Mindful gardening

It was Bank Holiday weekend so I spent some time gardening. Of course I did, it's what we do on Bank Holidays, but with physical frailties, how to do this safely. I am always conscious that, unlike Mum, Ganna and Connie my bones aren't yet fragile, but I still need to be careful with any sort of excercise outside the usual walking to and fro!

Doing Pilates regularly, and Tai Chi occasionally help me to minimise damage from tweaks and strains. Both draw your focus in to how the body moves;  make you aware of which muscles should be working and which should be supporting; where your weight and balance are. I try to bring this awareness into gardening particularly, because it's easy to do myself a mischief, so here's how I try and make it work .....

Mindful weeding and digging .....

Push the small hand fork into the soil, just to the fork's depth, then a wiggle waggle carefully in a criss cross pattern to loosen things. Do this over a small area, making sure not to extend beyond the natural reach. Then down to hands and knees and, bit by bit, work the loosened soil with a hand fork, pulling out the weeds and their roots, apologising to worms if you accidentally bring them to the surface and tucking them back into a bit of soil you're not digging. Work each small area, changing the task frequently to use different muscle groups, so: fork in soil, push down with foot, wiggle waggle, repeat several times, down to hands and knees, sift, lift, discard, apologise to the beetles, repeat. Do for no longer than 30 minutes, preferably 20 then rest. 

This is about what I can manage in half an hour.

which is a start, but also a bit daunting in the context of what's left, the bed where the old dears live. I cleared and replanted it last year, but it has got a bit uppity while my back was turned. No wonder the old dears grumble.

I was amused a couple of weekends ago by a friend who, hearing I was digging, declared that I must be better. I never feel that "better" is an option. Managing, and sometimes not quite managing is closer to the truth. The last thing I want is to sound self pitying, but it's hard to be real about this stuff without it looking like a whinge or being mawkish! The truth is, I wake up almost every morning exhausted, usually in some pain, but still feel lucky to be where I am and with the people I belong to. Life is good and the world is beautiful, rain or shine

So, here's another recent project; the little bed next to the well just outside the sitting room, which I look out on from my chair. The flowering currant has finished, the hydrangea just coming into leaf and some rather oversized bergenia which were threatening to engulf the Japanese lady have been moved to a more appropriate spot, much to her relief.

The whole area has been weeded and replanted. My good soul did the digging and planting, once I had finished dithering about deciding where things should go. Little delicate woodland plants, much more in keeping with the size and situation of the bed.

The cherub expresssed a preference,

the chaps had had their say

and our wild canine visitor had made her suggestions.

Later on she brought the new kid on the block along to give his/her opinion as well. More interested in what tasty morsels the birds might have left I think.

Oh, and I really am thrilled with my new galoshes! They've got sparkles, and I'm still far too much of a child not to love them

Byzantine Klimt

Remember this? Layers of organza on a base of gold Thai silk, from a sleevless top I picked up in a charity shop years ago - saved until it was the right fabric - its day had come. The layers of organza, pared away with the soldering iron, were my introduction to the technique I used on my Anglo-Saxon cuff.

Well, I wondered about - the startling colour change is all to do with the light, not a profound change in the piece!

A mock up using a sketch app on the iPad. Mixing my media! The image, taken in a rather odd light, has been "drawn on" as well!

The blue framing fabric (another Thai silk blouse) was found in different charity shop to the source of the gold, and found after I'd been to Wendy's workshop. How awesome is that! The vivid blue picks up on the blue in the organza, the patterns are the same as the gold base fabric, but on a slightly different scale and can be arranged to echo the patterns in the centre. The fabric is identical in weave and texture. I can use the blue with a bright or dull side, which allows for more subtlety of tone. They can be arranged to echo the patterns in the centre and it allows me to create the illusion of dangling ornament, which echoes the Klimt inspiration

Lots more stitching and beading needed, but it suggests a way forward; definitely worth exploring

Inspired by the EG

I have been neglecting this little space in the blogosphere because I have been rather busy. We've had several good sessions at the branch of the Embroiderers Guild that I belong to; another of our mini workshops, this time my choice was ribbonwork, but I've not done enough finishing to share with you here yet. We also had a marvellous talk by Anthea Godfrey about the work of her mother, Margaret Nicholson. It was so interesting to hear about someone who forged her own path at a time when women were still expected to stay at home and look after their families. Anthea brought an utterly inspiring set of her mothers embroideries for us to see.

