Pixie points way to Tailored family tales

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Pixie points way to Tailored family tales

Tailored Yarn is a community- focused business that writes and illustrates fictional children’s stories for families battling with cancer or other terminal illnesses.

Gillian Seale chose the name, Tailored Yarn, as each story would be designed to fit an individual family, describing details from their journey.

The idea of preserving memories in the unusual format of legacy literature is not offered anywhere else.

Tailored Yarn makes the perfect gift for children who enjoy reading.

Gillian says: “The vision for this project just felt right, as I would be doing what I enjoy most, but helping families at the same time.”

This project is aimed at socially benefiting families facing serious health challenges.

Each story is specially designed to reveal the facts, along with favourite family memories woven together in an exciting fictional adventure story.

The aim is to turn each one into a special legacy, which is bestowed as a priceless gift.

“I do not plan to charge families huge sums of money for their stories,” Gillian says. “It is my responsibility to make the books to a high enough standard to be successful once they are published.”

Tailored Yarn is about to launch its first children’s fictional adventure story, called Post Pixie Missing in Action.

The story was inspired by a friend of Gillian’s who, at the age of 11, was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy.

They meet up for lunch every week and have read countless books together over the years.

Gillian’s friend had the idea for the theme to be the importance of depending on one another in a world which teaches us all about being independent.

It is a captivating and beautifully illustrated story about friendship, empathy, confidence and perseverance.

Unusually, the book has 50 pages of coloured illustrations for children’s enjoyment.

Although the illustration took Gillian years to complete, she felt it was worthwhile, as the results are breathtaking.

She took the book to her children’s school and got a great reception.

“If a wider audience of children enjoy reading the stories that I create, my business will have succeeded in its mission,” Gillian says.

Find out more at www.tailoredyarn.com

Community Interest Company makes a difference in Liverpool

By Carolyn Whitehead, Founder of Beautiful New Beginnings and Co-Founder of Leading Ladies in Business

Community Interest Companies are making a huge difference to the communities they serve in Liverpool and many people, including eight-year-old Isaac Sheard, are benefiting from the services they offer.

With the proceeds from the West Derby Christmas Light Switch-On, Isaac was the proud winner of a year of music lessons.

Local CIC Beautiful New Beginnings ran the competition.

St Mary’s Millennium Centre manager, Rob Wood, was instrumental in the Christmas fundraising event, making it a huge success, attracting over 3,000 visitors to West Derby on the day.

Isaac, who has a diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was spotted in the long queue to see Santa on the day of the event.

He found it difficult to cope with the huge crowds and was quickly spotted by Jingle Jayne – the Founder of Dr Dave’s Entertainments.

Seeing his distress, the autism champion spoke to others in the queue and hurried Isaac to the front, which made an incredible difference to both Isaac and his mum, Lynsey, on the day.

Lynsey quoted on social media following the event: “When people see you jumping the queue, I know they probably don’t like it, especially when they’ve waited ages, but thank you so much to everyone for letting us in without complaining.”

Lynsey had spotted the competition to win a year of music lessons on social media.

She had planned to use disability living allowance to pay for his music lessons, but, when his name was drawn from a name generator, Isaac was able to start his music journey with teacher, Dan, at school of Rox, run by Roxanne Twomey in January, and has huge ambition to become the next infamous Liverpool drummer!

Lynsey said: “Isaac’s autism can sometimes hold him back from trying new things, as he gets very anxious.

“He was so excited to win his music lessons, though, and it’s made him feel very special and has given him lots of confidence.

“We’re so grateful to Beautiful New Beginnings, The Millennium Centre and School of Rox for the opportunity.

“What a wonderful community we have in West Derby!’

Find out more at www.beautifulnewbeginnings.co.uk

Events

North End Sketch Club - every Monday

Want to get arty with your community?

Join the weekly North End Sketch Club every Monday afternoon in the Snug at Homebaked, 197, Oakfield Road, Anfield, Liverpool.

The group meets at 1pm, with entrance and all materials provided for free.

The event is run by Jayne Lawless, of sustainable arts organisation Dead Pigeon Gallery, and Positivity Inc CIC.

Everyone is welcome.

About Semble

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