did you ever kiss a frog?

One Step Ahead of the Wrists:)

 

As I mentioned in a previous blog I had done some free form crochet before, with a small blanket , more a lap throw really. I had also crocheted without pattern but this is the first real attempt at trying to emulate Prudence Mapstones concept of scrumbling and I was so pleased I did before my wrists gave out.

So how did I do on my plan to scrumble a day? Well, I didn't manage one a day for a start, however sometimes I did manage three or four, so not too far behind. When my wrists were bad using that crochet hook was impossible. I have since the beginning of the 2015 formed approximately 200 in all shapes sizes and colours and just about worked out what I was going to do with them.

I thought , with a few more, I would have enough for the front and back of a long line top. This gave me the idea that a large warm snuggly caftan/blanket type garment for sitting in the winter evenings would be a brilliant idea. I needed more scrumbles and let’s not forget each and every one has to be fitted , as a jigsaw puzzle into a pleasing whole and sewn together.

Madness, all is madness!:)

It was to be an  'in your face’ Joseph’s coat of many colours. I have reds, blues, oranges, yellows, greens, pinks and every shade between. The difficulty wouldn't have been the sewing, I felt, so much as the placement of the colours. To facilitate this I wondered if I should crochet some more circular, and straight ones to join all my odd shapes. Decisions, decisions, all is decisions.

Fool that I am - why not a neat handbag?

I found crocheting these scrumbles immensely satisfying, a whole ‘something ‘ begun and completed in hardly any time at all. A hook, tiny balls of yarn and a small pair of scissors, it is an occupation which can travel anywhere and be packed away in moments. And the pile of delicious coloured shapes grew steadily moving from small bag to medium sized box to huge bag as their bulk increased.

Splendid!

Another thing getting nearer to be crossed off my bucket list:)

Except!

No:(

Wrists gave up the struggle. Physiotherapy was called for.

A regime

Scrumbles had to be put on hold under strict instructions. there is hope a limited amount will come back. Indeed I am allowed to do some on larger hooks with thicker yarn (2 things I dislike!!)

I have begun sewing the ones I have together (I am allowed thick needle, not thin ugh, but useful for sewing yarn together not for the fine embroidery i enjoy doing)

When these are done, and progress is slow as I am not allowed to continue once the pain starts, I will be able to see what I can create from them.

It is a constant race against time now to fulfill all my crafty wishes - so far I am just a step ahead of the arthritic joints - just about

BUT

 that is all one needs isn't it - to be just a step  ahead:)

 

Y is for Yarn

 

So now, after years of gardens I had one of my own. My planning (well, that had been the idea, it wasn’t of course:), my choice of plants (well not entirely, of course:) to do with what I liked (that was mostly correct). All the time the new abode took to be planned and built I had time to decide what I wanted from the garden.

 

Wildlife was top priority, so a lot of research and consideration went into choosing plants to suit the widest range possible.

 

After dealing with pollen, berries, shelter, nesting considerations and food, I then considered.

Land, air and water habitats.

Fragrance not just for wildlife but for the humans sharing the space.

Usefulness

 

I found I wasn’t after all wanting just ascetic delights; I had formed a liking for plants over the years because of the endless possibilities of use they had. From the games of my youth, fed by books, I knew that they could feed, cloth,, could produce baskets,blankets and help to defend you. When I grew older and travelled, researched and experimented I found more and more just what a wonderful world this world of plants was.

 

I had left it rather late to begin this new thought. Joints and health were flailing around and I had to content myself only a few more experiments.

 

When we moved in - I had the vegetables being grown and excesses dried for winter, fruit being turned into jam, jelly and chutney, trees to provide the firewood. Plants to dye cloth, compost heaps to take our waste. It was satisfactory and I incorporated these and many other useful skills into my novels. If I couldn’t make the baskets anymore my characters could:)

 

The vegetables are gone now as I can no longer manage the watering cans and hoses now. Wrists object badly! The fruit is being shared with the birds. I reckon I will probably get a couple more years of sawing my own firewood before I will either, have to let the trees do there own thing, or hire help.

