radio news

I am still suffering [well it is tender] from my pneumonia jab. Is it because the needle did go in as efficiently as the painless flu jab, or is the pneumonia a bigger bug? Who knows.
It is a funny jab to have, as i guess it is to guard against me getting debilitated in my old age with a survivable illness, and then popping off with the pneumonics instead.
I would guess some old persons are quite relieved for the quiet escape it affords, if they have been in a terminal position. I shall just have to bang my head on the wall instead.
There is a woman on the wireless today trying to get the Law Lords to clarify the Suicide Law, in that if someone helps you to achieve it they could go to prison, at least the suicidee is no longer a criminal in the afterlife.
She has progressive MS and says she either has to do away with herself while she is still able, or cling on till she finally can't stand it and have her partner escort her to Switzerland where she can be assisted to die, but then Mr Plod would come to call.
Although i guess a Catholic might still wag fingers, and what do Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists etc. say........................it all makes total sense to me, except it is the old "slippery slope" argument.
Maybe she has to do-it-herself earlier than she would wish rather than open the opportunity for the old or weak to be bumped off early by others.
This news item seems to be rated of less relevance to our ears by the BBC [Big British Castle] than a huge furore about 2 comics who said something salacious on a late night radio show. They did go too far, leaving messages on another actors answer phone during their programme saying one had screwed his grand daughter [she does sing in the Satanic Sluts, but her g'father does not!].
Not nice, bullying, should never have been broadcast [it was pre recorded and could have been edited] but now there are 10,000 complaints [only 2 from those listening at the time] and the country is in uproar, and the 2 stupid blokes have been suspended [not by their goolies - yet]- whoops - I hear the tumbrels being oiled.

on show

The Credit crunch doesn't seem to have reached Suffolk yet. Local artisans gathered under the high eau de nil ceilings [embossed with intricate blindingly white plasterwork from an earlier era] of the nearby posh school to show our work this weekend. For some unknown reason persons flocked in and we took a record amount of boodle, nigh on £3000.

My earnings were a small percentage it is true but still it was a warm feeling to be swished by the waves of approbation, increasingly swirled by the sharp elbowed under current of bargain hunting .

Our strict Baptist farmer always benefits from these predatory urges to find a classy Xmas present that looks classy and costs so much less than if you were shopping in London. He turns wood, and produces remarkably beautiful bowls and vases, excellent to send as unbreakable gifts all over the country. Monkey puzzle trees are his current prey.

This bowl is "spalted" [elm or sycamore maybe] which means, I learnt, that the tree dies and a fungus sets in amongst the grain. It has to be killed as the spores can be carcinogenic [as is so much it seems] and then when the wood is turned you end up with these impressive markings.

Recently villagers have complained about his wood pile, as mixed with other farm detrius it was accused of bringing the neighbourhood down, so he had to sort and display it in a more refined manner. Didn't stop them coming and snapping up his bowls of course.

His Baptist life style means he can't steward on a Sunday, but I notice that as his bowls play an increasing part of his income he now bowls in on the Sunday evening to pack the remainder up and totter home. On Saturday he wore scarlet cordroy trousers, black shirt and scarlet patterned bow tie, that's new too.

The potter here is a German lady, Usch, who throws these wonderful jugs and then glazes them in startling colours. I couldn't resist taking the photo with Maggie's quilt behind, stunning.

Maggie sold the quilt to her plumber when he came to do a job at her house, not sure which way the money went in the end. Mags usually flies to Houston for the quilt fair around now with empty suitcases and comes back with them full of fabrics and one or two cheap tracksuits from the A&P that clothed her while she was there.

