Christmas 2019

It's been a busy time, one way and another.

Today, a quiet morning and a chance to peacefully and appreciatively open the collection of cards kindly sent. It's amazing that the one from Germany reached me through the rain!

I'll be sending New Year "cards" by email, which saves paper and postage and allows funds to be diverted to various good causes (it's that time of year).

Over the past few days the joy of the season has centred around Freya, who has no idea what it all means but is just getting on with her fresh-every-day life. She's starting to crawl - watch out, world! -

The new puppets were a delight both to her and to all the adults who watched her reaction -

What she notices, and what she explores and returns to, is a constant surprise -

I got much pleasure from finding books on my shelves that might interest friends, and wrapping them in fabric from my stash -

(Actually it was a selfish ploy in the ongoing fight against the accumulation of possessions.)

More fabric wrapping, in the form of (book) bags -

When there are many to be made quickly, the algorithm simplifies itself. What evolved was a process of fabric (and cord) selection, approximate sizing, cutting or tearing inside and outside fabrics, sewing a "tunnel", pressing the drawstring casing, sewing it to the open ends of the (turned, pressed) tunnel, sewing up the sides, and threading the cord. Exact timing is unknown, but I can make one in less than half an hour, including finding suitable fabrics.

Seasonal segue

Christmas came early this year when I was given a handknit jumper, knit and passed on by a friend who claimed it needed a smaller person to wear it. As someone who simply cannot part with the garments I laboriously knit in the glory days of the 80s and 90s, I value the time and work that goes into handknits and was so happy to give this one a new life. I've been wearing it often.

But on Christmas Jumper Day - Friday 13th, this year - which was set up by Save the Children as a fundraiser in 2012 and has raised over £21million, I'll be following the advice to get my xmas jumper from a charity shop. In fact one such is already to hand! This handknit woollen "Nordic" beauty has been in my cupboard for some years now - I love it - and best of all, it's not specifically "xmassy", but it is special...

We should be rethinking our xmas buying practices, says this article (and many more articles) - but why stop at xmas? "Less is more" all year round, and green isn't just for xmas.

Horror statistics are everywhere, and here are the ones that got me writing this post.

Acrylic, a plastic fibre, was found in 95% of 108 garments currently on sale from 11 high street and online retailers

Acrylic releases nearly 730,000 microfibres per wash, five times more than polyester-cotton blends, a recent study found

Two out of five Christmas jumpers are only worn once over the festive period

One in three adults under 35 buys a new Christmas jumper every year

Especially that last one. How many over-60s buy a Christmas jumper ever??

Christmas is, of course, "a time for giving". A time for buying useless stuff for people who have too much already, in my bah-humbug view. Then comes the post-xmas letdown and the darkest, coldest weather sets in and thousands of kids go to school without breakfast, not to mention all the other evils brought about by lack of, or poor distribution of, resources.

If you've got financial security, how lucky you are. This article, about someone who gives away a huge proportion of his substantial income, was a wake-up call for me. I know I can now afford to be more generous, though this is very different from the decades of frugality growing up in an immigrant (post-war to Canada) family, and then as student, wife of a student, and single mother; you get in the habit of holding on to what you've earned.

But which charities use their donations most effectively?

This article pointed out that charities with less than £5000 of income don't need to be registered - news to me! It has good information about how to assess the effectiveness of a charity, and how to find local charities.

It also points out that if you're a higher rate taxpayer, you can claim back tax on part of the gift aid added to your donation ... ah yes that's the rich taking care of the rich, bah-humbug...

Not exactly a Studio Saturday

Out of the studio and into the advent fair! In addition to the ready-to-go leftovers from the MSF benefit sale in April, I made a few small, inexpensive items - microwaveable handwarmers and little notebooks.

Setting up at All Saints, Highgate -

 Ready to go, thanks to the transport (and company) provided by Gill Harding -

Six hours later, taking down -

Lovely venue - the sun shone, what a bonus! - with food and coffee and live music -

The Georgian Choir sometimes has concerts in the church, I'll be looking out for those - love the harmonies (the Georgian scale is based on the fifth rather than the octave).

My only purchase was a lovely blue jug, made by Alastair McKay -

On arriving home I was so jazzed up from the day that I immediately tackled The Back Wall, which has long since needed a sort-out. It took a mere three hours to rearrange the piles of books and magazines and the vases and those "saved for best" bottles of wine, and to bring the rickety bamboo shelf down from upstairs, and hoover and dust, and discover things that needed "throw or keep, and if so, where" decisions....

... and to clear the coffee table!

But OH MY, the difference it makes to sit in a room with (mostly) cleared surfaces! (It all started with the desk, which has been an oasis of calm for a few months now.)

