Bumper project is designed to involve all ages with hopes of an Alphabet Trail being launched
Gipsyville Library coffee and chat group have chosen the letter G to work on(Image: Miranda van Rossum)
A large-scale community project has been announced that will see prominent people, places or things associated with the city represented in An Alphabet of Hull. A clear concept laid out by the organisers will need to be followed to the letter; after that, participants’ imaginations can run wild.
All 26 letters of the alphabet are to be offered to groups to “stitch” onto wire mesh, the pieces measuring 1m x 2m. Eight letters had already been snapped up at the time of publishing; now organisers Miranda van Rossum and Hanna Lutkin are inviting offers to claim the rest.
Miranda may be remembered for her Hull in Stitches project, in aid of Hull Food Bank. She cross-stitched 100 miniature designs at interesting locations across Hull, in the space of 12 months, making it “less about landmarks and more about showcasing the good stuff Hull has in abundance”.
Now she has switched her attention from mini to maxi artworks, in this new community venture. Miranda said: “Once finished, our intention is to display each piece in a public location with some relevance to its subject matter, thereby creating an Alphabet Trail.
“We aim to have all pieces completed by the end of September. We soft-launched the project last September, with a request for ideas for the alphabet via social media and groups of our acquaintance.
“Over 100 people responded, and we finalised our alphabet in November. Since then, we’ve started the process of recruiting groups to take on a letter each, and have so far allocated eight letters.
“However, this means that we’ve still got 18 letters to divvy up. We’re also on the lookout for some more materials for the project, as it is entirely self-funded.”
Miranda said she hoped it would be a joint project that would “really inspire people” and she was really looking forward to participants “doing their own thing with it”. She said: “For example, Friends of Alderman Kneeshaw Park have taken the letter K, for Hull KR.
“The group’s design will feature red letters on a white background, with three knitted or crocheted cups in the bottom left-hand corner, and a cartoon-style robin in rugby kit drawn by group member Sarah in the top right-hand corner. The group are also looking to engage the wider community in the creation of this piece, by asking schools etc to make robins, shirts and rugby balls to create a border.”
Miranda believed other organisations, such as knit and natter groups, would enjoy the chance to get creative. She said she enjoyed seeing people’s eyes “light up” as they began to plan for what their letter might include.
She said: “ Holderness House craft group have taken R for Reckitt’s, they were very keen to do that. Holderness House was Thomas Ferens’ house and he started as a clerk at Reckitt’s and rose through the company to chairman; it is great to have that local link.”
Miranda said: “We can provide the mesh for people to work on and we will be giving guidance on how the letters are made, so no one needs to have any previous experience. The designs are made using a clothes rail on wheels, to keep the mesh taut, so if people have any of those to give or lend to the project, that would be really useful.
“We expect quite a few of the people who will want to be involved will be ‘yap and yarn’ groups, who are likely to have some of their own stash of materials to use, but if anyone has any yarn they would like to donate, we would be happy to receive that. Going forwards, with the trail we hope being a permanent fixture, we’d like little signs for each finished piece to show that it belongs to the trail and acknowledges the makers, so potentially we will be looking for donations for that.”
Anyone wanting to find out more about the project or adopting a letter can visit An Alphabet of Hull on Facebook. An Alphabet of Hull will be made up as follows, with those letters already taken marked with an asterisk:
- A is for Amy Johnson*
- B is for the Bee Lady*
- C is for Chip Spice
- D is for The Deep
- E is for East Park*
- F is for (Hull) Fair
- G is for Gipsyville*
- H is for the Headscarf Revolutionaries
- I is for Imperial Typewriters
- J is for Jackson’s*
- K is for (Hull) KR*
- L is for Larkin
- M is for the Minster
- N is for Needler’s
- O is for the Old Town
- P is for Patties
- Q is for Queen’s Gardens
- R is for Reckitt’s*
- S is for Spiders
- T is for the Tigers
- U is for ‘Ull
- V is for Venn*
- W is for William Wilberforce
- X is for X-ray fish
- Y is for Ye Olde White Harte
- Z is for Zoological Gardens