Off to work

Not often I get to write that these days. I'm spending the day with a wonderful group of colleagues working on a BEME systematic review about interprofessional education and theory. Needs persistent intellectual engagement so I've started early on the coffee and put a good book in my bag to relax with on the homeward train. Tempted to take my knitting for between discussion time-out but ...!!!

Jan 29 small stone

White narcissus bought two weeks ago, now paper flowers: matured beauty, fragile, asking to stay.

in place of small stones

Very aware that my small stone have stopped appearing -they are waiting to be transported to the computer from various journals and bits of paper ... that's what happens when life gets busy.  I'll get them together & post somewhere asap.

I still plan to continue small stoning for the year, or perhaps its better to say to continue to pay attention to the small.

Last evening  the Poetry and The Visual seminar met on line for the first time. This is another Poetry School course, led by Tammy Yoseloff. with, obviously, a focus on what we see and using the visual in poetry. After a few hiccups the seminar went well, lots of different poems and new people to get to know in the Moodle classroom.   The next poem has to be posted by next Monday evening so I'm already thinking, oh what to write, when will I have a small space to draft, redraft etc etc.


Ive decided to begin to write about my quilting journey on this blog ... better late then never! I have a quilting journal with entries for my practice pieces and  lots of photos.

Here's my New English Frame at home in France and one of the first practice quilts hanging up while I decided what patterrn and threads to use.

and this is why I need lots more practice....

I'm now planning a quilt for my bedroom in France, this is it so far, some lovely fabric, bits from my stash, and ideas from a walk along the beach at Rye  - some way to go

Back from the Quilting Retreat

Back to the ordinary life after a weekend inspired by thread, fabric and quilting designs at Martha Milne’s Quilting Retreat.http://www.machinequilter.co.uk/.  It was good to return to the county of big sky, Lincolnshire was, at first, spread with snow

and then as we drove home, puddled with snow melt. There were lakes over fields of a width and breadth and, just once, we had to divert along unnamed roads to avoid the flood under a railway bridge.
The thaw was inevitable given the wall to wall sunshine on Saturday –its warmth working while we were quilting inside The Petwood Hotel. I learnt so much, I’ll let the poem and photos tell you all about it.
Dancing the line
Outside, a muntjac deer, her coat
shimmering like wet clay, picks her sunlit way
through snow fading from the soft edge of hard.
 
Inside, its time to show and tell our pieces,
to ask - which pattern, which thread?
We spool silk, cotton, trilobular fibre
 
over fabric, consider curls of matt, glossy,
same and shifting colour lines:
question, disagree, play.
 
Next we air doodle, letting the trace
whisper to our mind’s eye, then, pen on paper,
we repeat: ripple stipple, border feathers, loops,
 

writing their twists, turns, and pauses
into our muscle memory before we needle-draw,
back and forth across stretched sandwiches
 
-top, fleece, backing. We are dancing the line
to the thaw’s soundscape, stitching across
bears paw, log cabin, blocks and strips
 
of cloth, sewing buds of scallops, mussel shells,
hearts, side stepping to shadow one,
then another - creating quilting blossom.
 
Outside the buttercup moon lights
the leaves, trees, paths, free from snow:
in its gaze we turn towards home.
©Marilyn Hammick January 2013
Many thank to Martha, Emily and Trudy for permission to share these pictures, and to them and a lovely group of quilters for a very special weekend.. No surprise that we all plan to do it again very soon.

Quilting retreat

Wonderful day at Martha's Quilting Retreat, it's still snowy at the Petwood Hotel but there's lots of dripping going on as a result of the sunshine.
We've been doodling with pen and needle, spooling threads over works in progress and I've been open mouthed at the fantastic work the other's have bought along to show.
More tomorrow, starting with Trudie's trunk show ... will post some pics then.

21st small stone

On Monday morning, with eyes closed, I take the temperature of the outside world: the slush of tyres through snow melt -time to end my hibernation.

