Colours, Loose Ends and Kaffe Fassett

A couple of weekends ago, I woke up and thought, I have nothing planned for the day... what can I do, and then it hit me - "A Life in Colour" , the Kaffe Fassett exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum.  I had read about it and thought I really must go and see it as I had missed his previous exhibition at the V&A.

I should also mention that I had recently read his autobiography, A life in Colour which I highly recommend, it traces his past from an idyllic childhood in California, to his move to London, how he learnt to knit, murals that he created which were then... painted over and then there are the luscious images of his work and inspirations I got my copy from the library, but do read it, it really whets your appetite

Now the Fashion and Textile Museum was set up by Zandra Rhodes, and my claim to fame is that she once admired a hat I was wearing with a fantastic hat pin when I went to an exhibition in 90s!  It was a great intimate venue for the Fassett knits, tapestries and quilts.

So in I trotted in, well I have to be honest, it was just a little bit gloomy until my eyes got used to it, but when I thought about it, it's just what you need with Kaffe's work as all that colour coming at you would probably have ended up with a bunch of women with bleeding eyeballs!

So where to start, I loved the way you could see what had inspired a design, from photos of an object, eg stones on a beach, through to the paintings - which I thought beautifully executed but a little 2d, however I then realised that is why they translate so well into fabric designs - and thence to the cushion, quilt, knitwear.

But OMG, the colours, his assuredness and use of bright shades is just amazing.  His first cardigan really cheered me up, a stripey number in unlikely subtle shades of brown, but... yes there is a BIG BUT, I whooped and hollered inside, it was the ultimate realisation that the man is human.  He left loose ends, yep, loose ends everywhere... now if you have ever knitted, you will remember the first multi-coloured piece you knitted and all you wanted to do was sew it up and wear it and to the devil with the sewing in the loose ends... see, he is just like us!

The quilts were delicious, the quilt police might have been narked about the lack of perfect corners but the colours were sublime.  You could get up close and personal to actually break down how they were made.  Oh, and there was a wonderful display of fabrics and wool swatches to touch and feel, which was great because no matter how many signs there are in an exhibition, don't you just long to reach out and stroke?

Upstairs was a room that was staged, with needlepoint cushions and rugs... I saw both worked not only in Tent stitch but also in staggered Long stitches, chairs covered in needlepoint.  Knitted cushions and quilted cushions - it was like a fairground explosion, blousey but not slutty - glorious in its celebration of sewing, quilting and knitting.

There was also a row of 1980s knitwear which although it showed its age in style but not in its innovative use of colour and patterns.

This was 90 mins of my time well spent, I came away inspired to sew, resisting the temptation of buying some fabric Fassett and Brandon Mabley collection... I really recommend it as a lovely exhibition to set your fingers twitching.  There are classes and lectures to take associated with the the exhibition, wouldn't it be great to work with Brandon and Kaffe, so when the lottery win comes through... However, as I left the exhibition, guess what I spotted in the road... hexagonal drain covers, how spooky is that?

Happy Easter!

Hope that everyone is up to their bunny ears in chocolate eggs this weekend!

So far this weekend, I have finished a sock, have a half finished bunny sitting on the ironing board and am joined at the hip to my vacuum cleaner... well Spring has started!

Pip and Squeak... and a Farewell to a Consumate Seamstress

Say hello to Pip and Squeak who were finished today.  Yes, I know this is yet another set of Easter bunnies, but I have had this pattern lurking in my must do pile for a couple of years and just have not got around to it. However this year, I had the perfect excuse, on the UK Crafts Forum we have a SEB, or in layman's terms... The Secret Easter Bunny...

Well, Pip and Squeak are shortly to be wrapped up and sent off to their recipient, I do hope that whoever it may be will like them... but I think she might want to keep them apart as they seem to be doing what rabbits do!

Now I move on to some rather sad news, I learnt today that one of few remaining aunts has died.  She was my Aunty Trassa, (a corruption of the name Teresa), one of 12 children she was 80 years old and had 10 children, and she was the go-to woman if you ever wanted anything made.  I always hoped that one day she would make my wedding dress, but I guess she got tired of waiting!

Aunty Trassa could make a sewing machine sing, for her the needle and thread would dance and her eye could see the potential of any piece of fabric and her hands had the gift to make it so. My mother used to tell stories of her when she was courting, her husband to be, my mild mannered Uncle Christie would arrange to pick her up at 7:30pm but... at just gone 7:00pm she would decide she needed a new skirt, and out would come her dressmaking shears.  The fabric folded in two and the scissor let rip (no paper pieces would be used, this was all done by eye), lining would be cut too... then the sewing machine would fly into action and by 7:30 the new skirt would be ready to go out... although if you knew my aunt you would know that she might not be quite ready.  