melt down

I am exceeding Monday morningish today, threatening migraine and achey limbs. Could be because I spent most of Sunday melting plastic.
Embroiderer's Guild ran a workshop on recycling - in a creative way - via an iron, some parchment paper[is that what you call it, not greaseproof, but used for baking i think, don't know as i don't do any]and plassy bags.
Recycling is a hindrance to our gig actually as the bags with built in recycling don't melt and meld as successfully; now one has to increasingly buy the shiny, stronger bags for life, xmas tinsel, shower curtains, even plastic table cloths and doileys, great fun.
The tutor is a patchworker, which frightens the bejabbers out of me as I am so un-neat and am genetically unable to plan my work ahead.
However she was very encouraging, and we soon started chopping up with abandon and melting the bits together in what we hoped would be an interesting manner. I have done a bit of this before, but the key to more flexible creating was to use a cheese grater to shower slivers of wax crayons on the surface which would then melt into painterly shapes and squiggles.
Then stitch.
The key it seems is not to plan too much ahead but to see what happens, so i was fairly happy, if still nervous.
These situations are just endemically competitive, 16 self effacing and generous minded women of age and experience, put them all in the same room where they have to each follow the same instructions and produce a piece, the mental claws come out.
I try very hard to be laid back, absorb the info, play a bit and do it later at home if interested, but before I know it I am head down beavering away.
Now I am climbing over the additional clutter to get into my room and looking for the napalm.
The last 2 workshops have been excellent, but there is also that discipline of working and developing in the sacred "Series", and as i get older I wonder just how many side streets of different Series I can go down.
I no longer want to achieve"art" signified by the fact that it sells [in London] for thousands, but I do want to sell some so i can still get Into my room. I do want/have to keep making stuff. I find if I just piddle about making one thing here, another there it starts to feel so unfocused and meaningless.
So ......................dunno. meld all the experiences/techniques together into a series of pieces that will knock peoples socks off, or at least keep me making.

connections

Tottered off to Sutton Hoo on Saturday, not to visit the Anglo-Saxon ship burial, not even the slightly effeminate golden mask [not that they are there any more, whisked off to British Museum years ago, only copies left behind] but to see yet another textile show. patchwork ladies gave us their all, and quite impressive it was. Dispiriting really for poor wanna-bes like moi.

This for instance is pretty good. And this is clever.

Personally I like using fabric and thread as if it is paint, so i admire the foxgloves more.

These standing stones from the Outer? Hebrides reflected the clear light so effectively I wanted to get on the night train there and then, and I will one day.

Going to too many of these shows will make me hang up my needle for good soon, in an enormous sulk. No positive or encouraging murmurs please. lets just admit the ladies are good

These bathing beauties are probably more my style but i think i would have made them bigger and bolder.

The Salix uses "breakdown" screen printing which I have yet to define. The colours certainly are joyous.

Have just googled and it seems to be a mixture of dyes paints and discharging. Obviously I need the book. Also found an arty blog describing it to add to my favourites. Connections, connections, life is all about making connections.

This one of my favourites too, as I like the layering and merging of form - and stuff

These daisies are stylish, pretty without being cloying. Reminds me of that line in PG Woodhouse when one of Bertie's fiancee's describes stars - as god's daisy chain the sky.................

Allison, made the thin blue line. It is a bit like her - precise yet complex. The title was a theme for the Birmingham quilt show which she entered. Most of it is computer printing, intriguing how the very old tradition of quilting now twins with computer based art.

At the Knit and Stitch there was an exhibit of crochet which explains the hyperbolic maths theory. And then there was that novel about a patchworker who had worked out another geometric theory via her stitching long before the mathematicians got round to it.

tripping again

I am sitting in the sun, which is a small miracle in itself in October, admittedly I am behind double glazing but there are still flowers within and without, the doggy is stretched out with a contented sigh at my feet and if I hadn't just knocked over and broken my cup of tea, it would be perfect. Which would be frightening, so just as well I am clumsy.

The wireless is spewing out financial disaster, not much I can do about that except keep my fingers crossed that the pension funds hold out.

Daughter in America is expecting her first, her husband is on a 4 day week now so they are nervous. Hopefully the Bailouts and interest rate cuts will help steady the ship.

Son, also in the States, is part of a Messenger Co-operative, so he needs businesses to keep growing and communicating so his bicycle wheels can keep going round.

So, yesterday, in an effort to graduate into the Age of Irresponsibility I betook myself, and mother, up to the Big Bad City, ignored the steam rising above the Stock Exchange, or was that smoke, and joined my peers [and commoners] entering Alexander Palace to see the annual Knit and Stitch exhibition.