 

The wildlife have it for themselves now and I enjoy them as much as I always have. They were at the end of the day my first priority:)

 

The plants are still there and so I can, if I want, still dye my own yarns. I discovered this new skill after I moved here. Making mistakes as I went along. I remember the first time I decided to use buttercup flowers. It had been a very hot day when I spent a couple of hours collecting all the garden possessed. I ‘cooked’ them, extracted their dye.

 

Then I very carefully poured the liquid down the drain!!!!

Why?

You may well ask.

Beats me. Brain got the message wrong!:)

 

Well that was it until the buttercups bloomed again. I never made that mistake again. From then on I successfully extracted dye from many so called ‘weeds’ in my space outdoors.

 

 

I decided what I wanted was a jacket. Turning some unbleached wool into hanks of yarn I dipped and dyed each hank into large saucepan on the hob. Rinsing, redyeing . I dyed in yellow, in brown, a touch of orange or red, a dash of green. I had hours of fascinating fun. Turning cream coloured yarn into a dazzling array of autumnal hues. While they hung drying by the heat of the sun, on a clothes horse in the conservatory, I had pleasure in imagining my new jacket of many colours. My wrists had given up on crocheting such a large project so my sister offered to knit it up for me. It looked great.

 

I wore it for a bit as a cardigan but what I really wanted was a jacket. So I felted it. Marvellous, warm, weatherproof and every shade of my favourite season.

 

If I had known when a child how to make rope from plants in the garden I would have done, now I don't need rope so have not tried.But to be able to cloth oneself from the garden seems to me a useful thing. It takes a long smelly time to turn nettles into linen-like material, but one can. Having turned the fleece from an animal into a yarn and then decorated that yarn into colour, from the garden, is immensely satisfying.

 

I have always, from very young, been most interested in threads, yarn and fibre and now at this end I learnt how it could all be done. As I say a little late in my day but I take heart that so many of us soft ‘westerners’ are rediscovering these old crafts. Many of course never wandered away from them, the new converts are young enough to enjoy a lifetime of them.

 

 

 

discovering freedom with yarn

I wrote about scrumbles a few weeks ago and my plan to crochet at least one a week. I have produced the requisite number but not necessarily one a week, when I’m in the mood they tumble from my hook one after the other.

 

When I was young my craft work was dictated by patterns, not just patterns but other people’s patterns.. I knew no different. I embroidered pre marked table clothes and cushion covers, I did drawn thread work according to the sewing teacher. When I learnt to crochet I followed patterns from the magazines.

 

I have never been artistic, I couldn’t produce my own patterns, but I felt increasingly dissatisfied with having to do what others dictated.I rebelled a little when I could, with colour and yarn but there wasn’t much that much choice.

 

Then I decided that if I traced pictures that I liked and transfered them onto the cloth I could exercise a little freedom in the embroidery line. Which I did and there was no stopping me then, except, except there were still those lines to follow.

 

I have never been good with lines. Eye to hand co-ordination nil!

So why did I ever try quilting?

I was rubbish at the straight lines.

 

Then I discovered crazy patchwork.

Not to a preformed grid as many do but just crazily adding patches wherever and joining the whole with free form embroidery and trimmings.

 

What bliss

 

It was the same with crocheting. Patterns, patterns, patterns. Straight lines and circles done by pattern.

 

One day I heard of Prudence Mapstone and her free form crochet.

Revelation or what?

 I recommend every one to check out her gallery some wonderful stuff there.

 

Take a hook, some yarn and just do.

Let the yarn flow where it would, be free and creation would happen…

I fell for this.

I couldn’t wait.

I used my stash and flowed.

This blanket was the very first thing I did in free form.

 

 

 

 

 

 I had tried scrumbles before this year, indeed the original blanket has some large pieces within it’s construction, but this year I am scrumbling-

to save my wrists,

to use up a never ending stash

and for fun.

 

some of the scrumbles since Christmas

 

I don’t yet have a clue what I will do with them all. Maybe one thing, maybe a dozen. I am free- forming the end product as well:)

Welcome to my stash:art journaling

 

I fell in love with Art Journals in 2014. I had never heard of them before social networks alerted me. Then Pinterest took my interest to new heights. I watched you-tube tutorials, I never tried, joined challenges, I never participated in. I couldn’t do - they were all so good, beautiful, created by such talented artists. I craved them though. Of course those pictures I collected were the best, the most creative, the most beautiful. Not good for a hesitant beginner.