My mother told of one trip to a family wedding, when they were all due to leave the house at 10:30, Auntie Trassa appeared with dripping hair at 10:20... and yes, it was one of her own children who was getting married!

She could sew absolutely anything, from soft furnishings to wedding dresses, no zip insertion ever held her in its thrall, with a needle and thread in hand she was a Zen master.  She was also the one who understood why I could not bear to go to a wedding where I had made the dress... she knew that all I would see would be the elements that I thought I should have done better.

As she got older she was able to pick and choose which projects she undertook, dismissing fabric that she did not like with the classic phrase, "I can't sew with that - it offends my fingers!" And tell me that you have never come across that fabric...  She also engaged in madcap schemes, like her collection of jam jars from which she was going to build a greenhouse, it never did happen but I reckon with her magic hands if she had succeeded, there would have been a bio-dome in Sallynoggin, long before they built one at the Eden Project.

She was also incredibly generous with her time, when my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she jumped on a plane from Dublin and nursed her until she died... a wonderful selfless act for which I will be forever in her debt.

So in the coming week, when you sit in front of your sewing machine, thread up a needle up or pin two edges together, remember to pass your gifts forward, pass on a tip or a technique to the next generation.

Some of my Aunts at Powerscourt in Co Wicklow in the 1980s
Back Row: Aunty Phyll, Aunty Berna, My mum, Aunty Bridgie
Front Row: Aunty Kay, Aunty Trassa, Aunty Dolores

I reckon if Aunty Trassa had been of my generation her next move on a Sunday evening would be to go over to Handmade Harbour to see what people had been up to before posting up one of her own marvellous projects.

I am about to turn militant .. again!

Do you have a mental list of favourite smells and feels... I do.   When I win the lottery I will have fresh sheets every day and should I take an afternoon nap, then the staff will iron them before I step inside that evening...I might have won money but I am still eco-friendly.  But there is another smell and feel which outstrips this... it's a new book.

Just close your eyes, feel the weight of the book in your hands, hear the crack of the spine and then the smell of the fresh unsullied pages.  Yet even better than this appeal to your senses is the dance that the printed letters will lead your imagination through.

So can you guess what is exercising my rant zone... my local council are threatening to close some of our local libraries.  You might remember how I told you all a couple of years ago about my love of libraries, how I have never lived more than 10 mins away from one.

Libraries are so important, they are the door in the back of the wardrobe that gave me access to my own personal Narnia... through books, I have travelled the world, I know the Venetian canals like the back of my hand through the Donna Leon and the investigations of Commisario Brunetti, I learnt my way through American Law courtesy of Harper Lee and John Grisham, never said I was discerning, did I?  I am an expert on romance, thanks to Katie Fforde and Jojo Moyes... and RF Delderfield, Mazo de la Roche and Tolstoy.

The library was and is, alongside Radio 4, my university... it has taught me and made me what I am.  Our librarians no longer check in our books, but ask them a question from internet access to who else writes like Roddy Doyle and they are there in an instant, stretching your imagination.  Who else would listen to small children bursting to impart what had happened to Angelina Ballerina, or why dinosaurs had died out and why Roald Dahl is really the bestest writer in the whole wide world and that they will never read anyone else.  Yet now, these experts are being de-skilled by stealth, softened up for redundancies... but we need them... we really do need them.  But this is not about us, it is about future generations, libraries are an inheritance we must pass on... if you don't believe me, read about what the library means to my little friend Camille and her mum.

Just imagine how tough it must be for the people working in the libraries, nip in, if you can and tell them that you will be supporting them, sign petitions, make a fuss, people need to know that you want to keep them.  

So if you live in Leigh-on-sea, Southend-on-sea, Westcliff-on-sea and so on, lobby your local councillors, tell your MP that this is not good enough... we need our libraries, and right now, your library needs you!  

Rabbit, Rabbit, Bunny, Bunny

Recently I have made a couple of rabbits for friends for Easter...

The one I finished this morning is a Tilda pattern, am not sure about the nose as I think it looks a little canine but I know that the young lady who I made it for will love it.  On balance, I think it might be a hare because of its lovely long ears... although I have not seen it box yet, but I reckon that dress might be hiding a Lonsdale belt beneath it.

Now this is one I saw in a magazine and my fingers just itched to get it made, it's actually made from recycled jeans and a fleece picked up from a local charity shop. I would add just one caveat, when you are making it up, make sure that the legs have faded equally when you cut out your pattern pieces.