Actually Ally Pally is a bit like this conservatory, only a bit taller - and with a Palm Court. The textiles are shown in two huge halls - or maybe more, ma and I are rather dyslexic re. direction, and usually have no idea where we are, or how to get there, thank goodness for mobile phones. One hall has a large and colourful Rose window, so we can tell when we are in that hall, and we Know that in one of the corners there is a cafe, just not which one.

We had a potter round the individual and group shows, plus the graduate shows. Each ridiculously young woman has an alcove decorated with the fruits of their years of study, usually highly decorative and accomplished [graduate and work]. I have just realised i should have taken some pics of the ubiquitous knitting for Heide, I will ask Allison. The latter is so dedicated she is going up tomorrow and staying overnight B&B so she can spend two days indulging herself in fabric and colour.

I took some pics for the lacemakers of my acquaintance

and this

For myself i liked these dancers [life size].

My ma liked this quilt [below], with the Diver appliqued. Instinctively I take the opposite view partly because we have unresolved issues [which she is much too old to have any interest in resolving, [the new bus time table etc demands much more attention from her and needs angry emails to whoever] and also because I think the black -what do you call it, silhouette is too .........easy.

The stalls seemed to be arranged more by theme this year, so I was able to dive into an orgy of thread buying, without getting distracted by gadgets, and a wonderful dyed and combed Finnish fleece which I am convinced I can turn into a Mistresspiece or two.

I took a pic of a patchwork piece to remind me to be more adventurous. obviously i have a room full of half finished bits and pieces and I would love to think this would inspire me to combine them in a contemporary manner. Equally obviously no-one would then be interested in taking them off my hands as "contemporary" is not a style that goes over big outside the Big Bad City.

This is really when i miss the presence of my daughter whom instinctively goes for the jugular - in design and all other matters.

five go adventuring

Two textile exhibitions [Two!! count them] in one day. Five ladies [how old, count them - over 300 years between them!!] motored out of Suffolk into the depths of Essex, for my foreign readers this has vast class significance, which rankles with me as I am originally an Essex girl, and I can get defensive.

The conversation, all crammed into one car [for my foreign readers British cars are small, as are the roads] got a bit interminably WI [foreign readers look it up as i may incriminate myself, and the WI has been proven to have some firepower in unexpected places].

Two young persons had flown the family home only days before to fledge at University, so there was much chat and competition about angst and food parcels involved. I become insensitive and irritable after the first five rounds of repetition and reassurance, it is all bonding i know, but these young peeps are off on quite a well upholstered ride, even in these days of huge loans that will cripple graduates in future lives. And I got mine for free, oh dear I am old and guilty, and worse still envious.

anyway back to us older peoples break for creative freedom [not financial success, not if you are a textile artist mate].

The first to be seen was this Dress of Memories, it stood at the entrance, next to a window so the light shone coldly through [it is ruddy cold this week] next to it's sister dress that has crumpled fragments of paper stitched into it.

It was rather beautiful and romantic, sad, ethereal all those words. The sister piece that I didn't like so much has been bought by the Museum in which it is presently it is exhibited for £300, so much for my moans of textiles not being dignified by oodles of monetary recognition.In times of Financial Crunch too.

Janette has been doing some years of research at the Foundlings Institution of largely Victorian times and probably too long afterwards, where women had to leave their babies to enable them to have some food and warmth and thus a future. Not University Students then, which of course is good progress.

The women left little tokens and messages to be kept for when their children grew up, to remember them by. Each little pillow, nestling in the basket records a message. Say no more.

Margaret has done some pieces focusing on the sea shore, i really took to this one as it reminded me of the time I was on a boat going up? the Thames to Hampton Court Palace and we stopped in Teddington Lock. It was so peaceful, a sunny day, peace and quiet with just the trickle of water as the lock filled and we could pass through back to the City. probably an experience that will not be repeated. But this perfectly recalls it when ever I look at it. Not the art works itself, just the pic as i rarely spend money on textile art either................