 

 

 

I prevaricated and decided I would create my own books, not use ready made and so they would have to have covers, I could do that, I could embroider a journal cover.

 

I spent many happy hours doing so.

I managed to use some of my UFOs as well which is a bonus (UFOs are unfinished objects)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used some of my material stash and made a crazy patchwork. I used a crazy patchwork which had been intended as a bag, now it became a journal cover, I unearthed a small woven tapestry ( my first) and it too became part of a cover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three covers, no journals.

This was becoming ridiculous.

 

I bought paper, paints, pastels, coloured pencils. Gel pains, sparkly gel pens, oh such treasures. I have stamps, decorative tapes, inks, paint brushes trims and sparkle glue. So the list goes on.

 

A new stash forming.

No Journals.

Even more ridiculous.

 

So this new year I took the plunge, Over the period of lurking I had talked severely to myself. Who were these journals gong to be for

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me.

Who cared if they weren’t perfect.

If I couldn’t draw.

No-one.

 

So I have begun, along with my covers , I now have three journal pages, curtesy of Journal52 and   Chelle Stein whose brainchild it is.

 

I have plans for future journals to nestle within my covers but, at the moment, I am having fun experimenting with all my new stash.

Scrumbles,art journals and counterpanes, happy 2015:)

I am split this New Year - one part of me so enjoyed the peace and quiet and the overwhelming restfulness of the time and would like it to continue long past it’s sell by date. The other part is refreshed and raring to go forth and create. Ah if only the mornings were brighter earlier, if only it wasn’t so tempting to snuggle under the duvet.

 

I haven’t been entirely idle over the festivities - oh no - I gave writing a rest and then apart from the extra baking I began scrumbling. For those of you not in the know these are small individual pieces of free form crochet which may eventually be joined together to form a whole.

 

Free-form crochet is crochet with no pattern to follow - Prudence Mapstone, The master of it all, has the most amazing works of wearable art. She did ‘a scrumble a week challenge last year and I was struck by the notion and was determined to do so myself. A large piece is heavy on my wrists now so have almost given up crocheting much to my displeasure, but small pieces? Much more do-able. Got rather carried away and crocheted seven over the week. Wrists no good now - this old lady is sooo bad at learning lessons:)

 

After having watched from the sideline the artists on Art Journal 52 creating beautiful journal pages week after week I longed to join in. Hesitated, prevaricated by concentrating on creating fabric covers for the future journals.

 

I laughed at myself and double dared myself to get a grip for goodness sake and get on with it.

I did.

I have.

 

The prompt for this first week was ‘paths’ which led me to remember all the different paths I followed as a youth when I packed my bags and went traveling around the world. My travels were part inspired by stories and poems I had read and heard when a child so I have written parts of my favorites around the pictures. I did three pages - small - they are not original in that two of the pages consist of collage pictures I had coloured in, only the first page did I draw from scratch, well doodled actually. The drunken English roads always amused me as a child. Then the 2/3rd pages I have traveled from the quiet greenness of home to exotic climes.

 

I throughly enjoyed myself.

I have begun.

Now for the rest of 2015.

 

I had already begun to embroider a counterpane for my new colour-schemed bedroom.

When I had been de-stashing my craft room I had re-discovered some noil silk (yards and yards of it) which I had received as a present  about 12 years ago. This I have dyed -in the microwave- in  random shades of pink to plum. It will look stunning next to the plum wall (I hope!)

 

To avoid having an increasing heavy piece of work, I am working it as if it was crazy patchwork and each patch is individually appliqued, embroidered and embellished and then will be made into a whole at the end.

 

So over the holidays I embroidered a few more butterflies and flowers. I almost have three patches finished now, they lack the finishing touches, lace ribbons and beads and. . .and.. .. When I have enough I will join them with patches of velvet in a deep cherry- trust me it will go:)

 

I have been told not everyone knows what a counterpane is! So if you don't know it might be called a bedspread or a throw. Goes over the sheets/blankets/duvet whatever your choice is.And  in our house when I was growing up it was absolutely forbidden to have it on at night - fold carefully and put either on a chair or the end of the bed.Bif of a bother I always thought so I suspect I shall rebel and keep in on at all times:)

 

So as you see, I have been a busy lazy old woman.