20th small stone: see, hear, write

From my window , blackbirds argue in the fir tree -their harsh exchange interrupts the sound of snow falling through evergreen buttresses and here and there laying its flaky self down on branch, cone, needle.

small stone No 19

Potato peel, celery and leek root, one or two damaged leaves slide into the compost bucket, garnish for the decomposing eggs shells, apple cores, banana skin donated yesterday: a waste melody ready to return to source.

18th small (snowy) stone

Between the brick pavers and the kerb a spiders web, dusted with snow: like a glove of white lace, fingers stretched toward rust-red edges, palm in supplication.

Today’s small stone

There is expressionless sky all around me, I keep looking its way, forewarned of what it will bring, I see hardly-there layers - grey, cream, blue - keeping to their own space, like they’ve been shaded within the lines, but very likely they are accumulating, holding on to what passes, practicing patience until the pressure comes their way.

Yesterday’s small stone

The Basil plant on my kitchen sill is perky, its leaves ready to flavour my food - has blossomed with the neglect my absence bestowed.

small stone inspired by Macaroon

Setting aside my tendency to look to the visual for inspiration I’m graceful to Macaroon for this small stone. In the absence of any living thing daring to wander across his patch of garden, he spent time on Saturday ‘seeing off the rain’.  Bless.

The puppy barks in another part of the house - sharp, urgent, metronomic; later I ask what was that all about, just the rain, I’m told.

Almost time to leave my frame (for a while)

I’m catching up with a post about the last of my quilting for a short while as I travel back to UK on Tuesday. My spotty cushions for the bedroom in England are now finished, and we have some scrap deck cushions ready for the sitting outside days.



and I have lots of questions to ask at the Quilting Retreat … maybe after some expert advice I’ll be able to ‘see the bigger picture’ as I quilt the narrow strips and will be able to more evenly space the pattern.
Today I loaded the large scrap quilt onto the frame … quite a task, Still lots to do so fingers crossed it will unloaded before I leave for the airport on Tuesday.

Review We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

I’ve blogged before about Oates’ writing …how I can’t believe I’ve only just discovered her .. and here I am again, on the same note, how did I miss We Were The Mulvaneys?

A family story of disruption, disenchantment, disorder and, thank goodness, finally, decency. Oates’ prose carries the reader along, her plotting meanders, gently teases, and when you think you’ve escaped and might just know how the Mulvaneys’ lives progress, she surprises you. I found this book unputdownable, like a crime thriller with heart and soul, it had characters I enjoyed getting to know but now and then I kept doubting whether I did know them.

A book that made me laugh, despair, and, in several places, weep. Truly wonderful. I shall miss it now I’ve reached the end, its definitely  on my read again list. 

13th small stone

Fragrance of Clementine oils my fingers, citrus on my tongue: inside the peel a comforting web spreads from one torn edge to the other.

Wall to wall blue sky

Today the winter sun returned like a friend sorely missed: kisses to warm my face, my hands, smile-beams out of a blue cocoon

a small stone for Thursday

Last summer’s leaf, the colour of clay, dried to a crisp twist: a body shrinking away from the venous web that once delivered life.

Review: Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie

I’ve been reading the essays in Jamie’s 2012 collection and at the same time writing, as a daily discipline, what are called by some small stones. That’s a heavy name for the lightness of touch that is key to writing a small stone, where the invitation is to become microscopically interested in one small aspect of one small thing, then focus on just one small part of that small aspect. 

So, I’ve been trying to look through one lens for my writing and reading Jamie’s writing through multiple lenses. In this collection there is the large (whales), the small (a storm petrel) and all sizes in between (scientists, chapels, the moon). She weaves her way through remote seascapes and isolated islandscapes writing in a stripped to the bone way, literally and metaphorically.

Jamie also writes prose poetically –unsurprisingly –, reflectively and plainly using words to paint her meanings and  sharing her experiences to inspire thoughts of ‘I wish I’d been there’. Her choice of subject provided me with links to the similar, the familiar and sometimes to something/somewhere else entirely. What else can you ask from a collection of nature stories. For me nothing other than they do as Jamie's did: take me away and return me to a slightly different place.