I have another pattern to make bunnies which I hope to finish during the week and will share with you soon.

Anyway, I am pleased with these little chaps as I had lost my my making mojo for a couple of weeks, so I will be editing pictures and patterns over the week and making up for lost time.

Now to get me back on track, I will be going over to Wendy's HandmadeMonday for even more inspiration.

And all week I will be silently saying the bunny rabbit knitting rhyme... perfect garter stitch every time!

Into the Bunny Hole

Run around the tree

Out of the Bunny Hole

Away runs he!

Here's to the Whistleblowers!

I don’t often write really serious stuff on here, so no pictures in this post, but after listening to the news this morning and reading the papers, something struck me… whatever happened to personal responsibility?  For those who don’t know I have been a school governor for over 20 years for inner City schools in London and I am currently working for the NHS, having started my working life there, over 35 years ago so whenever something about them comes up I read it thoroughly but I have to admit doing so with an increasingly heavy heart and then it struck me, nearly every public service is getting it in the neck.

In the last few weeks, I have read how more and more primary school children are being expelled… well, let’s take that one apart.  Firstly, we don’t expel any more, we exclude; now that can be for a few hours internally sitting in another room, to a day or more off-site but to permanently exclude a child is a long slog.  Actually thinking about it, the internal exclusions are akin to the afternoon or morning stood facing the wall outside the Head’s study, in fact I can still name the boys who were regulars outside Mr Webster’s room… that would be you: Nicholas, Graham, Kevin, Peter, Mark, Michael and John.  And thinking about it, I reckon that more than one of them would be stood there every week - so times really don’t change - we just gather information in a different and more formal way.  Then I hear how standards of literacy are plummeting, well not at my school; children come in so far below the national average and with English as an Additional Language that they have to start in Nursery and Reception with bi-lingual tutors but by the time they leave, they are above not only the Local Authority average but the National average… not a mean feat for an East End primary.

And do you know what makes the difference, parents taking responsibility to work in partnership with the school, these results do not happen in isolation, they happen because we work together.  They happen due to good will from the staff at the school going that extra mile, they happen because both groups respect and listen to each other because they know that.

All over the papers at the moment is the Mid-Staffs Francis Report, a damning indictment of a culture of neglect and fear in a general hospital.  Each of us will have a horror story that we know of, or that might have happened to friends and family but equally there will also be tales of carers who do go the extra mile, doctors who take the time to listen and nurses who still hold your hand when you are frightened.  In every organisation you will find shining examples of good practice, a department that will always do the work to the highest standard and hospitals are no different as they too are staffed by human beings and we are all by nature a mixed bunch. 

However, I think that what makes the difference is taking personal responsibility, ensuring that when you do a job, you do it to the best of your ability, if others are falling below standard then you call it, you help them to improve; if the facilities are not there to allow you to do the job then you tell management and keep telling them until it changes.  This is your duty to not only yourself but to others… we all deserve the best but we  will only get this if we give of our best.

Be prepared to fall on your sword if your ignorance of a situation or inability to listen to what is happening allows it to continue… to me the best politicians are those who have admitted their failure, Lord Carrington over the Falklands War and Estelle Morris when she realised that she did not have wherewithal to continue as Secretary of State for Education… those are the people I admire for recognising their own shortcomings. 

In the words, so often attributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

So on a morning that is filled for many with self-reflection, I raise my coffee cup and, heartfelt thanks and admiration to the whistle blowers whose moral compass means that the world will be a better place, if we but listen and act,  and take just a little self-responsibility.

What's in a name?

We were talking about names today... it seems that everyone in my office is called Linda... different ages, so no rhyme or reason... although at school we had four Susans, how Bunty like is that?

My sister was born on Easter Sunday and my mother managed to fight off the suggestions of Esther and Joy, still it could have been worse but fortunately Bunny did not feature

My father, who would not go to the phone box to ring the hospital when I was born wanted to call me Molly!  Still I have my brother to thank for revenge by proxy, he was sent on the phone box mission and returned to the house looking very perturbed, he broke it to my father that it was twins... he kept it up for half an hour before admitting that it was quality and not quantity!

Even my brother has a name tale... my mother was under Eamonn De Valera's son who was a gynaecologist in Dublin and like his father quite a Catholic.  He asked my mother if she would call her first born after the Virgin Mary... she said she would consider it, if it was a girl but frankly not one for a boy... however, my mother was so acquiescent which is why my big brother is called... oh it's bad but not quite that bad,  Michael James Mary... I kid you not!

And really there is only one song to listen to...