Berkshire Care Home Residents Become Needlework Experts

Residents at RMBI Care Co. Home Lord Harris Court, in Berkshire, have proved you can pick up a new skill at any stage of life. With an average age of 90, residents at the Home have recently learned how to combine colours and shapes to create impressive cushions. Thanks to the latch hooking technique, which they learned at the Home’s needlework workshop, residents used a special hook to hoop the yarn, pull it through the canvass and make unique designs.

One of the residents, Gladys Matthews, enjoyed this technique so much that she has already made three cushions and will soon start her fourth. She says: “I am giving the cushions to my daughters and to another resident as presents. This next one will be for me because I want one to put in my room!”

Resident Wendy Hollingsworth loves cats and was delighted with her Marie from the film ‘The Aristocats.’ She says: “At times it was a struggle to get all the colours in the right places, but I never gave up and now I am delighted with the finished result. It looks lovely on my bed!”

Resident Beryl, another cat lover, depicted her own cats. Now she has started a new design of a Victorian garden. “I have got the bug; I just can’t put it down. As soon as I get up in the morning, I do a few rows! It is so relaxing,” she claims.

As for resident Angela Walmsley, she was so pleased with her Winnie the Pooh cushion that she went on to create a much more challenging artwork: a striped lighthouse. She says: “This was a complicated design that required a lot of concentration. I am really pleased with how it turned out!”