lost in the post

Update – They’ve found it!!!! My tutor got it back this morning and is going to send it again using guaranteed delivery. I’m laughing and crying all at the same time. Thanks so much for your kind thoughts.

Royal Mail have mislaid at least half a dozen things sent by us and to us over the past year – noticeably more than in previous years. The most recent and most distressing is my last OCA assignment (i.e. pretty well everything I did between July and November) – posted by my tutor on December 8th and there is so far no sign of it. I take a little hope from the fact that a cheque I sent to the B&B we stayed in on Islay last year was finally delivered at the beginning of December – just over 6 months after I put it in the post! But it’s only a little hope… most of the things that the Post Office lose seem to stay lost – they must have a huge black hole somewhere.

I’m so glad I’m blogging because otherwise I might not have any photos of the work at all, but from now on I’ll be photographing everything, and in more detail. I wish I had taken photos of more of the sketchbook pages too.

The thing that’s affecting me most right now is that throughout the course you’re asked to select from previous design work and develop it. Of course I still have the work from assignment 1, but now I also have this big gap in the process. I do feel demoralised by it (and I don’t yet know how it will impact on my final assessment) but I know all I can do is accept it and get on with the next part…

… which does sound exciting – fabric manipulation, beginning a theme book, and designing and making a small piece, which could be part of a garment or bag. You can do a wall hanging but they encourage you to do something three-dimensional and that’s what I want to do. I also need to decide on a subject for my theme book from the welter of possibilities tumbling about in my mind – elephants, islands, circles, cooking, knitting, skirts, hearts, words, worn, torn, edges, rifts… I’ll probably have to throw them all into a hat and pull one out at random…

Take it Further challenge

I have been mulling over Sharon B’s Take it Further challenge for January – this is from her blog:

The key concept for January is a feeling we have all had, the feeling of admiration for another. Ask yourself who do you look up to and admire? Why? What is it you admire about them?… Take the idea, develop it into a resolved design during that month and apply it to fiber or paper.

There’s also a colour challenge but I’m going to focus on the concept each month as it’s in this area of visualising the abstract that I know I really need to be challenged.

I struggled for a while with this concept, finding that there seemed to be no-one I could admire without reservation – I was relieved to read a very clear articulation of something of the same feeling from Liz at Dreaming Spirals; and stunned by the imaginative way she’s resolving it. I think a combination of stifling perfectionism and a deep-seated desire not to be misunderstood were combining to paralyse me and I wondered about pulling out of the challenge…

But reflecting on what is common to the people I admire – often people whose names I don’t know or couldn’t share (sometimes quite hidden, usually quite humble), I realised that it’s often precisely because they are such a mixture of opposing qualities that I admire them. I’m drawn to the way they’ve confronted their particular darkness by allowing something bright and fierce and tender and courageous to grow in their lives. I began to think about radiance and colour breaking through strong bonds or tangled chains. I’m remembering an image from LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, a ‘clot of black shadow, quick and hideous’. And seeing tendrils, tiny shoots, frail in themselves, but becoming tenacious and powerful as they grow.

This is all a bit scary – I discover I don’t really like to expose my thought processes before I know where they are going or if I can make anything of them. It feels too vulnerable.

As to technique, I’m using the challenge to make myself work more consistently in a sketchbook so at this point I think my entries will be pages from a visual journal. It will allow me to explore the ideas in more than one medium and it fits in well with my other commitments.

You make my day

makemydayaward.jpgI was moved and honoured to receive this award from Neki and Liz – thank you! The idea is to
“Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on. Beware! You may get the award several times! :-)”

Choosing so few was difficult – both Liz and Neki would have been on my list, and I’ve of course missed out a rather large number of other people who regularly make my day (some who are in my blogroll and others who should be).

I did try to narrow this down to 10 but one or two more crept in… these blogs give me joy, make me wonder, teach me new ways of doing and seeing, and sometimes simply take my breath away with their imagery and poetry.

Jude – What If
Bev – Paper, Fabric, Life and Strife
Jackie – Stitchworks
Frances – Island Threads
Moira Anne – Ominnimo
Brin – My Messy Thrilling Life
Ann Wood
Ruth – Knitting on Impulse
Susan D – Art of Textiles
Monika – Red 2 White
Bella – Knit Purl and Stitch
Kim – Something to Say

breaking silence

The last two weeks seem to have passed me by – the first week of January went in a haze of trying to get back into work and not quite making it. Then last week my younger daughter was injured, so we went to spend some time with her. She’s learning to spin – the skating sort not the textile sort, and she fell out of a spin and broke her wrist quite badly. She had to have an operation to get a metal plate put in to hold it all together, and thankfully that went well. The NHS were very good and very quick, and she’s likely to get all her mobility back with lots of physio. We’re back home now, but I have that slightly odd feeling when you are trying to do ‘normal’ things and yet nothing feels quite right.

Meanwhile I’ve been neither stitching nor posting, but I do have some things to blog about now, so there may be one or two more posts today.

happy new year

I wish you all a very creative, fruitful and happy 2008.

We had a lovely time over Christmas with both our daughters staying and other family members visiting – it went in a whirl, and then suddenly everyone went home and everything went quiet – and a little empty. Stitch therapy and inner hugs being needed, I added another few hundred seeding stitches to this while catching up with The Archers. I have done some knitting too – experimenting with tension and learning that sometimes it’s the instructions that may be a little crazy and not me! Having failed dismally to achieve the required gauge for a modular waistcoat – four needle sizes down and it’s still too big as well as feeling something like a small knitted board (at this point I gave up), I discovered the excellent Yarndex which says that Noro Silk Garden (the yarn I’m using and the one specified in the pattern) knits at 18 stitches per 4 inches on US size 7 needles – whereas the pattern says 27 stitches per 3.5 inches on US size 8 … oh oh oh – still I think I learned a lot more from all this than if it had worked! I’ll get there … I also tried knitting up some hemp yarn I bought at the Knitting and Stitching Show, using different needle sizes in the same piece – it’s messy to use because little bits fly off it in all directions – I ended up with a lapful of hemp confetti and a dusty cough, but after washing it, I think it has potential. I’m going to see what happens if I paint it.

hemp yarn knitting