 

I am not a journal keeper but . . .

 

 

maybe I will create a journal

 

 

I have recently discovered art journals, I drool over them on pinterest, I long to create one. I like the colourfulness, the intrinsic disorder of them, the simplicity of them. I want one, two, thr. . . - well you get the idea.

 I intend to give it a go.

I will introduce my journaling experiences pre pinterest.

 

I am not a Journal keeper.

 

Oh I tried as a child,but the routine of it all dragged my mind down. I think it is the Dyspraxic in me - one of the long list of possible indications of having this condition is the varying degrees of messy mind. Untidy/disorganized/ inability to stick to routines!!

Anyway I never did them as a child, as an adult still don't do them.

Then I think about my ancestors who had left little snippets of diaries/journals/thoughts. Not complete records, random papers/notebooks which had survived what seems like a million moves finding them on census difficult difficult:(

I have inherited hundreds of letters, dozens of tiny pocket diaries, written in tiny old fashioned writing - I understand the war time ones being written small - paper was rationed after all - but did my grannies need to cram a thousand words in each day into their tiny 7 day a page pocket diaries? Why not buy a bigger diary?

The letters I have deciphered show a wonderful snapshot of ordinary life - including one sharp exchange between my parents when my mother felt my father (away at the war) did not offer as complete support as she thought proper over a dispute with a neighbour. My mother seem to have a thing about neighbours.

I am not quick at deciphering the handwriting, those typed (my father) so much easier. Even the paper they were written on, shows social history. That paper was rationed is shown by the re-used paper, written on the backs of official paper, writing on flimsy note paper,the backs of old invoices. The older ones written sideways in the margins, words squeezed into impossible spaces. Was postage dependent on the weight or was paper valuable before the wars - memo to self to explore the history of paper.

One diary which I almost over looked because it resembled just a list of dates was kept by my grandfather (mother’s father). I settled down recently to decipher it and realized what I possessed was his working life in a small packet of a notebook. He was involved with shipyards first as an engineer and then as an inspector his job when this list was compiled was to visit all the shipyards in the country, to check, to help launch and generally oversee.

I need to find out more.

The photograph I had found years earlier of my grandmother smashing a bottle and launching a ship made sense then. Only women launched ships.

His list detailed a life full of travel, on trains, starting from Wales, many of them nessiated traveling first to London and then up north or east, then return, he was away from home more than he was there. He suffered digestive and un-named ‘nerve’ issues - sounds like stress to me.

My father left one notebook written when he left Wales and began to work in London as a callow youth, details work, new friends, books he read short reviews and his growing romance with my mother. Not enough but great to read.

All these have helped add flesh to the bare bones of my family history research, understand these names from the past. I delight in them. So yes a diary or a journal for posterity, to understand us better, for oneself in old age ( I grow older by the minute) to evaluate and remember our years.

Good idea. Oh dear where is mine?

I may never have kept a diary or a journal but I inherited the families love of letter writing. As I traveled the world I wrote long un-punctuated, rambling letters. Pages of handwriting - yes,it was small writing, on thin airmail paper, (I was paying by weight:) all kept by my parents. Less frequent were the ones I wrote from college and various jobs I worked at, before I left these shores. Hundreds of them! Then decades later I began blogging.

If they are interested, those of the future can put flesh on my bones.

 

Now I want to journal with paint, texture and lace. Will these also serve to flesh me out?

what's with the dolls?

I did not play with dolls when young. As a female child born into 1940s I was of course given dolls, quite a few. Maybe there were fewer choices for us females but I wonder, were people trying to tempt me into playing with them (frown in puzzlement) I did not play with them. I have a few of them still. The china one, Elizabeth, blond and vacuous with never a mark on her china face and the only clothing still upon her, a velvet coat, I did like velvet:)

And the rag doll, well she wasn’t raggedy as such but was mainly cloth and her clothes were sewn on, she arrived in an exciting parcel,exotically stamped, from an aunt in Canada. Now that doll I liked, if life went against me, if adults were unfair, if I was in a rage then this doll, Noel, was hurled at the walls, thrown to the floor, beaten, stamped on and stabbed with a pencil. Very satisfying. But I never had any desire to cuddle, dress, talk to or pretend happy families with dolls.

