Oriental afternoon

I've spent the afternoon at one of the last talks in the programme of this years Stroud Textile Festival in the company of Deirdre McSharry. The title "Sailing to Byzantium" tempted me with its eastern promise and hint of glorious colour and exoticism. Whilst I wouldn't really say that it was quite the concentration of rich pattern and opulence I had in mind, it was nevertheless interesting and it's led me off on a trail of discovery I wouldn't necessarily have followed.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wasn't someone I'd heard of, though what I have read of her since I arrived home tempts me to find out more. In particular, I'll get hold of a copy of her "Turkish Embassy Letters" which seem fascinating, if not quite a holiday paperback!

Another woman who I had certainly heard of but knew little about is Lady Ottoline Morrell. We heard of how D McS is researching the life of Lady Ottoline through her wardrobe, which has been left to the Bath Fashion Museum

I'd like to read more of this lady and her life. Surrounded by members of the Bloomsbury group, days in her London salon and at Garsington Manor can have been anything but dull. We were told of her influence by the Ballet Russes and a spray of Amber and Musk conveyed the audience into that world - how powerful the sense of smell is! Sadly, the visual images were restricted to this picture of costumes for Firebird, but our imagination was prompted by the idea that Lady Ottoline had a box of rather special clothes for visitors. Anyone turning up in normal, everyday attire could transform themselves into a rather more exotic creature for the duration of their stay. Now that sounds like fun!

Next up was Denise Poiret, wife of the fashion designer Paul Poiret whose liberation from wearing a corset allowed her to wear all kinds of wonderful shapes, including the "lampshade tunic". Isn't this a great photograph of her?

Looks like I missed a great exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum last year, but thanks to the internet, there are a whole raft of resources there to explore.

By now, D McS was winding up her talk - even though there was half an hour to go! We were introduced to Lesley Blanch and her "Anti-beige" crusade; another fascinating woman who wrote "The Wilder Shores of Love" about four nineteenth-century women who gravitated eastwards in a time when such travel was a particularly daring thing to do. (Another one for my Amazon wishlist)

And then, to finish, Marina Warner was mentioned, someone who I didn't really associate with the eastern influence at all, but reading her biography, I see that she has connections with Cairo and is working on a novel set in Egypt.

And that was that. No-one asked a question, sadly. It's wrong to say I felt a little shortchanged, for as you can tell, there was enough "meat" in the talk to last me quite a while. But I would have loved more colour, the tales of these people to be more richly embroidered with detail, perhaps more illustration. The pictures I've included here are more or less the same ones used in the talk - mostly from wikipedia - and though there were a couple of others shown, (a particularly lovely painting called "Lady drinking coffee" by an unknown artist, showing her wearing an amazing turban. I also loved the wonderful painting of Denise Poiret wearing her lampshade tunic, which I haven't found online either) there was not a great deal of visual interest during the talk.

D McS had however, brought along a fine Ikat coat with a strikingly lovely lining which she told us about when her talk had ended. Whilst there was a scrum to take a closer look at it, she mentioned an article in this month's "World of Interiors" magazine with some details of these coats in an extract from a new book and CD "Russian Textiles: Printed Cloth from the Bazaars of Central Asia" (the Amazon list gets longer). And, yes, I stopped in Waitrose on the way home to get a copy of the magazine - not one I normally even pick up and browse through - and found it a rich source of all kinds of interesting stuff. I must keep an eye on that one in future.

So, it seems as though the ticket for the talk was money well spent...even if it does look like it's going to cost me a little bit more yet.

Cup final day

It's Saturday and the day of the FA Cup Final (is it still called that? Maybe not...) As neither of us is really interested in football (though with Hull City in the play-off for promotion into the Premiership, all that might change...) I am planning to use the time to relax and do something more interesting.

Like read a book perhaps. I have just one or two on the current pile including next months bookgroup choice "The Other Side of the Bridge", "Notes from an Exhibition" which I seem to have been reading for ever and "Singled Out" which is absolutely fascinating and needs concentration to grasp all the detail inside. There's the guidebooks enthusing me about our next-but-one-trip in August, the amazingly comprehensive Textiles book I bought as a result of the Red exhibition in Basel and the Gocco Guide which came last week. Finally, the new Gordon Ramsay cookbook, for although I don't care for the man himself and watching his F word show last week made me twitchy, his recipes are pretty good and the monkfish from the programme is on the menu chez nous this evening.

Or I might just browse through one or two magazines. The new Selvedge arrived yesterday and the Marie Claire Idees this morning. I intended to concentrate and read some articles from the two German mags I picked up on the Swiss flight a couple of weeks ago, and then there are the favourites bought on a rare Borders visit last Saturday in Birmingham which still haven't been opened.

Or perhaps I'll do some knitting. These socks, progressing nicely after a hiccup last week - Embossed leaves pattern from Favourite Socks

Or perhaps I'll fiddle some more with a bit of domino knitting in the multicolour cotton.


There's the paper to read

sudoku to finish

and I have a fairly major craft project on the go which I'm sorry, I can't show you just yet.

Of course, I'm doing none of that. I'm sitting here at my computer writing a blog post. And whilst I'm here, I spot the two CDs which arrived yesterday from Gwen Hedley, which looked fascinating on a quick glimpse earlier and which I'd like to look at more closely, when I've done with reading, knitting, working in the studio and getting a meal together.


Don't you think that could be the reason why so many people find it far more fun to just plonk themselves down in front of the TV and watch the Cup final?

English Summer

One of the things we love about living in England is the weather. How boring it would be to have the same old sunshine every day with no surprises. How much more interesting it is when all four seasons can be experienced within 24 hours!

We had torrential rain throughout the night and woke up this morning to find a very wet garden. Everything is looking so fresh after a good downpour, though, and the grass must have grown an inch overnight!




Only thing is, there's no washing going out on the line today. Shame about that.

Glorious sunshine (cough splutter)

We have what the weather forecasters are telling us is the last of this series of warm, sunny days and we've really enjoyed being outside in the fresh air, sorting out the garden and looking forward to a fine summer.

But look what happened then. OK, so our neighbour did telephone to ask if we minded if she lit a garden fire (at about 1pm this lunchtime), but what could we say?

I think we know what we'll say next time. And for Bob and his son, our trusty window cleaners, I'm afraid it was so horrendous, they beat a hasty retreat. Who can blame them?

The cheek of it!

Well, at least we are not on the same shelf as Rose and Fred West.