate.

4)       Step Three – Screwing the Frame to the Base. David did this by drilling and screwing in two long screws on opposite sides of the centre post, set at about 25 mm up from the bottom of the centre post and at 45 degrees, angled down into the solid timber base, rather than using Kirsty’s method of one long screw inserted into the scarecrow’s centre post from underneath centre of the heavy wooden base, which is really difficult.

5)        Step Four – Secure the Frame. The four 500 mm long supports (braces) that Kirsty recommends to support the upright centre post of the scarecrow should be cut to slightly different lengths to enable them all to be screwed to the centre post without the screws clashing.

6)        It is much easier to use inexpensive, tanalised tiling batten, which is widely available in 19 x 38 mm, 25 x 38 mm and 25 x 50 mm sections, and is sold in lengths of either 1800 mm or 2400 mm. The 20 x 20 mm sections that Kirsty recommends are too light, are not standard timber cross sections that can easily be sourced, and are comparatively expensive to buy. There is a danger that lighter sections will split when screwed together if the screw holes are not pre-drilled.

I'm heading off to Embroidery Group now. When I get back, I'll complete the soft body parts and give my verdict on the advantages and limitations of this type of 'crow'. I'll be offering this armature as one of the choices available to the crow-builders who are coming to Saturday afternoon's workshop.