 

So why do I have a fascination with creating ‘dolls’ now in my old age. Not your cuddly cute/sweet dolls beloved by many. Mine are strange, odd and just a little of kilter. They are crocheted - with no pattern so who knows how they will turn out, dry felted, or made over a cloth body with strange shape faces and for the most part elongated limbs. Rarely with features, occasionally an eye or two.

 

Of course I am famous in my my group of friends for having such a minimal maternal instinct as to not bother naming it. Famous for not finding the young of any species pleasant. I don't goo over babies puppies or kittens - I do not find them sweet or cute. Give me a toddler, thats different and a young child? much more interesting, a dog, a cat then they are worth getting to know! So not wanting to play dolls is understandable. I suspect though there are murky corners of my mind to explain the desire for featureless dolls.

 

The first doll I found a liking for was back in the 60s when I prevailed on someone to buy me ‘Lucille’ - a punky beatnik. Full of ‘cool man’ life, she appealed mightily. She had eyelashes, long black ones, no eyes, just eyelashes. Her face was an odd shape, felted and large. Hair of the softest mohair swept into a French pleat. Her impossibly long limbs were wires. Felt clothes attached but just wire under. My friends thought I was finally going round the bend, what my parents thought I never asked. I still have her. She was not a toy, she was an ornament.

 

Ten years after Lucille, I discovered models in Hessian. Whilst traveling in Australia, there was one in the home of the parents of a friend of a friend. I spent a great deal of time working out how they were made. When a few years later I arrived back in England I found a way to make my own. Again these had wire bodies and the natural coloured Hessian which clothed them also made the body and the featureless faces. Like Lucille they were very expressive.

 

For a few years , before the recession of the 80s I sold these and traveled around the country to various fairs and agriculture shows. Then real work and university study moved in and smothered craft work for a while. I did try for a while to like porcelain dolls but couldn’t resist changing their features to something odd, a cat or a faceless one. I was not popular with the teacher or to aficionados of the craft. I couldn't bring myself to fall for the glass eyes and rosebud lips somehow.I packed them all away and settled down to other pursuits.

 

But these featureless faces resided in some recess of my mind and would not be still, I began to collect masks and the like.  Then as retirement loomed I began again. A crochet hook some random lengths of yarn and off I went. Clothes, bodies all of a piece, no sewing needle allowed, if it could not be achieved with the hook it belonged not on the form.

 

Then I wondered how it would be if I stabbed one into life. Needle felting is oh so therapeutic, armed with long sharp barbed needles, a piece of sponge and a clump of fleece one can, and must, stab away until a firm form is produced. (I retired Noel when I grew up, on the principle of it not being very adult to hurl dolls at walls) but this , well now this was equally satisfying when life gets one down, or when one indeed just feels like some random bit of violent action:)

 

Then writing intruded and once again these forms were put away. This time in bird cages. They sat/stand/hang inside those bars and watch as I struggle with grammar and punctuation and an imagination which freed from the constraints of everyday life romped wildly.

 

They are back again, these last couple of weeks, while I have a recovery patch between nano and finishing a reading challenge of over a hundred books this year. The dolls insisted on release, sketches are being drawn, fibre and cloth being considered,the boxes of ribbons /threads/ buttons and bows are being dusted down and new ideas are unfurling. But why faceless ones?

 

De-stashing the stash: sad farewells:)

 

 

The seconds slip by quietly, one doesn’t really notice them, nor the minutes.  They are silent and deadly, their only usefulness in life is to mark the passage of time. When I was young - so many decades ago - I longed, as every child does, for time to move faster so that I would grow old enough to take control of my destiny. Back then,  seconds ticked so slowly.

I had plenty to fill my days, boredom was not a malaise we suffered from really, but oh the passage through childhood, through the education system was tediously long while I dreamt of the excitement in my life when I possessed my freedom.