Margaret used a wide variety of embroidery and beadwork techniques, employing all sorts of materials and methods. She particularly enjoyed Or Nue which is a goldwork technique which involves laying metal thread on the surface of the fabric and attaching it with embroidery silks in such a way that the stitching, using different colours, creates a picture which sparkles and glimmers in the light. It is a very old technique; a great speciality in this country during the 14th and 15th Centuries, when it formed part of the repertoire of English embroidery, known as Opus Anglicanum, or English Work. You can see examples in the V&A and we exported embroideries across Europe, often to religious foundations or churches, as the Church was a major patron of the arts then.

Margaret took this technique, combined it with others and, with her wonderful talent for design, created beautiful images full of imagination and colour as you can see here. 

Anthea brought so many pieces that we could have spent all day just looking at one or two; the technique is so fine, and so labour intensive, it seemed miraculous that one woman could create so many beautiful embroideries in a single lifetime.

After such an inspiring talk I came home full of fire to get on with another Guild project, our regional challenge which we have every year. The theme this year is "Inspired by Royal Jewels" and the branch are busy creating all sorts of bits of embroidery to display at the annual Regional Day. I had a good look at royal jewellery and found myself rather uninspired, until I thought of the Alfred Jewel which is held in the Ashmolean (always a place to spend many happy hours!). This took me to the Anglo Saxons, and I discovered this rather lovely brooch found at the burial site of an Anglo Saxon princess in Kent. 

That seemed pretty royal to me, and much more inspiring than tiaras and diamond necklaces, so off I went. Drawing on the techniques I learnt at our Wendy Dolan workshop last year, I decided to create a cuff or bracelet based on the design of the brooch. Much trialling and stitching later, and I'm really rather pleased with the result - if you'll excuse the "old dear wrinkles"!!

Goldwork, beads and layered organza cut back with a soldering iron to emulate the cloisonne technique of the original.

I just might see if I can do something else now.

Badger's gift

As regular readers will know we have a large badger sett down in the Dell at the bottom of the garden. With Spring in the air, they have been doing some housekeeping from deep within their dark underground spaces,

digging and delving in amongst the trees, creating more hummocks and dips and piles of freshly turned earth

It's all rather wild and woolly down there, but as I was checking the earthworks, to make sure the neighbour's fence wasn't in danger of collapsing under the strain, I found this

Isn't it lovely? 

Just a simple old bottle really, but how marvellous to find it unbroken, waiting there in the soil to be recovered and brought into the house, where it could be cleaned and made to catch the spring sunshine.

And in the garden, which I have neglected over the winter, there are other signs of Spring

a ribbon of daffodils in their second year of flowering - how lovely they will be in another couple of years when they've clumped up and had a few more added to fill in the spaces

hellebore and jonquil,

grape hyacinth and pulmonaria, yet more daffodils and hellebore

and Wol, enjoying the warm sunshine by the flowering currant

Happy Easter everyone 

Homage update

No, I haven't stopped stitching on this, but other things have been taking precedence, like learning all about colour and dyes!

Here is where I am so far. The three maple leaves all stitched around now, some spirals

and some little seeds floating down.

I will add more of these as I like the floatiness of them. As ever, forgive me for the blurriness of iPad images - I can't work out how to improve, though I'm sure there must be something in the settings I can change!

I'm happy with how things are going but, as with all projects like this, the further along I get the more worried I am that I'm going to mess it up with the next thing I do. While I was away learning about colour I did a little trial with two types of thread, to see if I could stitch some maple seeds to tie in with the leaves.

Problem is, I love them both! Christine's very wise suggestion was that I scan the image in, cut out several and try them each to see how they look on the cloth. What a wise soul.

Colour all week long

I had a delightful time the week before last at Committed to Cloth, experimenting with colour, enjoying the companionship of the rest of the group and learning from Leslie, who is endlessly generous with her advice and expertise. We all experimented with mixing colours, each from her own source of inspiration. These included pictures torn from magazines, photos of favourite garden flowers, views of much loved scenes, paintings, advertising images, all the colours of the rainbow and more.

Some images were delicate and muted, some vivid and bright, we all brought or own interests and personalities to the workshop. Throughout the week Leslie talked to us about colour and shared her own working practice, inspirations and knowledge. We learnt about cool and warm colours, about tone, contrast, mood, proportion and the way to use the colour wheel to understand what colours go with each other and how they react to one another.

