craft blogging

I'm sure I have commented on this before, but there are such riches to be found amongst those sharing bits of their lives by blogging. Recently I have been watching several things being created, bit by bit.
There is Judy's Manitoulin Circle Project, which always holds within each post a deep sense of art and craft in action and in community.
Gina with her great textile creations and current, sketchbook project - really inspiring, in an "if only I could manufacture enough time" way!
Susan's lovely Lavender post, dye and stitch in soft harmony,
Penny's Celtic Crow, along with the numerous book inspirations in her side bar,
Karen's lovely piece of peaceful circles
And always Jude's amazing and fascinating work, words and pictures. I keep promising myself some time spent following one of her on line courses, but don't feel myself skilful enough yet to take advantage!

All of these good souls take time, not only to create things that are lovely, but add that extra time to photograph, think about and share their processes with anyone who wants to watch and maybe join in. I am learning so much from them, not least that you can only create if you - well - create, which seems obvious but  I tend to spend too much time reading and not enough doing. The beauty of  blogging of this quality is that you get to see the doing and the thinking behind it, along with the time it takes to create. Real lessons from real life in how, really, to follow the dream.

Evening garden

Just a few images from the garden this evening, the first being a penstemon grown from a cutting from a garden I left nine years ago. The first time it's flowered

ripening walnuts

layers of green

Teasel with fly

Blue on blue on blue

rain jewels on columbine

strangalia maculata apparently 

beasts in the undergrowth

Mindful Ironing

I’m not much of a one for ironing, but I had some sheets that had to be washed – sheets I’d found tucked away in a drawer in Mum’s flat, The were stained, but had evidently been put away after a good laundering, compressed but perfectly ironed, rust marked and rather stuffy. I washed them in a good hot wash, tumble dried them (it’s been raining a LOT) to a perfect dampness, then ironed them mindfully. That is I paid attention to what I was doing, savouring the rising steam, enjoying the feel of hot cotton under my fingers getting smoother and smoother, letting my body get into a gentle rhythm of ironing, rather than dashing at it because “it’s got to be done”. Once you find the swing of a task, you do it quicker and better anyway. While I ironed I remembered.

The last time I ironed sheets was with Mum, in the “up in the eyrie” top floor that was her flat in our building. So I remembered that. I remembered her courage in the face of a body whose bones were crumbling within her, while her bright blue eyes still smile dot light up a room. Remembered the fun we had at times, even though other times were difficult.

The sheets bore labels saying “English Lady” and “Horrockses Linen”, which spoke of days gone by, one declares itself to be Egyptian Cotton. One was laundry marked – “Lomer”. Now they are single sheets, and the name Lomer was my grandmother’s (Ganna ) surname  once she married my grandfather, Gerald Hugh. Here they are on their wedding day in St Leonards on Sea, Sussex.

Gerald Hugh Lomer

Here is Gerald,in his uniform, helping with the gardening in the garden at Arklow, where she grew up. He an English soldier in a Southern Irish town at the time of the troubles, keeping the peace. He met her as the family put on evening entertainment for the soldiers; Dr Rowe’s three daughters with piano, violin and voice. She Ethel, the daughter of the town apothecary – known as Dr Rowe, at a time when armed men could be found skulking through the ground floor rooms, while you stayed upstairs, silent, ‘til they had gone. So I remembered them too.

Alice Constance and Alice Katherine Rowe

Then I recalled how, when first married they had a double bed. This, Auntie Connie, Alice Constance Rowe, and their mother Alice Katherine, declared incondusive to the good health and strength of the newly weds. They strongly advised twin beds for a good night’s sleep. Astonishingly, the newlyweds complied with family wishes and twin beds were bought, hence the single sheets for a newly married couple.

Then I remembered further back, to the time when Alice Katherine, four years widowed, aged came across to St Leonards on Sea, England, with her three unmarried daughters, from Arklow, County Wicklow, on the whim of a pin placed, with eyes closed, onto a map of southern England. Why choose such a curious means of deciding when she had a brother in Liverpool, who had six girls of his own – known collectively as “The Frodshams”. Perhaps because said Gerald Hugh was a son of the south, having been born to a family in Southampton who had been “county solicitors for generations”.

So I ironed, and remembered: remembered talking of all these things with Mum, who had talked of them with Ganna, who came across the Irish Sea. And the remembering was good, the ironing done in fine company. For such is the passage of family myth.

Stitchfest 2011

 Today I drove over to the South of England Showground at Ardingly to attend my first Embroiderer's Guild event, Stitchfest 2011.

