patchy progress

After what seems a very long time I have managed to get back into my sewing workshop this week. It felt very good to be busy down there again and I've made some progress on a patchwork quilt.

The patterned fabrics are so called "vintage" fabrics from a retro shop in St Ives. I think I recognise them as 1970s bedlinen. The plain fabrics have been mined from my own fabric stash.
Influenced by Jane Brocket's visit to Malago WI last year and her book The Gentle Art of Quiltmaking, I've used a Half Log Cabin design for the squares.

Now that the central patchwork rectangle has been put together I'm just planning to add borders until I decide I've done enough.

faith healer

We went to see Faith Healer by Brian Friel at the Bristol Old Vic last night. It’s a powerful piece with several themes: love and friendship, loyalty, what it is to be an artist and, of course, faith. I was struck during the play by the assertion of the character Francis Hardy (the healer in question) that most of the sick people who came to his “performances” were not there in faith; they hadn’t come to be healed. In fact they were there for a sort of despairing last resort – to have their incurability confirmed so that they could finally give up all hope. This idea is picked up in Joe Spence’s programme notes where he says:

“Throughout Faith Healer we are drawn back to the question of what it is to lose faith. It is suggested that people come to the faith healer not for healing through faith, nor even for the prolongation of hope, but for their elimination. The paradox of the human condition is that it is easier to live without faith or hope than to be eternally faithful or hopeful, and therefore always open to betrayal.”

This resonated strongly with me and could be interpreted rather depressingly. For me, however, it seemed somehow positive. It’s an acknowledgement that faith and hope are difficult choices, involving hard work and constant reassessment and recommitment, but nevertheless worth the effort.

As so often happens, these musings were picked up in another context. This Sunday in the church calendar is Candlemas, otherwise known as the Feast of the presentation of Christ in the Temple. Luke’s gospel tells the story of Joseph and Mary taking their young child to be presented at the temple in Jerusalem for the first time. In Jerusalem an old man called Simeon had been waiting many years for the coming of the Messiah. He had received a promise that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah. Finally the long years of faith, hope, prayer and devotion were rewarded by the revelation that this child was indeed the long-awaited Christ. The sermon reminded us what an amazing work of faith Simeon performed in holding on for so many years to a promise that he might have dismissed as imagination or wishful thinking.

I’m a very long way from having that sort of faith, but I do nevertheless take comfort from Simeon’s prayer of praise:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

made in bristol

I didn't blog much of my knitting and stitching in2010 and have been reviewing everything I have made over the course of the year. This post has taken me a couple of weeks to write, partly because it's quite long with a lot of pictures, but also because it seems rather boring. By comparison with many of the bloggers I read, I have made very little. However, since the intention of this blog is for my own "makerly" encouragement, I have decided to stick with it - post and bore the pants off them! (Having posted this blog I find that it's dated 1 January, which was when I started it. It was actually finished and posted on 16 January 2011.)

The year started with two projects that should have been made in time for Christmas 2009, but didn't quite meet their deadline.

First Hannah's cowl neck sweater, which doesn't photograph well, but I know has been much worn over the course of the year. The reason it took so long to knit is that it's a strange honeycomb rib made by purling one and then knitting the stitch below. This makes for a lovely cushiony fabric, but takes forever to grow.

Then the lovely Elijah (blogged here) for Rosa.

For Ruth's birthday in March I used some lovely fabric from Fabric Rehab to make an "art-to-go" travelling sketchbook and pencils set. (Previously blogged here).

Later in March after my own birthday I made three quick crochet flower brooches for my lovely daughters who had worked so hard to give me a wonderful party. I didn't photograph them, but they were similar to these, with the addition of pretty buttons bought at the Tobacco Factory Market. These crochet flowers came later in the year when Malago WI had a "learn to crochet" evening and I made up a few samples to show what might be achieved.

I made myself some cosy socks in a soft ethical yarn I had bought in St Ives on our holiday in 2009. I loved them and then felted them beyond use in a 40 degree wash (boo)

For the Southbank Arts Trail last May I made a few felt tea cosies and some coffee pot cosies.

June saw the long awaited completion of my Cortona quilt. (Previously blogged and photographed) and I made little cardigans for the family's newest baby and her older cousin. I've managed somehow not to photograph them.

After that my woodland scarf came off the back burner and was finished in time for scarf weather. This was followed by the alpaca scarf that I started making at the beginning of 2009. Once finished it was admired consistently by daughter no. 2, so I have given it to her - though it is modelled here by her husband F.