The first day we spent working from just one image, taking two colours from it and attempting to mix each from the eight dye colours available to us. We mixed a base colour, then diluted it, then diluted the dilution, if you know what I mean. These three source colours, light, medium and dark, were then mixed, each with each to achieve a palette of fifteen colours, graded from light to dark, from pure to mixed. The resulting colours were applied in little squares to the pre soda'd cloth of our choice. The studio was awash with little pots of colour and samples pinnned up on the design walls or pinned to the benches as we all experimented to our hearts content.

We were encouraged to "document, document, document" as this is the only way to truly understand the process. We were also encouraged to "steal" from each other, though only in the spirit of knowledge sharing. So, at the end of the first day we each went round everyone's table, with little bits of cloth, and took colour samples from everyone else's families, making notes on the mixes as we went.

This way we all benefited from each other's experimentation and colour interest; those working with a soft muted palettes could have brilliant brights as well, those working with darks could find out about pastels. Oddly, three of us, including me, worked a range from purple to green, my source being the Mackintosh Descent of Night which I had taken with me.

In the following days we either mixed yet more colours, refined the ones we had already mixed, worked on creating imagery from those mixes or some or all of the above. By the end of the week the studio was full of colour samples and creative fabrics produced with our colours. In between these experiments we were fed delicious soups and salads, were tempted by several yummy cakes and a sumptuous cheesecake, had the opportunity to browse the books on the shelves in the studio and were given encouragement, help and advice from Leslie. We also had the pleasure of sharing each other's interests and expertise, and watching everyone's imagery and colour palettes develop through the week. With such a wide variety of experience and practice there was more inspiration than one couple possibly absorb in one week. Plenty of food for thought to mull over in slow time.

You can check out the C to C Facebook page for the results and some details of the lovely work produced. My own images were drawn in part from the pictures I took along for inspiration and in part from experimenting with the tools available in the studio. I became quite adept at applying colour with Leslie's favourite tool, a credit card, tried out some of the thermofaxes, made a thermofax of my own, experimented with brushes and a bit of monoprinting and used masking tape and a silk screen to blend a grid of colours from one of my experiments. All in all, a wonderful week of experiment, learning and laughter in in the company of like minded, creative, talented women.

Maksing tape screen in purple and gold

Monoprinted blues that I couldn't bear to waste

Thermofax umbellifers in greens and golds

Credit card drawn image loosely based on Eric Money's beautiful The Ferryman

layered work in progress from purple to green 

Must try harder

as my teachers always said! I have been busy, just not astonishingly productive. We had teenagers to stay so the house had to be made ready, then it had to be made tidy again and unteenaged! Not that they were too bad bless them; they went to Hastings together and played Crazy Golf on the seafront - mad things. It's a regular ritual when they come and stay. Should I admit to never having played Crazy Golf?

I've been doing little bits of stitching here and there, mostly on the Homage Cloth and my breakdown printing piece which is finally coming together, albeit slowly. I won't post pictures today is it's getting dark outside and artificial light just doesn't pick up the colours properly. I will announce an adventure though. I have next week off work and am going to another workshop with Leslie Morgan at Committed to Cloth. Having worked my last work day today I can now begin to believe I'm having a holiday (life is stressful in the world of libraries just now!)

So, this is what I'll be doing next week, every day. Won't that be fun? I've got some fabric to take with me - 3 metres of cotton poplin, and will buy some of Leslie's lovely cotton sateen while I'm there; it takes colour so very well. Even better, one of my friends from Studio 11 is coming too, so we can swap notes and report back at our next session there.

We've been advised to take some picture inspirations along, so I've put together some images to work with:

Klee - just love the colours here and the way this looks like a quilt. I'm taking another image of his as well for contrast

Charles Rennie Mackintosh - Harvest Moon, my favourite of his, though I've also printed out the lovely Descent Of Night

Jan Myers Newbury, whose shibori pieces are just so amazing

and Paul Nash, whose wonderful sense of mystery and the indwelling spirit of landscape has always thrilled me - though this (Landscape of the Vernal Equinox) might be a bit too gentle for the colour exercises

Hopefully these, and the other six images I'm bringing, including the beautiful Incantation Under a Winter Sun by Rima Staines, will provide plenty of inspiration. I will come home with lots of colour samples like those I did with Michel Garcia, some solid colours, some surface design pieces and a much deeper understanding of how Procion MX dyes can be mixed to get the colours I want.

I do love this dabbling in textiles - what more could you want but colour and texture all together.

Just don't ask me "what are you going to do with all the fabrics" - a common query .... I refer you to my opening statement!