After I’d read each essay I wrote one or two  words (you could call it a very very small stone) beside the title on the contents page -

uplifting, sorrowful, history, memory of Alderney, necessary brevity, bone magic, global, patience, disturbance, intimate, reaching back, desiccation, trophies, burrowing

- make of these what you will, I might one day make a poem.

very small stone

Knots and rings decorate the wooden floor, like doodles on a page, marks of time passing

Another small stone

In the middle of the night fox sounds reach me – eeech eeeech eeech – this is a regular call, connection, contact, then something else - urgent, incessant, a message that must be passed on.

A quilt for the garden

So called because that’s really all its good for … this is not negative simply the expression of intention! Now when a visitor needs something to cover their knees (for those sunny but cool days) they no longer need worry that they are taking something precious into the garden when I offer a quilt!!

I used scrap fabric of all different sorts, so matching was a real challenge but it was OK to practice more quilting on and this time I tried a stem of leaves every so often, some are more realistic than others and my daisies are getting  better. The date is just legible but my initials are not so clear. Its the small patterns that I find so hard and I really did not want a big MH on my quilt –subtlety being the key where ego is concerned.. 

It was quickly finished by making a binding from the fleece backing. I would do that again but be more careful about the zig zag stitch position next time … I need L plates  on my sewing machine still.

A small stone for Monday

Early morning greeting, the barn cat’s fur sweeps the skin of my palm: weightless down signalling his winter night in the house

Sunday small stone

No walls, just space, paucity of light: width, depth, blues, greens, an inherited  melange to sit on, write at, a morning spot here, an evening one there, for reading, sewing, thinking, being ... places without secrets.

A small stone inspired by today's message from Kaspalita at Writing Our Way Home .thank you for pointing me to what is worth looking at and new ways of looking at familiar places and objects.  

Post modern quilted daisies!!!

I've now finished the upcycled cushion cover made for the Mole Valley Quilters project ... mmm... need lots more practice doing daisies and circles that's for sure but I'm getting much better at ripple stipple.  Its great using mutli coloured thread as it adds more than just stitiching. I'm going to try silver thread next time!!!

My favourite thing about this cushion cover is that its made of  the scraps you see in the last photo ...mainly from a friend's stash and a little from my scrap bag ...now I  nees some buttons on the back closing but that will have to wait until I'm back in UK and have access to my button stash.

Saturday small stone

My fingers and tongue dance with mango juice, then I slowly wash the last of the fruity caramel from the cutting board –so hard letting go.

Friday's small stone

The shush of morning mist keeps us within our fence of leafless trees: insensible to other, to more, to where-else.

a small stone

Sparrows are chipping loose plaster from the kitchen window ledge, regularly, routinely; crumbles of our old house for their new year's nest.

Practice quilt finished

So pleased with my first attempt at quilting a pieced top with fleece backing …took  my time setting it up and now know how important it is that the pieces and backing are on the straight!
 
I decided on simple meandering and was planning to avoid stitching over the fussy cut red flowers (that mostly worked) and to add the date and my initials (not sure they are readable!). The stitches are even and I only crossed a line once or twice. It was difficult to judge when I was getting close to the limit of the stitching area at first but I soon managed to keep away from the edge and to swing back to where the machine can reach easily. Here’s part of the quilt before and after quilting ….

and finally, I made a simple binding and wow, a WIP that at last is finished



The process felt very creative, all my work, patched and quilted  -its not one that I’m very proud of, too many mistakes for that, but I’m fine with them because it was a wonderful learning experience.  I’ll pay more attention to the borders next time, maybe just do a simple curve and try to be calm when I quilt the numbers and letters -  I’ve got lots of practice pieces to improve with.
Also started writing January small stones today … and one NYR was to continue to do that all year. I’m posting them on twitter and they will appear in Facebook as well.
Another resolution is to begin my Fragments collection … one a day, about 100 words, watch this space to see how I get on! First one is done but its easy on a day like today. The test will come when I’m also out and about playing bridge, going to the gym and catching up on work stuff.