Maroon Breakdown

Which sounds like a band, and has been languishing. I may have found a way to move forward with these bits of cloth printed some considerable time ago now, I need to just get on with it now! I blogged about this here and here and was supposed to have put it all together as a something by now. that was part of this year's plan, but it kept getting put to one side, and then I got very tired and was doing very little for a while.

So? These are both poor pictures, but may at least be a start. Many many different layouts have been tried, this may be a final one, but I'll need to have another look by daylight.

Without a design wall this involves a lot of stooping and bending and moving and folding to get something like an idea. Then there's the straining to get a picture from the right height, on the correct plane, all in focus with the iPad. I suspect the whole process would appear quite ridiculous to an onlooker! Still not sure about it, but I really should get going and do something with it. There are still a few gaps to fill and plans to draw and the colours all look much nicer than this!

In the meantime I've had a lovely and inspiring three days with Committed to Cloth dyeing silk, linen and velvet, of which more later I hope; also a pleasurable visit to Standen, a William Morris'y Arts and Crafts'y house and garden, built by Philip Webb which has a lovely atmosphere of just occupied immanence, if that doesn't sound odd.

 There are, of course, beautiful embroideries in every room

 and the garden was delightful and full of buzzies taking delight in it

Oh, and I'm off to Festival of Quilts in a little while; Christine is an exhibitor.

Gosh, I sound quite busy don't I - did I mention the day job? :-)

When do you read?

Anny has her nighttime reads (watch your back Anny!), except now it's the summer holidays so she has a fine selection lined up. I have my morning time reads, the only point of true stillness in the day, when it's only me and the cats. Growing up, an only child, in a very quiet household I value times of stillness.

Here are my morning reads! I posted about something similar recently here. Lest you be misled, however, the pile has overwhelmed me, as has always been the case, so a selection of these may just have to go back to the library. I recall my little Ma complaining when, in my late teens, great piles of "I'd like to reads" languished on my bedroom floor and had to be cleaned around.

"The Land of Ur" my current read, is mine, as are several others on the pile - including the Art Quilts volume, recently delivered from Betterworld Books. Morning is the only time I have enough brain to sort of absorb - I work on the principle that the more I read, the more the subconcious links join up until you begin to get a vague picture of what can be known