 

It came at last and I was off, speeding bullets had nothing on me. Life ahead dazzled and sang a sirens song.  I followed where my feet led. Time behaved normally then and I ignored it, time meant next to nothing, life was for the now.

Now I contemplate the nearness of mortality and find that I listen to the seconds slipping by more often than I would wish.

I have written before on the adjustments to my life that have had to be made to accommodate the disintegrating body. New ways of cooking, a different structure to the gardening, the admission of difficulty in the craft department. 

Ah well, I sigh, and dye the greying hair in turquoise and fuchsia pink, and treat myself to some lime green clothes.

Craft work of some kind has always been with me, embroidery my first, constant and last love. Along the way I have added crochet, weaving, spinning, lace making, tatting, porcelain and art dolls, patchwork, quilting, bead work, silk painting, and. . . and . .  so the list goes on.

I have with reluctance put aside many of these as not being do-able anymore due to arthritic wrists, failing eyesight and other stupid stuff. Now I have had to face another farewell in the ageing life.

 

My stash.

Those who do crafty stuff know about stashes.

Stashes are a little like those silent seconds.

 

‘Stash’ finds its way into one’s abode by stealth.  One wanders around the fabric and fibre shops (and now websites) around craft fairs and exhibitions.  Small distinct piping voices call from stands ‘buy me’, ‘no buy me’, and so more fat quarters and florescent fibre nestle in against last months purchases.  A bundle of fleece (such a bargain) odd pieces of ‘found art’ (well bits of clockwork, bark and shell) 2nd hand tee-shirts, ornate evening clothes are smuggled in from the charity shops,(where else to find such colours, such lace work, such economical way of buying lush fabric) E-bay is a temptation too many(don’t even have to face the crowds).

It never stops. Because as we all know in our prime, when we are still cutting edge, time is elastic and never ending.  The imagination weaves wondrous pictures of the new creations one will create from the ‘stash’.

 Of course if one stops to think, the evening at the Embroidery Guild’s meeting  when, the sadly deceased, former member’s stash is put up for grabs ( such bargains)  should be the warning.

 When on earth, with wrists and eyesight like mine, will I ever find the time to use the stash up. Some of it dates way, way, back to the 60s, 70s 80s and beyond.

 What to do?

 I could leave it for those who will have to clear up after me.  That’s the favourite:) Or I can do the decent thing and try to clear it myself before my demise. Now this last is more difficult. First, I don’t know when my demise will be, I may well have another 20 years ahead of me. Second, I do still wish to create, I don’t wish to get rid of it all - so which creations should I focus on?

 I have determined this year I will begin to de-clutter my life, but it is a daunting task. Books in their thousands, paper work by the tonne.  My craft stash takes up a whole room, not a small cupboard - a decent sized bedroom size room.

 I began, by discarding the ‘mistakes’, hmmm not enough, so then the stuff which once I had idea for but have since forgotten, still not enough!

This will be a task for many months I can see.

However I have emptiness in those drawers and cupboards - one problem I forsee is those empty spaces.  Now honestly, any of you who possess stashes, which one of you can say, hand on heart, an empty space in your stash room is not a temptation too hard to resist. An emptiness need filling- doesn't it? 

It is a sad farewell, I have enjoyed my stash, been proud of it, boasted on occasion, as we do when talking to fellow stashers:)  and on odd occasion have just opened a drawer and run my fingers through the delicious textures and colours therein for the sheer pleasure of it all.

 I am finding good homes for the pieces of stash which have to leave me. I won’t just abandon them. We had grand plans together and it is not their fault I am running out of that silent, deadly time.

Too Young For Black!

 

 

Two occurrences recently have led to this short  memory post.  The one was watching a small child saying hallo to a small dog.  Apart from the 'cute' factor of the scene I was admiring her get up.  She was dressed in black trousers and lurid pink coat.  Now I'm not a 'pink' person and black is a non colour for me (on it's own) but I love the effect black gives to a another colour.  The clothes and the age of the child brought back  memories of long ago when I was a child and believe me it seems like the dark ages sometimes so much has changed since then.

The second was finding a piece of my stash when giving my workroom a half hearted tidy a couple of days ago. It was very half hearted -if one combines my pathological dislike of housework with the finger numbing effects of a crashed heating system on the coldest weekend so far of the winter you'll know what I mean.

