About time for some culture

It’s been a while since we had a day out but with the forecast promising no improvement in the chilly, rainy weather, we opted for an indoor destination: The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Having undergone transformation recently, it’s somewhere which has been on our list to visit before the tourists arrive, most certainly not a place to go on a weekend or bank holiday.  A brisk Wednesday morning in the week before the school holidays begin seemed more than acceptable.

We did our usual trick of starting at the “wrong end”, needing a little sustenance from the fourth floor restaurant before we embarked on our exploration, but were so pleased we did.  There was a remarkable exhibition of drawings/prints done by Weimin He, a Fellow of Chinese Painting at the museum, recording the people who have worked on the transformation.

The portraits were delightful and depicted everyone from the permanent museum staff to the construction workers and contractors.  Some were framed and hung, others were laid on the floor as above, which proved an effective means of showing a large number of similar works.

Most of these portraits were worked in a loose, sketchy style, with minimal shading but highly effective personal details.

But though these woodcut-style prints were heavier and less detailed, they nevertheless worked for both of us and we spent quite some time enjoying the chance to take a closer look and note the characters, the situations and the humour.

It proved to be a great start to our visit.

Next we wandered into the exhibit charting the whole process of transformation from the initial concept, through the minute detail of planning right through to the grand opening last November.  Can you believe that every object was drawn to scale and catalogued as above?

The whole process of working all of this out, making miniature models of the proposed display cabinets and arrangements fascinated us both and we spent another while ooohing and aaaaahing at the thought of putting all of this together.  What a fascinating job.

But we had come for culture and though this was all very interesting, we made on and wandered through several art galleries before spotting a pair of gorgeous furry feet.

I bet you can guess whose feet they are?

Yes, I’m always a sucker for a Samurai!  As usual, I am fascinated by the knots, the braids, the detail.  Oh, and of course, the slippers!

These galleries were full of school groups though, generally older students sketching and working on their own, but nevertheless, the luxury of having the place to ourselves wasn’t there.  We contented ourselves with picking out one or two choice pieces for close inspection – I particularly liked the way in which this chrysanthemum cup and saucer was displayed with the quotation behind it.  Lovely colour too.

Fortunately, the museum has an enlightened approach towards photography and permits the use of cameras without flash.  So, I was able to add to my collection of finely worked cuffs on beautifully painted hands.  Above, by Frans Hals and below, by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

The best thing is that there is plenty left for further visits.  We’ll be back!

Buttons

Remember this?  The quilt top that took over and ended up being half as big again than I’d intended?  It’s been sitting on my worktop since last November, quietly sending guilt waves over in my direction, asking “so now what?”  Being with my expert quilter friend over the weekend was an excellent opportunity to find an answer which didn’t include squeezing it through my sewing machine.

Her answer?  Button it.  Her idea of placing a 5p sized button in each small square and a 20p sized one in the centre of each block sounded good to me. We spent a frustrating half hour mooching around the stands at the NEC in search of buttons and having calculated that I needed 48 of one size and 56 slightly larger, rejecting anything costing 40p each.  Eventually we found something suitable and tested The Eternal Maker’s patience as we sifted through their lovely assortment of buttons to count out 56 of similar size and hue with just two holes.  Sadly, we had to admit defeat when it came to the larger size.

Now I’m home, I can’t decide whether I prefer the button in the centre of the large block

Or the small square.  Harder still to say because I planned to pinch another of her ideas and use thin ribbon to attach them…and that might just be orange.

I’m glad I chose the teal blue though, because the cream button disappears rather – not that there were any cream buttons to choose from at the show.

That could be that I seem to have the European Cream Button Mountain in my stash already  ;-)

Sorting out

Taking a moment to catch my breath this morning, after a few fun packed days.

It was a very early start on both Saturday and Sunday and I arrived at the NEC well before opening time.  This meant I arrived with a bunch of people whose demeanour was very different from the usual excited, gossipy crowd of visitors.  At 8am, the walk from the car park was a heads down trudge as you can see.

An early start does make it possible to get a sneak preview, to chat and to see what’s what.  That was particularly good this year because visitor numbers were up and there were crowds throughout the day.

Since I’ve revealed one purchase on my photo a day blog already, I’ll share one bag of treasure here: a few metres of Kaffe Fassett’s gorgeous fabric which may find itself in a quilt sometime soon.  I snapped it up from Doughty’s whose patience was severely tested because it’s so hard to choose!  Having found their online site, I might have to return!

There were other, minor purchases which will be revealed in due course.

It was cruel that those two tiring days were either side of the time change and we were cheated of an hour’s sleep but the good company and the fun of working together in a lively atmosphere meant that the days passed quickly.

Yesterday was another busy day filled with fun and friends.  I’d offered to give my dear friend Fanny a hand with a sheet of beadwork instructions and so yesterday morning we juggled to create a few clear diagrams showing how to do flat peyote stitch.  Of course, there’s lots to catch up on at the same time; news of our boys and plans for the next week or two whilst sharing a few ideas and inspiration.  Fanny’s teaching her class at the Gloucester Arts and Crafts Summer School and at a charity beadwork event at Amberley next month and of course, the beading in the picture above is hers not mine!

