A great day out

I've had a brilliant day today in the company of the Pembrokeshire branch of the Embroiderers Guild. I've been lucky enough to run workshops for them in the past and they asked me to deliver another one on making books. Due to the level of interest the group grew to 15 which I knew was pushing it a bit but I am, as ever, always happy to foster anyone's interest in making their own books, so we went for it. Sadly one of the group was poorly but the others rose to the challenge and produced some beautiful books. They each produced at least one book, some also producing other structures that I demonstrated with them. Some of my photos were not as clear as I'd have liked but this is a small sample of what they created.

Fiona

Alison

Jennifer

Karen

Millie

To these and to the others - Ann, Diane, Kay, Helena, Ann, Liz, Angela, Cynthia and Glesni, I want to say a big thank you for a fabulous day. It was tremendous fun and I have taken huge pleasure in the enjoyment your books have given you. Thank you girls!!!

Cemetery link to follow

Thanks everyone for the comments re my visit to the cemetery. I knew I was not alone! For all those of a similar disposition can I recommend you read the blog of textile artist Mandy Pattullo. In her main blog Thread and Thrift*, Mandy recently wrote about a new project she is working on, focussing on maidens garlands. I had never heard of these before and have become fascinated by them. She has set up a separate blog , Memento Mori to document the work and she has just posted some wonderful sketchbook pages all fed by motifs and the architecture of memorial stones. If you are of the same inclination as me follow the links. You won't be disappointed.

* For some reason I cannot link to the right post, so go to the archive for 2nd February headed Maidens Garlands.

Here come the girls

Life is busy at the moment but the beautiful warm Spring weather is a real distraction from the jobs on my 'must do' list. It was also my wedding anniversary this week and I remember it being this hot and sunny on the day I got married, 21 years ago. My young man took me out to celebrate in a new restaurant but I was more taken with the tantalising view of memorial stones I could see in a small cemetery across the road. Over a tall hedge I could just see a huge stone topped by an angel and this is unusual in Pembrokeshire. I'm not sure if it's because of the preponderance of chapels or what but headstones, although often wonderful, are not commonly adorned by angelic hosts. So, I played truant from my jobs yesterday afternoon and drove back to the cemetery to have a closer look. I am completely fascinated by cemeteries and memorials but not in a morbid way. I am entranced by the names I find and imagine the lives people led. I took lots of photos and then realised they were all of women's headstones. I told a friend I had spent the afternoon in the cemetery and she gave me that 'you need to get a life' look, but being surrounded by all these other women's lives is wonderful and I would love to know more about them.

Where are you Mother?

In the convoluted way my brain works I was looking for moths - hidden moths - and my eye caught the phrase, 'Hidden Mother tin types' What on earth was that? Of course I had to have a look and was amazed at what I found. Apparently, in the early days of photography it was so hard to get babies and children to sit still they were placed in their mother's arms with the intention that she would later be cropped out of the photograph. So that she didn't distract from the shot, she was often covered up. Now some photographers were very skilled at the deception but others seem to have just chucked a dust sheet over the poor dear and made her stand out even more. These 'hidden mother' photos are highly collectable and sell for good money.

My favourite is the last one with the mother's hands holding that poor child's head. Memo to self : must get distracted like this more often. It's opened up a whole train of thought about concealment and revelation......

More words and pictures....

Thank you all for your comments about my sketchbook pages. I'm glad to read that a couple of you may take Sue's lead and post some of your own. I've just been reading Sara's post at Double Elephant about hers and they are wonderful. Rush here to have a look please. After my post I picked up another sketchbook and found it was one that I'd recorded various poems in. I'll often jot words down or notes about poems in any notebook I am carrying and I found a reference to a poem by John Cooper Clarke. I came across it at an exhibition in Cardiff, on a piece of work produced by calligrapher Elizabeth Forrest and just had to write it down there and then. It still makes me smile. It may not be new to you but just in case it is, see what you think....