These times and places of calmness come and go, but - do yourself a favour - clear a surface ...  

Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge

We went up to Cambridge for a bit of Shakespeare, and discovered that the Fitzwilliam Museum, in fact just about every museum, was closed on a Monday - but the geology museum was open. 

What a revelation, just the sort of old-fashioned museum with handwritten labels and cupboards and drawers and vitrines and quirky things that I love.

Professor Adam Sedgwick's walking boots

The obligatory dinosaur

Rocks and fossils large(ish) ...

... and small

Dinosaur bones and ammonites...

... and starfish ....

... and sea-lilies (crinoids)

Microfossils - how do they even find them?

A quiet room with chemical explanations

Fog oak- "Part of a tree found March 1839
near the Reach in Mildenhall Fen at 7 feet from the surface
by men digging for clay. Its head pointed west by north.
Height with its branches 250 feet.
Height to the first branch 159 feet."

The all-too-familiar touristy view of The Backs and Kings College Chapel. Living in Cambridge in the 1970s, I used to cycle from the Sidgwick site, through the gate [now shut] at lunchtime to the market. (The site (departmental buildings) was named after the philosopher Henry Sidgwick, who studied at Cambridge in the 19th century.)

 Across the road is the Fellows' Garden, or is it the Master's Garden -

 It's big.

The evening wasn't particularly warm, and the actors, as night fell, weren't easy to hear. There was a lot of rushing about, if only to get on "stage". No doubt the tower of the University Library has seen stranger things -

The Mathematical Bridge of Queen's College, on the way back to the station -

 ps - what delight to happen upon a labyrinthine sculpture (Between the Lines, by Peter Randall Page), which set off my labyrinthine trousers -

Week in review

Some weeks, everything gets scrambled and it's good to have a chance to look back and straighten things out in your mind.

Sunday - by train to go walking with the Ramblers in south London -

 I peeled off at an old lunch haunt in Camberwell and got a haloumi wrap

 to eat in St Giles churchyard, watched by a murder of crows

 then by bus past the Oval, where it was England v. Wales -

 - got a mere glimpse of the action through that tiny gap, so I can tick the box that says "see live cricket".

Monday - continuing fascination with twisted old trees and a big hunt for a small notebook to draw them in [none drawn yet, though...] -

 The afternoon at a writing-related event at the British Library -

which continued to the evening's discussion with Alberto Manguel, Ruth Padel, Boyd Tomkin, and John Mullan -

Tuesday - drawing at the British Museum

Discoveries in the Chinese gallery

 I was on a quest for foliage but didn't really succeed...

Not my drawing!

 Later, these came out of memory...

 ... and are much improved by a tiny bit of cold coffee -

Walking to King's Cross

 and later to Crouch End library, where these books begged to be rescued from the book sale -

Wednesday - reassessment of "progress so far" before going to the woodblock printing class -

In the afternoon, a rainy walk to N8 to cook dinner

and have some time with the baby, who has discovered the joys of fabric, if only for sucking on -

Thursday - getting out inks, thinking to try some suminagashi marbling

 but ending up writing emails and "making things nice for myself" (=tidy, serene)

Evening talk at Royal Institution about how batteries will change our world, eg, electric cars and their refuelling, and some wider issues -

and on the walk to a distant tube station, finding this elegant architecture near Warren Street -

Friday - suminagashi happens!

 At first all the ink sank. This is WH Smith Writing Ink -

 so I switched to chinese ink from an old bottle, and though it was faint and some of it sank, it did make patterns -

 This is the sort of thing I'd like to put woodblock prints onto -

 My son came for breakfast, and I went to Sue's for lunch and a "review of work" in her studio. She's been playing with what she calls her stone template -

and showed me what can be done with photocopies+transfer-paper+heatpress+fabric -

Evening talk at British Library on the languages used to write history in medieval times - Latin or the vernacular - and which vernacular ... in England the Norman conquest brought French and English almost died out...

Saturday - wardrobe control: some of these have to go, or do they....

Lazy breakfast -

Quick check on tidyness shows there's now time to read another chapter in my book

before packing up a little toy-making project

Dragons with "issues"

to work on at my afternoon craft group.

And thus passed another week. 

Ceramics - none made; thought about (with guilt); nice ones seen at Contemporary Ceramics on Tuesday

Lara Scobie

Sewing - no handstitching preliminary to pots. Must find some quiet time....

... which brings us to...

Podcasts etc - Gresham lecture on Treaty of Versailles; a few episodes of Science 5 Live (did you know that gravity travels at the speed of light?); Digital Human on "Haven"; hmm there were others ...

Printmaking - my focus at the moment.

Domestic maintenance - minimal. 

Purging of stuff  - none. Ehh, never mind...