After a quick bite to eat, I headed off to Cirencester, where I had arranged to meet CountryMummy who had generously offered a one to one crochet tutorial.  Friends who know me already will know that I have a continuing love-hate relationship with crochet in spite of attending classes and quite a few remedial sessions!  Maggie has taught me how to hold the hook correctly and ironed out my bad habits, so that I do at least look as though I know what I’m doing!   Nita encouraged me further and guided me through the early stages of the filet crochet scarf we all made at the Dodger Summer School last year.  But I was a performing monkey and though I could copy what I was shown, I still can’t follow a pattern properly and find myself making it up as I go along.  Most infuriating, I could not crochet a granny square, making such a mess of the step up at the end/beginning of the round that I gave up.

With a great deal of patience, Janice was able to identify the exact point which leads to my problems and in no time at all, it was cracked.  I still need to work on my tight tension, though – my three rounds of crochet were only slightly bigger than Janice’s two – and all of my teachers would agree that so many of my crochet “issues” stem from tension trouble!

So, today, I’m going to loosen up and try again.  Watch this space for progress.

Action

Years ago, I wrote an "Action Pack" (a small, self contained learning package aimed at beginners) for the WI about making small books.  We had difficulties settling on a title, thinking that "bookmaking" was open to interpretation and might lead to some disappointment when it arrived. 

There are two copies of the "Keepsake Books" Action Packs, each containing samples and full instructions for three projects, easily manageable by a group of people sitting around a kitchen table. 

I made two of each book and a few other bits and pieces to illustrate the process and as you can imagine, these have had a fair bit of handling over the years.  With both the packs "at home" right now and not out on loan, it was a good opportunity to tidy them up a bit.

  

 It's been fun having them back, for I'd forgotten that I'd used some of Edward's drawings for one of them.  So cute!  These two are still looking pretty good, but it was those with the magnetic closures which had suffered the worst, with the magnets so strong they'd worked loose.  I decided that, rather than make completely new books, I'd simply do a revamp and recover the existing book with new fabric.

 

 I'd bought a piece of this girly fabric whilst in Japan and thought it'd make for a good sample, so set to work on the replacement cover.  Whilst I was at it, I thought I'd look for an alternative means of fastening it closed, so that I wouldn't be replacing magnets all the time.

It didn't take long, but look what happened...dancing on our heads now, are we?  Much as I prefer the "better done than perfect" solution, I couldn't let this one go.  Rather than fiddle around with it any more I started afresh and made a whole new book.

This is an "envelope book", made using ten or twelve envelopes bound in a rigid cardboard binding covered with fabric.  It has a flap over to accommodate the magnetic fastening (which I decided to keep after all, since the instruction sheets referred to it and I couldn't bear the thought of rewriting all of those!)

One of the ideas for this book is to keep little souvenirs in whilst travelling, so I chose a themed Debbie Mumm print from years ago and slightly reworked the magnet, hopefully ensuring a longer life.

I'm quite pleased with the finished sample if rather sorry that it took me a long time to remember that it's often quicker to start again than to try to make a shortcut!

The remainder of the day was spent packing boxes, because I'll be at the NEC tomorrow and Sunday, demonstrating the "Making Keepsake Books" Action Pack on the Denman College stand.  If you're there too, why not come and say Hello?

You'll recognise one or two samples.

Magical evening

This film had been on my "would like to see" list since it came out and as I read more about it, the more I wanted to see it for myself.  But like so many titles on that list, it seemed to come and go in no time at all and I never made it.  I resigned to waiting for it to appear on TV sometime.

But then, a flyer came with the parish magazine and a few little notices appeared around the village.  We were to have our own "Flicks in the Sticks" in the Church Rooms and guess what was to be the very first offering?  Together with a couple of friends, we hot footed it down to "The Screen on the Hill"  tonight and sat with tubs of homemade icecream in the company of another hundred or so of our neighbours - it was a full house.

The programme began with some local advertising; the village butcher, the local garage and the electrician all featuring in some entertaining (and well made) promotional videos, linked together with the delivery service from the general stores down in the valley.  There followed a short feature length film of a couple of local residents before the main film began.

For almost two hours, you could have heard a pin drop as the whole audience watched in complete silence - not a murmur.  What a terrific film too!  We loved the costumes, the lovely characters; dear Toots and sweet Sam, not to mention the irritating Mr Brown.  As for Fanny and Mr John Keats himself, well...in the words of the New York Times, "Perfectly chaste and insanely sexy".  Indeed.

The next offering from The Screen on the Hill is "Julie and Julia" and though we've seen it already, we'd have been there were it not for the fact that we have plans for that evening already.  We look forward to many more of these civilised evenings now that the moving pictures have arrived in our village!