When I look around at children these days there is much to worry about in their fashions, is it really wise to have them wearing jail-bait fashion?  However I can rejoice in their choice of colour.  Any colour, all colour.  No crazy rules – blue and green should never be seen! – why?  Suitable or rather unsuitable was something I heard too often as a child and filled me with seething resentment.

In my early teens I fell in love with a skirt.  Still mostly dressed in hand-me-downs at home, being the third, I was allowed new clothes once rationing was over, and when finances allowed.   The school I attended had summer fetes and one of the teachers used to sew simple blouses and gathered skirts.  Mostly they never interested me over much; her idea of material was boring and safe.  Then one year, when I was about thirteen, I saw the most amazing skirt.  It was black with jungle tendrils of turquoise flowers.  The blue shone with a richness only seen before in church windows.  I coveted, I desired.  It was the first time I had seen the difference that black could make to colour, the intensity it could give.  With that skirt I would be happy for ever.

Too young!  Too young for black!

I had hunted down my mother.  Raved about this must-have garment I had seen. Dragged her through the crowds scared someone else would possess this prize before I could.  Not suitable!  The teacher agreed with my mother.  Although I knew once the  suitability  word had been uttered I would never shift her, I did plead.  As a sop she brought me a skirt, yellow and green squares, how I hated that skirt!

I can still see that skirt well over fifty years later; never have found quite the fabric I would need to replicate it.   However I do know about blue on black, and any other colour for that matter, so when a few years ago  I started a small woven tapestry  of a fractal depiction of a moth population I knew it would be blues and mauves on a black background.  One day it will be added to a bag, to be worn at the choir’s gigs. 

Family Connections

  

As we age our need to be connected to the past seems to grow.  We wish we had listened more as our parents and grandparents had regaled us with their ever repetitive stories.  We flood to the archives and hoard the certificates which declare the birth, marriage or death of long gone ancestors.  We dust down black leather-grained photo albums and hope someone before us had thought to add names to fading black and white prints.  We want to be part of the long history of ordinary folk (of course, if we can prove we are in fact direct descendents of one of the great and good that would be a bonus!).  Connection, once the first flush of youth has passed us by, is what we seem to wish for.

I too indulge, well my friend from forever indulges me, in collecting my family’s past.  However I do have some tangible links through fabric and fibre.

For years a small box crammed with crochet squares that had come from grandmothers? Great-aunts?  never sure which, had lived in my ever increasing stash. We already had the afghans they had made, way back, as far as I can ascertain, in the early years of the 20^th century.  Every autumn and spring they are on the bed, keeping away early morning chill.  This box of squares though had never been sewn together and I ‘wowed’ as I explored them back in the 1960’s when I first learned to crochet myself.  These squares were so old, I thought, at least 40 or 50 years, maybe more.  I must do something with them I declared. I crocheted some squares the same size and added them to the box.

 Then

  
 
I was young, I was busy, first with college and parties and then with work and parties and then with a few years of travel and parties.  In the meantime every time the family moved home my craft stash moved safely with them, against the time I came home to claim them.  When I came back I took it upon myself to study and earn a couple of degrees, craft was way down the ladder of priorities still.  Later, there would be time later.

Well later, much later, in 2008 I opened my box of squares and laid them out.  The very old, now maybe eighty or ninety years old and some the worse for moth wear,and my early attempts, forty years old not as beautifully executed all laid out but as I counted them and measured them I realised there were not quite enough for a blanket.  Looking through the stash of fibre collected for years from all over the world throughout my travels I found some colours that would sort of match, darned the holes in the ancient ones with a wooden mushroom of my mother’s, then crocheted a border around to make it a size that would be useful.  Another afghan for chilly mornings.  The colours though are not quite right, the forty year old colours are brighter, harsher next to the very old but it is a colourful blanket and very cosy.  Then with just a few of the really old squares, I crocheted a scarf with some soft grey mohair bought in the 1970’s and now have a blanket and a  scarf which links me in my retirement years with, the me of youth, my grandmothers of their youth and which stretches over ninety years.

 Now that’s what I call a connection.