This last piece [detail]appealed to me because I thought I could use the framing textured edge round my next doggy walk stitching, and reduce the actual walk to about this scale. I'm afraid I was too excited by my ah ha experience to note what the piece is actually about, or by whom, but it is obviously rural - and accomplished.

Mine was more primitive.

As it happens second show will have to take place after this "short break" as I have to take said doggy for a walk she tells me, and as she is an older lady one must not delay these things.

mellow bellow

The Boiler man cometh today, with Henry his hoover, Henry certainly gets around as I see him in lots of places.
Bman also cleaned up the tube that shows us how much is left in the depths of the oil tank, I had perched a plastic mask of Tony Blair on top of the tube [once I had finished with it as the face in a village scarecrow competition, he didn't win] and stuffed it with straw to hold it on.
Somehow earth and insects and all manner of detritus curled up in the warm space and then plunged down the tube.
So I have been expecting the heating to belch and blow up at any moment.
Fortunately we are now sparkly clean and TB is in the bin, where he belongs.
The day started cold and grey but warmed up and the sun shone, the river sparkled and doggy and I had a good tramp thru the bright green grass; we met two very lively greyhounds and Hatters would have loved a race, but she has to make do with a few excited circles now she is an older lady.
The runner beans are still flowering and we are still eating the results, so the rotation of sun and showers is doing some good, likewise the corn on the cob is finally swelling and becoming delicious.................I just keep forgetting to harvest it. G'dad in law had his posthumous birthday posy of Michaelmas daisies on his grave, it all feels very autumnal.
Tomorrow I am hoping to get to a couple of textile exhibitions and next week it is the Amazing Snit and Bitch show at Ally Pally [knit and stitch] so I am buoyed up with anticipation. Hopefully lots of luscious threads.
At my stitching group meeting yesterday I promised to do a Sketch Book workshop next month, I am mad, why do I do these things, I will only get obsessed and desperate.
I guess it is the Only Childitus again, rearranging my dolls. Twit.

soapbox

I am always ready to respond to an invitation to "say more" except for my brain which refuses to co-operate.
I went to my Stitching group monthly meeting this morning, it was our AGM.........oh dear.
First i had to find the way, only having been to our new venue once before. Obviously i got lost then, as I am crap at following maps, or any instructions. This time I went wrong in a different place, perhaps when I have exhausted the possibilities of whizzing by muddy fields and startled cows I will eventually settle down to a route.
They claimed on the wireless today that dyslexia can be genetic; mother has no sense of direction, even tho she has been practising for 87 years and my daughter is a spelling disaster zone.
Fortunately she is expecting a boy, so maybe he will be able to guide us around in our old age.
Unfortunately ADD seems to run thru the boys in his father's side, so we may have to tie a string to him first, so we can keep up.
His dad had Ritalin, and now so do his 2 little cousins, I am hoping that a good dose of distracted creative mother and g'ma will encourage him to realise his existence probably depends on him shaping up for his self survival.
Back at the Stitchers jamboree I had to read out the Minutes in a serious voice, but 20 women soon find something to say, so we plunged out in various unexpected directions ourselves.
We plan to use Bridging the Gap as our theme for next years exhibition, as we show our work in an ancient Maltings which is rapidly turning into expensive apartments, thus we hope to muse on past and future.
Also we have also pledged to each create a "vessel" - that strange objet d'art, beloved of textile artists. As I usually have a Female bias i think mine might show a pregnant women with a hinged tummy....................back to daughter again.
The Tory Boy Toff is on the wireless at the moment pledging to run the country to all our advantage, I doubt it, but the Labour Bother Boys are doing no better, thus my agreement with JG of the Grateful Dead.
Last night i watched a programme on the gog about Jack Kerouac and On The Road, apparently we hippies got it all wrong, it shouldn't have been flowers, drugs and rocknroll........we missed out on the Spiritual Revolution.
Probably did, tho I do remember trying tramping round London on a few marches. But then I had babies and concentrated on the Feminist Revolution, don't know if we won there either.
Now I just sit on my hill. maybe when I become a grand-mother I will resurrect the need to fight -for personal freedom+ personal responsibility.....................or maybe I will just pray the babe grows up and lives a life that he chooses, with a granny flat of course.