Treasure for the New Year

Happy New Year to you dear readers, I hope your Christmases were good and that your year has started with all hope and happy expectation. Mine, of course, has started with the recognition that this will be my first full year of retirement and that I'd better get busy with all those projects I mentioned!

So, what is this New Year treasure? It is my Mum's diaries kept, with a few breaks (or perhaps lost volumes), from the age of 11 (1937) all the way through to when she was 80 and had the fall that was to mark her long slow decline towards the end of her life.

They truly are treasure, in large part because they are hers and connect me to her and to our family in such an intimate way. She grew up in middle class suburban Cheam, until they moved back to Hastings when she was 21. I know so many of the names and places that she describes from her own stories of childhood; I can hear her voice filling in additional details and feel her personality in what she relates here.

The first part of the collection is a lovely set of Lilley and Skinners (The Fashion Shoe Shop, 356-360 Oxford Street London) school-girl's diaries (and one schoolboy's). There are 6 of them, starting in 1937, so cover the period when war starts, through to 1942. My grandfather worked as a bookkeeper at L&S, travelling up to London and back by train every day, and working in a dingy basement. I wonder if he ever ventured down to the "buried street" mentioned here and here. 

Each diary has a set of pages at the beginning with "much useful information and many tables helpful for her work and play" including the Rugby Football results for the national teams, books to read, foreign phrases in common use and mensuration formulae, which I have to confess I briefly misread in the index, until I realised the unlikelihood of my misreading! 

I was pleased to note in suggested careers for women that, as well as teaching, nursing and domestic science, we could also embark on industrial welfare (if trained and competent), become pharmaceutical chemists, barristers or solicitors and even apply to the Institute of Civil Engineers, although a note here warns that "practical work is a real difficulty" and "women find posts more easily on the secretarial and commercial sides"

They all have a map of the British Empire at the back (of course)

And each week has a little illustration at bottom right, along with a small paragraph explaining the image. 1938's theme obviously relates to the British constitution so for the last week of November we have The Lobby of the House of Commons and explanation of the cry "who goes home?"

I have, as you can see, started at the beginning, the image above being from November 1938, where you can see her interest in school seemed to be restricted to music (she later went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music), dancing and, above all else, food - and this is before the war and rationing. I remember her stories of "starving" during the war and how cross she was that her father wouldn't sacrifice his precious delphiniums to grow vegetables to feed them. She has just started at a new school in September of this year, so perhaps the food was so much better than in her previous school that it merited detailed reporting.

In 1941 however, she also begins "My Journal" as series of notebooks that run from June 1941 to July 1953. These are, as their title suggest, more of a journal and contain all sorts of interesting detail of the life of a young woman growing through her teenage years into her mid twenties. They end on a very poignant note when her beloved dog Randy died. There follows a gap of four years then they resume, but once again in the more restricted form of week to a spread diaries and pocket diaries, and continue right through to 2006, a span of 69 years.

This is the project that I have been waiting to do for as long as I have known that I have this wonderful collection, which is quite a long time. I am nearing the end of 1938, the only mention of the impending war so far is that she was fitted for a gas mask in late September, but no comment as to why. I shall be transcribing for some while I rather think, and treasuring every moment of time spent with her.

Patchwork update

I hope you've all had a wonderful festive season.

We usually have quiet Christmases, and I always feel that I have to apologise for that for some reason, but we are really quiet folk and the aren't many of us. Quiet is good, restful, almost contemplative, with tie to appreciate the good things as they happen.

I have been working on our next block, Rose of Sharon (I think), applique finished, wadding and backing pinned, now to quilt which is always fun and usually dangerous to fingertips

The previous block, Rocky Road to Kansas is also in need of a stitch or two, but what better way to spend a chilly dark evening by the fireside

Turning of the year

Merry Solstice one and all as our Northern part of the world turns from darkness towards light in whatever form you view them

A patchwork education

There are rather a lot of textiley things I could update you on, I've been busy with all sorts; my stitching in Studio 11 time is coming on slowly, as it often does; we had a lovely talk recently at the Embroiderers Guild from Emily Jo Gibbs, which included a brief tutorial at the end to show us the techniques she uses to create her beautiful stitched portraits; I've also been learning to use a small rigid heddle loom, having been inspired by the weaving I saw in Bhutan. I already have a much deeper appreciation of the skill that goes into weaving their beautiful textiles. But today it's patchwork that I'm sharing with you. One of our Guild members is also a very good patchworker, and she offered us a course to teach us the basics. We started in May with an introduction to patchwork and quilting, both the technical aspects and some history. Over the year we are to make nine blocks, each in a different technique, all hand pieced, quilting as we go. These will all come together to make a nine patch quilt.

So, below is my most recent block, Rocky Road to Kansas.

Each of the four arms of the star are pieced using the crazy patchwork technique; delightfully fiddly, each little scrap is stitched down onto a foundation fabric, with lots of puzzling and careful folding and stitching to get the bits to fit together. Crazy patchwork is a way of using up all sorts of scraps, and is often further embellished by decorative surface stitching. I cannot imagine making a whole quilt using this technique, but one block was terrific fun.

The pictures below show the block in context. Naomi's idea was for us to use just three different fabrics to keep things simple, a light, medium and dark, but because I have a bit if a stash already I thought I'd use a series of related fabrics, mostly fat quarters, and try to balance them across the quilt. 