Regional Challenge stands

This was the event for which Beezeyeview was created and here he is amongst the rest of the East Sussex bees, twirling in front of their blue sky with little pots with each of their names sitting below. The regional challenge was Flight, look out for Elvis coming at you head on

and Hip-Bee with her cool flower power pants

It was really enjoyable and quite busy, despite, or perhaps because of the rain falling outside. Downstairs there was a goodly range of traders to tempt, while the exhibits and food were upstairs. I was very struck by how much variety creative people can come up with, given a one word theme and lots of skill and imagination. There were quite a few bee and butterfly themed displays, but also kites, balloons, witches on broomsticks, a prehistoric panorama, a marvelous airship flight complete with ticket office and attendees and some beautiful and very skillful pieces of individual embroidery around the theme. I got the impression that some stands had been put together specially for the challenge, while others may have included work done in the past by branch members, brought together for this particular theme, though I may be wrong here.

Here is a selection of just some of the things I enjoyed

East Surrey's garden trellis with butterflies

Kites

several of which really repaid a closer look

Butterflies fluttering about

Croydon Branch display

more butterflies, these from Maidstone 

some close ups of the high quality and lovely presentation of some of the embroidery there

One of the several very lovely things on the Chichester display

and finally the airship from Tunbridge Wells complete with fairground ride, Mystic Meg, tea and cakes and some very fine costumes

Did I buy anything? How could I not. There were shimmering silks on the Silk Route stand - so I chose their Summer Leaves silk pack for a hanging in the very early planning stage. Another stall had some delicious hand dyed silk and threads from Neredah McCarthy, so I chose a couple more bits to go with what I had already, along with some of her threads in rich deep shades. There were stalls with sumptuous thread in every colour, thickness and texture that you could possible want, so I also bought some of the Wildflowers Collection by Caron in deep greens. These are exactly what I was looking for to bring some dark tones into Uffington, who is now back on track, having been put aside for the bee. Here he is, with colour gradually flowing in from all sides,as he gallops across the Downs, pulling the rising sun behind him as the night stars fade, a little bit of early morning cloud on the horizon, some shadows at his feet.

Still plenty more to do, but I am really enjoying how he's coming along, evolving with each stitch as the story grows.

down where the long grass whispers

One of our deep pleasures is sitting near the end of the garden in the evening sun, watching the breeze ripple through the grasses there.

This is where the great badger citadel is, and also where the walnuts are quietly ripening - I wonder what they will taste like,

I have a feeling the husks can be used to dye things, a fresh experiment to try.

We have transplanted some things from elsewhere in the garden as they feel more "right" in this space, which we want to keep as natural as possible, so there is teasel, whose leaves, cupped close round the stems gather the rainwater. This, I discover, led to it being called Venus' Basin by the Romans. The seed heads were used to tease out wool for spinning, the flowers provide nectar for butterflies and the seeds are food for goldfinches in the winter. We are hoping they will naturalise here,

We have also moved a couple of clumps of what I think is Shasta daisy. We saw them planted in meadowgrass at Hampton Court last Saturday and thought, aha! that's what we do with them - having had to dig out a clump to put something else in their place,

they look as though they belong already. They will be joined by foxgloves and a variety of other wildflowers as and when we can find them. Some would cut down the grasses and try and domesticate this space - we prefer it wild, aware of the passage that badger leaves as he bumbles up toward the top of the garden in search of tasty morsels

This wild space sits just below the vegetable area, and is edged by a rather splendid wall of railway sleepers, which provide a lovely natural feeling edge to the plot

We sit and watch the butterflies and buzzies flutter in the warm evening air and, if we look very close, down where the long grass whispers, there are creatures ... dark creatures ..... dreaming quiet night thoughts amidst the soft seedheads of grasses and dandelions.....

Feeling lucky

I mentioned, I think, that I've been going to a series of Pain Management classes at the local hospital. We are nearing the end of this now, two more sessions to go and then we're on our own until a follow up session in September. It has been an enriching experience, also humbling, encouraging and at times just plain fun as a small group of people, all with similar problems have got to know each other.

The course works on a number of levels, combining advice about how to run your life so as not to increase the level of pain you live with; some gentle daily exercises; a bit of cognitive behaviour therapy and relaxation techniques. It has reinforced the way that I try to manage the daily challenge of not letting pain and discomfort take over; a recent session had a brief section on mindfulness; central, to me, for coping. It has also shown me how much others have to deal with, reminding me that actually things are not that bad really. Yes, my body hurts every day, and has done so pretty much for the past twenty odd years, with intermittent pain going back to when I was eleven, but there are people on the course who have far worse pain to cope with, who have had to give up a lot more than I have because of it.