Let me be your vacuum cleaner

Breathing in your dust

Let me be your Ford Cortina

I will never rust

If you like your coffee hot

Let me be your coffee pot

You call the shots

I wanna be yours

Let me be your raincoat

For those frequent rainy days

Let me be your dreamboat

When you wanna sail away

Let me be your teddy bear

Take me with you anywhere

I don't care

I wanna be yours

Let me be your electric meter

I will not run out

Let me be the electric heater

You get cold without

Let me be your setting lotion

Hold your hair with deep devotion

Deep as deep as the Atlantic Ocean

That's how deep is my emotion

Deep deep deep deep de deep deep

I don't wanna be hers

I wanna be yours

image from the BBC

........and from the ridiculous to the sublime, if you want an audible treat have a listen to this programme on Radio 4 this week. It was in the Afternoon Play slot but it was readings of the poem 'A Sleepwalk on the Severn' by Alice Oswald. I've posted about Alice Oswald's work before so I am a fan but even I couldn't believe how wonderful this programme was. I've already listened to it again on the BBC i player. It is all about moonrise over the Severn Estuary and follows the moon in her five phases : new moon, half moon, full moon, no moon and moon reborn

I was always taught that if poetry baffles you, read it aloud and all will fall into place. Next best thing is to listen to someone talented read it aloud for you. They paint word pictures for you that come alive in your head. I sound a bit like I'm 'away with the fairies' don't I? I don't mind. This is a real gem and should be enjoyed by as many people as possible!

Sketchbook practice

My friend Sue has written a great post here about the use of sketchbooks and thrown down the challenge to other people to explain how they use them. Well, in my case, I rarely use them as a vehicle to try out ideas that are going to be translated further. If I am following a course then I will produce a sketchbook with direct drawing or painting in that relates to the course, but mostly I use them for doodling ideas into or collaging old prints or photocopies of things. I love small, portable books that I can use for a 'quick fix' collage from torn up magazine pages. They don't serve any purpose other than making me feel good. They are not great art but they are great fun. When I read the post and then looked at my box of old sketchbooks I picked out a couple of small ones and selected these pictures to show you what I mean.

I love looking at other people's sketchbooks and can't get enough of books that show how artists approach their work through them. I wish I was more disciplined with them but I tend to get an idea and do it, missing out the sketchbook phase, or doing it in the sketchbook and never taking it further. Just goes to show how different we are. Anybody else willing to take Sue's lead and show what they do?

Safe arrival

I had a phone call on Sunday morning to say my friend had given birth in the early hours to a bouncing baby girl. Indigo, already foreshortened to Indi, weighed in at 9lbs 6 ozs. I think that classifies her as a bouncing bomb rather than a bouncing baby doesn't it? Anyway, I had already gathered the remnants of my indigo dyed fabrics to make something so I set to.

My friend is a great fan of Kirstie's Handmade Home and re-purposing things so I found a vintage tray cloth I'd bought in a charity shop. Not only was it the right shade of blue, it also had a ready stitched panel in it.... and a few tell tale signs of former users..... but I disguised those with a bit of judicious placement and decided to just cut the letters for her name out of the fabric.

After some quick handstitching I went to the local framers where I found one frame that fitted without having one made especially. It would not have been my first choice but once I start I am sometimes guilty of accepting second choices just to finish something and move on. They cut me a mount for a £1 so I've just placed it in there and will finish it off properly later before I go over to see the babe tomorrow or Thursday.

I also made an amorphous blob of a rabbit from some other embroidered cloths I found at the same time. I have not uploaded the right photo to show the lovely little flowers on the cloth but I cannot go back and do that now as Blogger takes forever at the best of times for me. When I showed it to my husband last night he made all the right noises and gave me that indulgent smile they all have when they don't quite know what to say for the best. I am all 'babied' out now but I am looking forward to seeing her. Birth is a miracle isn't it.... just like my sewing.

The best things in life....

I've just been reading Jane's post over at Marigold Jam. It's entitled 'Santosha' which apparently means to be content. I think she and I shared the same sort of contentment today, albeit on opposite sides of the water. I met up with a couple of friends for a walk in the glorious sunshine we're having this week. Vickie lives in Penally, about 20 minutes from me, and she looks out over the view to Lundy from her house. Three of us trundled down to the beach at the bottom of her road and walked from Penally into Tenby, seen here in the distance. It was so hot you could feel the sun burning you as you walked along. There were a few people about, mostly dog walkers. My friend Di had her Border Terrier, Scruff with her but he never stood still long enough to be captured on film!