I've enjoyed selecting fabrics that work together, and have been adding in different fabrics to bring variety to the blocks, along with ones I've used previously, so that none of the blocks is out of kilter with the rest. So far it seems to be working. The Rocky Road block hasn't been backed and quilted yet. Once I've done that it will be joined to the top row and then on to the next block, one with needle turned appliqué. I'll update you as I go :-)

Where does the time go?

It has been a long time, hasn't it? But rather a lot has happened in the meantime.

First I retired - early retirement, I've not quite reached pensionable age yet, but it felt like time to stop and let life become less stressful and more focused on my wellbeing; time to begin to look at all the various projects I've had in mind for a year or two. So at the end of August I hung up my library hat after 40 years and started wondering what to do.

Well that question was answered, in the short term by an utterly amazing two week trip with Colouricious to Bhutan. This wasn't a flash in the pan plan you understand, but something that I'd booked a while back and had been preparing for and getting gradually more excited about as time went on. Having decided on retirement, following that with the Bhutan trip seemed the most sensible thing to do, so off I went in late September.

It was simply amazing, the most "exotic" trip I have every taken, being rather a home body. And without anyone I knew, including the dear Man, who stayed at home, indulged the cat chaps' every whim and breathed a sigh of relief that he didn't have to go all that way..

Colouricious, who specialise in textile focused travel,  were a marvellous choice; the trip so well organized, that we eleven ladies (christened "Team Happiness" by our delightful local guide Subash) felt really well cared for. And the trip itself was such an experience.

Team Happiness at Buddha Point - Thimphu

What can I say about Bhutan, a country which defines itself by the measure of gross national happiness? So different in so many ways from home that it's hard to give you a sense of how it was. A mixture of some urban, but much more rural, awash with the sound of the breeze in the prayer flags; shining silver clouds and mist, that gave way to incredible blue skies and views through clean clear air. The sense of huge mountains in the background and vast spaces in between - I cannot begin to describe it really, but some photos will give you at least a little idea.

Chortens in the mist - Dochula Pass

Prayer flags flutter above Paro valley

Himalayan ranges in the distance - Dochula Pass when the mist had cleared

Our first couple of days were marked by urban dogs barking in the nighttime streets of Thimphu, shining mist and a very long road trip - roads the like which you haven't seen until you've been somewhere like this. For a significant part of the journey we rattled and bumped along exclaiming at one moment at the beautiful waterfalls and prayer wheels, and the next covering our eyes and wondering if we were going plummet down the mountainside - the Himalayas are doing their best to reclaim, despite the valiant efforts of the country to provide a safe modern road to get the population from A to B, or in this case from Thimphu to Bumthang, our furthest point East.

Where Thimphu, the capital city of Bhutan, was urban and obviously undergoing a huge amount of development,

Thimphu - bamboo scaffolding reaching for the sky

the more rural areas were, green, lush, captivating; views appearing and disappearing through the mist and cloud.

Gangtey valley

Paro - storm over the hills

Along the way, both there and back, we saw rice fields, their bright green layers echoing the contours of the land;

Punakha valley rice

Chorten in the rice fields on the way to the fertility temple

numerous temples and several dzongs - the administrative centres of each region in the country;

Monks gathering for a ritual - Paro Dzong

Trongsa Dzong rooftops

prayer wheels, which are everywhere; some that you can turn yourself, others that utilise the flow of water to turn them, all intended to release the chant "om mani padme hum" into the blue air to bring blessings to all living beings

Mother and child with prayer wheel - Gangtey Goempa

Prayer wheel with Trongsa Dzong in the background

We visited weaving centres where we saw the amazingly intricate weaving, on simple backstrap looms, for which Bhutan is so famous

I could have watched her all day

and went to the arts and crafts centre where students are taught the thirteen traditional crafts of Bhutan, including embroidery and painting.

no embroidery frames, and surprisingly low light levels for such fine work

such concentration - but he was larking with his friends a minute ago!

GNH? Gross National Happiness

On our travels we stopped at roadside markets to purchase local crafts,

opportunities to buy

lady with drop spindle enjoying being photographed by one of us

weaving centre wares

waved at passing traffic

captured the smiles of the locals

watched monks and lay people practice dancing for an upcoming festival

enjoyed the bright colours of the chillies drying in the heat (yes, it was surprisingly hot)

admired the beautiful faces of the nuns we met at their nunnery

enjoyed the theatrics of Subash, who explained so much to us, with such delight

did our very best to climb to the Tiger's Nest Monastery - a feat I and a couple of others didn't manage, but I was so proud of myself for making it to the half way point (2 1/2 hours of steep walking, puffing and panting all the way) that I didn't feel I'd missed out on the further climb, followed by 750 steps down and up to get to the monastery itself. Several steps too far!

The views on the way up were wonderful,

and our trusty driver Mr Chimi, who negotiated all those bumpy roads with a calm smile, took good care of we three stragglers, and posed in a tree over a steep drop for our fearful delight

On our last full day there we had the chance to see for ourselves what a Bhutanese festival looks and feels like - in our case Thimphu Tshechu. This was the most overwhelming experience. The day was scorchingly hot, the crowds all dressed up in their festival best - Kira and jackets for the ladies, Gho for the men, both are the national dress of Bhutan and people are expected to wear them for any formal occasion.

The dancers twirled and swirled in their fantastic costumes, all in the hot sun, while the music, very alien to our western ears, created an almost mesmeric backdrop to all the excitements

the clowns did their naughty clown stuff!!

the audience were seeing and being seen in their best festival dress

It was a wonderful trip, with great company and full of so many marvellous things. I will be thinking back on it for a very long time indeed, and could probably do several more long blog posts with endless photos had I the time and you the attention span!

Now, about those projects ….