One of the things we have looked at is pacing and goal setting. A simple concept, but very important. You set yourself achievable small goals, and work out how to get there by breaking them down into even smaller goals, so that you have a series of targets that you know you can achieve. You work at the pace you can manage whatever your day is like, rather than going all out for it on a good day, then having a setback because you've done too much, so end up feeling downhearted. My overall goal is to be able to walk from the holiday home we have in the Lakes to a pub and back, a distance of I guess about 6 miles. I know I could do it last year - just, but since then I seem to have lost a significant level of what little fitness I had. This is where the pacing bit comes in, if you'll forgive the pun. I set myself a target of walking from home down to the beach and back again twice a week. This is about 1 1/2 miles there and back and I have to take a rest at the bottom of the hill before turning round to come home. On the way back it us uphill all the way and by the time I get home I am puffed and my heart has had a good, albeit short workout. Doesn't sound much really, but I know that others who attend this course couldn't manage even that little expedition; I know that, before she died, my Mum couldn't have got from the front door to the road, so I revel in the thumping of my heart as I toil up the hill, so pleased that I can manage even this small feat, and hoping that it will build and build so that, by the end of September, that walk to the pub and back will be a breeze.

The course also talks about giving yourself a reward to spur you to achieving these little, baby steps goals. What could be a better reward than knowing that, when I reach the bottom of the hill, this wonderful view is just waiting for me, day after day after day.

Beachy Head sunset

Lucky eh?

Hampton Court Flower Show

well, it's been a while, I've been busy with a variety of things -  a pain management program at the local hospital which has taken over a significant proportion of my non working time, and then this week, a whole week of my wondeful daughter. This included two days of girly shopping where I tried very successfully I might add, to repair the holes in my wardrobe left by what Ganna always referred to as "avoirdupois" - too many pounds to the likes of you and me!

However, Jen has now gone off to travel the world again - this time a short trip to Poland with a friend who comes from there, and my dear man and I had the pleasure of a trip to Hampton Court Flower Show, courtesy of Ray of Rotherview Nursery, who built me my front garden earlier this year. He shows at Hampton Court - and at Chelsea where, this year, they got a silver (Chelsea) and a silver gilt (Hampton Court), which is pretty damn good and follows previous successes.

We set off yesterday quite early, heading for the Park and Ride as advised on the RHS website. It took us some three hours from door to entrance gate, which was quite a trek, but once inside that was all forgotten. We've not been to the show before, so were determined to see plenty but not exhaust ourselves!

The first thing that caught my eye was this rather lovely group of poppy head inspired garden sculptures, lacy against the cloudy blue sky

The blue came and went, but the day stayed warm and we wombled about looking, looking and looking some more, finding ideas for our own garden and seeing things that were just lovely, or quirky or in some cases just a bit bonkers, including one, with a laudable message, called the coppafeel garden, which, with its saggy fabric breasts at the entrance, just didn't quite do it for me, but perhaps I didn't look hard enough, or have enough of an out there sense of humour!

Here though, are some that did

World Vision Garden

Hands On - with some thoughts to take away

I am, because of who we are

Copella Plant and Protect garden

The marquees were enormous, but this lovely display of afternoon tea at the vicarage roses from David Austin stood out

as did this firework explosion of eremerus, which I would love to have in my garden one day.

Once we'd looked at the show gardens, we went to eat, checked the plan of the space and realised that we'd only seen about a quarter of it so far! As I tend to get pretty painful if I push things too much, we decided to have a quick wander round the floral marquee, which looked pretty overwhelming from this perspective

but included Ray's stall, full of delightful troughs planted up with alpines, which are Rotherview's speciality, and won them a silver this year

Once we'd said hello, we escaped the melee and rambled back to the entrance, admiring the fountains on the long water

and in my case, being particularly charmed by these "rain trees", which, with their platter and splatter, I could have watched for a long time, were it not for my legs and back which were, by now, protesting rather!

So we loaded ourselves onto the obliging bus, waiting to take us back to the park bit of the park and ride, navigated our way through a number of confusing and very busy Saturday afternoon places, hooked up with the M25, then the M23 and rode the tarmac all the way back to Sussex.

Whenever I take this route into the rest of England, I really feel that I'm on my way home when I see this lovely view of the Downs, their long backs swooping down to the flatlands below Lewes. They always seem to be watching and waiting, while we humans, like little ants in our busy cars, hurry and scurry around beneath them, going from and to somewhere way beneath their lofty radar

Firle Beacon

Did we buy any plants? Yes, a little trio of rusty red; an echinacea and two achillea which will find a home soon and give the bees and buzzies a  treat I hope. A happy reward for a very enjoyable day.

Thank you Ray!