I spent most of the walk picking up shells and various bits and pieces like mermaids purses, seaweeds and the odd crab and scallop shell. It was all hanging out of my jacket pocket but now it's all in a bucket losing the sand covering everything. I want to pull some of it together to draw this weekend but if the weather continues like this it will be spent in the garden or going for another walk. Today was a day to feel glad to be alive. I was with great friends and in a place I love living in, doing something for free in brilliant Spring like weather that couldn't be bettered. Thank you for the new word Jane, it was definitely a day of 'santosha'.

Dye Hard

It has been a glorious week here. Sun every day and real warmth. It really does feel like Spring is just around the corner and I just want to get out and about but there are tasks that just have to be done. One of them was completing the little zippered bags I wanted to make with my indigo dyed fabrics. I have put it off since my previous post, primarily because, although I understand the principles of putting in a zip, I invariably cobble it together and make a mess of it. Anyway, I went for it yesterday morning and finished all four bags. They don't bear close scrutiny but I really like the patterning on the fabric so hope they take someone's fancy at the Wonderwool event. I still have a few oddments left and I've just been told that my friend's baby (which is now overdue!) will be called Indigo so I already have an idea for a present I can use the last few indigo dyed remnants for. No waste. I like that. A lot.

I also cracked on the other day and overdyed the silk scarves for Wonderwool that I plain dyed last week. I was triggered into action by a video link I was sent. It featured a textile artist using lemons, limes and grapefruit slices to discharge tea dyed fabric. One of those little lightbulbs went on in my head and I remembered using lemon juice to discharge some felt I once dyed with potassium permanganate on a felting summer school. I had a little pot of potassium permanganate crystals in my shed, bought from the chemist a couple of years ago. I don't actually know what people use it for from the chemist (probably better not to know.....) but it is an irritant so I always wear gloves and a mask etc. The crystals are brown but turn a wonderful royal purple once they hit water. It is an amazing shade which disappears as soon as the fabric hits the dye pot as everything turns all shades of brown very quickly. The less crystals, the lighter the look. More crystals give a darker, chocolatey brown but timing is crucial.

I used a thin plywood shape secured around each scarf with elastic bands to act as a resist and set about the task. Potassium permanganate can only be used on certain fibres effectively. Silk is one of them but time is, as I said, of the essence. There is a real time limit to doing this with two to four minutes being the absolute maximum required to get an effect. I was on a roll churning them on a little production line but then it all went haywire.......

Being a domestic goddess (who laughed?) I was also making a blackberry and apple pie at the same time. The cooker timer pinged at the same time as the oil delivery man turned up and it all went a bit pear shaped from there! I love pink and brown together but when I retrieved this lovely scarf from the dye pot after the distractions it was more holes than fabric.....

This stuff destroys fabric if left too long and, as you can see from the cobwebby effect above, it realy does work fast. I was so disappointed because there were some beautiful markings on this scarf that my photos don't do justice to. Of course I could still nuno felt into it for some unusual textures or maybe it could be incorporated into some other textile. Who knows? At least I have completed stage two of the scarf task. Now I have to decide if I am going to discharge into them with screen printing or leave well alone. Perhaps with my track record I ought to take the second option!

Still Life

I have no idea what started this train of thought yesterday but something triggered a mind wandering trail that started with Captain Oates and that famous phrase 'I'm going out and I may be some time.........'

Then I found a fabulous book online by Jane Ussher called 'Still Life'. It's a collection of photographs of the huts used by Scott and Shackleton during that period from the end of the 19th century until just after the Great War when expeditions to the Antarctic ceased. Deserted for 100 years but preserved by the forces of nature these huts are a time capsule of Edwardian exploration . I covet this book and want it but I also found this video launch of stills from the book. It will sustain me until I get the real thing. I find the whole thing hauntingly beautiful and very poignant.