I very nearly missed the Christmas deadline again with my final knit of the year. This time it was Ruth's turn for some complicated hand-knitting and I finished the Fiore di Notte armwarmers on Christmas Eve! (This terrible photograph was taken in a great rush on my own arm, before hastily wrapping)

My sewing machine had some serious problems this year and I finally took it to be expensively mended in November. Despite this it managed a few bits and pieces (and I also borrowed R's machine.) The giraffe bag made for D's October birthday

was closely followed by a lion bag for his brother M.
I'm hoping that now it's mended, with a needle that drops correctly onto the fabric below, I will make slightly quicker progress on the quilt I have started to make from fabric I bought when we were in St Ives in 2009. The fabric from a stylish retro shop was designated "vintage", but I balk at describing sheeting I can remember from my teens and twenties as vintage, so I'm trying to think of it as simply recycled!

my year in reading - 2010

Forget the 100 books that the BBC thinks most of us won't have read. These are the books that I actually did read this year. As ever, it's not a particularly edifying list - a mixture of old and new; "literary" and trash; mostly fiction; a light dusting of "improving" books. For me, reading is less about learning and improvement and almost entirely about immersing myself in story - being the people, living the lives, exploring the places that one life on this earth (and my cautious nature) will not afford me. As I did last year, I have highlighted the books I particularly enjoyed.
There are a couple here that I thought were particularly terrible, but I'm not going to single them out!

Val McDermid, The Wire in the Blood

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Meera Syal, Anita and Me

E Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means

Penelope Wilcock, The Wounds of God

Jennifer Johnston, The Captains and the Kings

Paul Auster, Travels in the Scriptorium

Wm Paul Young, The Shack

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

John Bell, 10 Things they never told me about Jesus

Mary Lawson, The Other Side of the Bridge

Alexander McCall Smith, The Comfort of Saturdays

Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father

David Lodge, Deaf Sentence

Peter Owen Jones, Letters from an Extreme Pilgrim

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Maeve Binchy, The Copper Beech

Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner's Luck

Elinor Lipman, The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

Jane Brocket, The Gentle Art of Quilt Making

Adrian Plass and Jeff Lucas, Seriously Funny

Arthur Japin, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi

Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

Rose Lynas (ed), Votewise Now

Patricia Cornwell, The Scarpetta Factor

Elizabeth Noble, The Reading Group

Deboragh Moggagh, Smile

Mary Ann Schaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn

Nicola Upson, An Expert in Murder

C P Snow, The Affair

Ian Adams, Cave Refectory Road

Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology

Mitch Albarn, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Alexander McCall Smith, The Lost Art of Gratitude

A S Byatt, The Children's Book

Richard Holloway, Looking in the Distance

Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News?

Agatha Christie, Postern of Fate

Agatha Christie, The Clocks

Chris Stewart, Driving Over Lemons

Julian Barnes, Cross Channel

Madeleine Wickham, The Gatecrasher

Joanna Trollope, The Girl from the South

George Eliot, Silas Marner

Roddy Doyle, Paula Spencer

Anita Shreve, Testimony

Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna

scarf weather

It's scarf weather and I've finally been able to wear my woodland scarf. It's been on the needles (interspersed with other things) since April last year.

I'm pleased with the result, though it's definitely a scarf whereas the pattern implied a shawl. I will probably get more wear from a scarf and it's lovely and long.

Statistics:

1 skein fyberspates scrumptious lace 2ply, which is a merino/silk blend

3.25mm needles

pattern: Woodland Shawl by Nikol Lohr

reality and unanswerable questions

As she was drawing the other day, Iris idly asked me “why are we real?” It seemed unfair to ask a three-and-a-half year old to define reality, but I did ascertain that she meant “real” as opposed to dolls and toys. I suppose I could have explained that dolls and toys are real – real plastic and wood and so on, but the difference is that we are living sentient beings. However I didn’t think of it at the time because I accepted that her question was really the more philosophical question – why am I me? It took me straight back to my own childhood wonder at the fact that I was me rather than someone else and to my later questioning of the fact that I had been fortunate to be born in the relatively well off UK as opposed to, say, a poverty-stricken warzone. These are the questions that lead to “who made God?” or “what came before the Big Bang?” I’m afraid I ducked the discussion that we could have had by saying that I didn’t think that any of us really know the answer. Thinking about it since I think my answer was true, if maybe a little unhelpful to a child trying to make sense of her world. Indeed I’m just embarking on a book by Richard Holloway (formerly Bishop of Edinburgh – now largely faithless) Looking in the Distance which explores these very questions. Maybe I’ll be better equipped for the discussion next time!

the photo is one I took on my recent retreat in Devon

comparisons

Not long after we moved to Bristol an American friend arrived to visit us and memorably (if rather exaggeratedly) enthused "wow, I'm thinking - San Francisco!" I think she must have been treated to a switchback ride on the Bristol hills with their fleeting glimpses up the Avon Gorge to the suspension bridge. There are parts of the riverside in central Bristol which show a distinct homage to Venice. The Granary on Welshback, for example - one of my favourite buildings. (photo copyright Linda Bailey licensed under this Creative Commons License)

I was sitting with a cup of coffee on the harbourside this morning, looking across the water towards the Hotwells and Clifton slopes. I thought that the backs of the houses clinging to the side of the hill behind the new apartments reminded me (a little) of an Italian hill town.
And then I thought - why this constant need for comparison? It's Bristol - and it's great. I love it.