April 2008

I finished March with a burst of activity in the studio: lots of scarves are now made, steamed, washed and ready to send out. I seem to have a long complicated patch with work going wrong technically - and the recent productivity seems in tune with the spring season.

On 4th and 5th April I was invited by the Peter Tavy Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers to run a workshop and give a talk. They were celebrating their 10th Anniversary and I enjoyed visiting a welcoming and vibrant group of people in a beautiful location, on the edge of Dartmoor.

For the workshop I showed them a twist-and-tie technique and then introduced them to a simple method of making a scarf using wax and dye in layers. As far as I know, both techniques were a first for all of them.

They produced some very good work, and it's rewarding when students don't just reproduce the technique demonstrated but see the point immediately and take it somewhere else!

They make mean cakes as well.

April 10th - 12th

Did he remember to tie on the tell-tales and stow the Sympathetic Magic along with the Doc Cooper's? ? Has he got enough Tabasco? What about Alphonse, and the obligatory portrait of Lord Nelson? And the right map; not one showing the M25 and a less pleasant part of Slough? Has Kevvo been oiled and read his bed-time story?

The latest log (find today's date if you're looking some time hence) has a message for me and it seems the tell-tales and magic are installed, so that's a question I no longer need to ask. Qi'd up Alphonse is also in residence.

So some worries eliminated. Replacements on the way. Has he got the tell-tales the right way round? Otherwise he may be sailing in quite the wrong direction. Whitworth Obsession is a powerful brew.

The strange emboidered Thing is designed as Sympathetic Magic. The white ground is a square of the original genoa sail that took Berri round last time; the ribbons are a pair of original tell-tales.

Tell-tales are ribbons tied to the shrouds to indicate local wind direction. If they are blowing in opposite directions, it means Heap Big Trouble.

April 25th

I finished March with a burst of activity, and April is the same. This week I calculated just how few working days I had between now and the Contemporary Craft Fair at Bovey Tracey (June 6th - 8th) and it gave me a bit of a fright. So I have worked like a loony on crêpe and organza scarves and now have a small cache in the cupboard. I will be working on a collection of natural-dyed items next.

Given this urgency for studio work, did I really need to be writing a new glossary for the new Berimilla website? Probably not, but I am my brother's sister, it seems. All that esoteric musing is back in the logs; Sei Shonagon's lists have been requoted (see below), and some general tomfoolery needs illuminating. I feel so much better now I know what the ITCV is. For an amazing real-time adventure, don't miss this extraordinary voyage. Go here.

And now for something completely

different

Those of you that know me quite well will be well aware that there has been more to my life recently than just studio work and academic descriptions of The Doldrums. Opposite is a clue to something that has started to take over a good part of my life and study.

And here's a verbal hint from Sei Shonagon's List of Things That Arouse a Fond Memory of the Past:

To find a piece of deep violet or grape-coloured
material that has been pressed between the pages of
a notebook.