Be impressed

I did a little warm up first.

 

Because, it really wasn’t that easy to fold!

(the pattern can be found here)

Thanks to all you enabling friends who have sent me to internet paper heart weaving sites I’d never have found without your help!

Interesting

I’ve just come home from my second visit to Whole Foods in Cheltenham.  I’d booked for two of us to have a bit of make up fun around lunchtime, so of course, we did a bit of shopping whilst we were there.  In particular, I was keen to get some more of the yummy peanut butter and have a better look around, now the crowds have died down.

As I walked past the bakery, I discovered the answer to a previous question.

Regardless of the price of apple pie, the level of service in the store surpasses all expectations.  An enquiry about farro (following Nigella’s use of the grain in a kind of risotto recently) sent a staff member in search of the answer.  He not only took me to the shelf with spelt on it, he placed a red sticker on the box and offered it to me “on the house” - “give it a try and let us know how you get on”.

We also approve of any supermarket that has prosecco on tap in the cafe ;-)

Balancing

I am a great believer in life-work balance.  Without some purposeful work to do, I am lost and drift around with no real direction.  However tempting I might find the idea of having empty days to fill with whatever activity my heart desires, I know the reality is not quite as might be imagined.  But after a week of days filled with work-related activity, time spent with friends is especially sweet.

On Monday, I met a couple of friends for lunch.  It’s not that we don’t see one another often – we connect through our book group, through WI and bump into one another fairly often.  But we don’t sit down and chat very often and spending a couple of hours around a table and a plate of good food is a lovely chance to catch up on all the things there isn’t usually time to talk about.  The three of us go back a long way – the two of them even longer – and simple chat about families and domestic details is surprisingly therapeutic.  We smiled when it came to settling up though, recognising the inevitable conclusion to any meal shared by women…

  

I enjoyed a day at home on Tuesday, pottering about trying to work out how to fold those little hearts on this website.  The Froebel stars are well established in my mind now and though I need a small refresher each year, I’ve soon got them sorted.  But the hearts were another thing altogether.

Thankfully, the answer was at hand.  I’d arranged to meet my sweet Danish friend Marianne yesterday and took along a bag of paper strips and the challenge. However, in spite of her years of practice making such things, that little folded heart still proved tricky, so we passed the problem on by leaving the challenge with Mogens and buzzed off into Cardiff!

It was the most beautiful afternoon with a clear blue sky and not many people about.  Crafts in the Bay was as intriguing as always – though I looked for a bag by the same maker as Jane bought in the summer, sadly there were none to be seen.  Jane, you have a truly unique work of art there!   Curiously, both Marianne and I had both bought pieces of work by Mandy Nash on previous visits though preparations for the upcoming exhibition were underway and we weren’t able to see the full range of her work.

Being with another “visual” person is such fun: Marianne spotted these two cranes over the other side of the bay and wondered what their argument had been about?!

When we arrived back, not only had Mogens sorted out the process of making the folded heart, he had found a couple of websites for me, too.  One has a clear tutorial for this little heart and the other one includes a video for this folded design as well as for the simpler hearts which open as baskets.  Of course, both are in Danish but hey, we visual learners can cope, can’t we!?

What a hero! 

These two Danish paper folding experts inspired a few more challenges then.  Not only do I need a bit of practice with the small hearts, I’ve also discovered some variations on the other folded heart theme.  Such like minded friends simply fire one another on to further inspiration, don’t we, Jordi!?

  

So, this morning, before meeting some friends for lunch (yes, the fun week continues!) I followed Mogens excellent explanations and had a go myself.  My first attempt wasn’t too bad – but wasn’t too good either.

My second attempt was better.  The jury is still out on how to finish the ends off though.  Yesterday, we sneered at the video version which cut them off rather short we felt and thinking about it, favoured the further tucking and securing method.  I found this tricky this morning though, and may seek alternatives!  However, in true Elegant Sufficiency style, I hadn’t chosen the most sympathetic type of paper to work with.  The Canson Papier Calque Couleur (bought in France) looks divine and folds beautifully crisply but rips rather more easily than ordinary paper. 

Practice needed.  But I very nearly achieved my usual goal of doing it perfectly in the first five minutes ;-)

Thank you Marianne and Mogens for being enablers of the best kind!

11am, November 11th

We’ve been with our friends in Lancashire this weekend, to hear a performance by the Lytham St Annes Choral Society.  Post concert supper and chatter usually makes for a late night and a Sunday morning stroll along the seafront has become part of the routine.

 

This Sunday morning was rather different though, because instead of taking our seafront walk, we decided to join the community Remembrance event in the park.  The seafront and the area in front of the pier was the assembly point for the procession to the war memorial and seeing the numbers of people gathering there, we thought we’d head straight for the park and await their arrival.

It’s a beautiful park and the war memorial is a stunning centrepiece.  Our walks have often taken us through the gardens  and back through the town and we always admire the immaculate maintenance and real spirit of community which is apparent here.  Yesterday, however, we found ourselves with rather more people than we’d expected, for this service of remembrance was going to be very well supported.

We found ourselves a great spot on a little hill overlooking the memorial – references to Spion Kop came to our minds, the original being perhaps a little more relevant than how it’s more usually used today. 

We were standing behind a small family, who well represented the crowd who’d gathered there, because it wasn’t only the old-timers and the community groups who’d turned out for this event and by the time we heard the drum beat of the band leading the procession, it was hard to see where everyone was going to fit in.

But squeeze in they did and with a bit of shuffling and side-stepping, all were assembled, ready to begin with precision timing.  The Chaplain said a prayer, a hymn was sung (to the accompaniment of a superb brass band) and we listened to a Bible reading.  There remained just time for “an older person” and “a younger person” to lead the Act of Remembrance, the bugler to play the Last Post and the two minutes silence at 11am precisely.

As we stood watching the wreaths being laid, others were standing to pay their respect from the steps of the care homes and hotels across the road.  I knew that my friend Maureen would be laying a wreath of poppies on behalf of my WI at the war memorial in the small Norman church at home and that all over the country, at this very moment, others were standing quietly watching, thinking.

Remembering.

Enabling

My job title – Curriculum Lead – doesn’t really offer any clue about what I actually do.  So when asked to elaborate, I often rely on a short phrase: Enthuse, Encourage and Enable.  I am frequently accused of that last one (with a wink) because I really do like to share any interesting discoveries with my like minded friends and one in particular (you know who you are…) is very easily tempted.  I make no excuses because everything I do is legal, honest and more often than not, just jolly good fun.  But yes, now and again, I have heard the words “Oh, you are such an enabler!” in that tone of voice, for sure.

This morning, I was on the receiving end, though.  I was mooching through some Pinterest pages I’d stumbled upon last night, and one particular pin caught my eye.

Folded paper bracelets?  How neat are those?  With a cup of tea in hand and having decided that I’ve earned a morning to myself today, I followed the link to a very interesting page, right up my street and with a very tempting sidebar full of links to follow up, too!

Scrolling down to the folded bracelets, I found the link to Fiber Lab and found all kinds of very clever paper manipulation there.  I am in awe of people who can think their way through such designs and who can create beautiful three dimensional objects from a two dimensional piece of paper and this particular one is so clever!

Don’t take my word for it, download the pdf here and have a go yourself!

What impressed me most was the marvellous presentation of a fairly complicated technique on a single sheet of ordinary paper.  The information is all there, shown in such a way that anyone could follow and create a paper bracelet from scratch in less than half an hour.

See?

Sadly, it’s just a little on the small side for me, so I need to enlarge it in some way.  But isn’t it clever? 

Thank you, Justine, for sharing your work!  I love it.