Waking up this blog ....

Wow, one blog post at the very beginning of this year and .... well nothing since!!

But much has been happening including a number of hospital appointments and investigations, lots of stitching and some finished projects.  Oh, and I almost forgot, editing my novel and a place on the long list of a poetry competition, see https://www.therialto.co.uk/pages/2018/05/01/nature-poetry-competition-2018-results/.

And what, you may well ask, has promoted me to remember the blog and make a promise that I will try to write more posts. My answer in short notes is

- a discussion yesterday on Design for Stitching Course about Artist's Statements and social media for stitchers (that's me) but of course, others call themselves textile artists, quilt artists, fibre artists etc. etc.

- confirmation that I will be having stereotactic body radiotherapy very soon for two small but unwanted nodules in my lungs so I might have more 'sitting around' time for a while,

and
- well, it's always my intention to be here more regularly and to post bits and pieces that can't be easily shared on other social media.

To that end today here's a few pictures of completed and ongoing stitching projects and the long listed poem -and yes, it is itself long, but its also very thin so please read on.  The pictures await you ...

The Red Admiral in Thirteen Movements 

after Thirteen ways of looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens 

1

At the edge of a Dorset cliff 

a man with binoculars

watches for migrating 

Red Admirals.

2

Crimson streaks edge

and divide the Red Admiral's

seventy mm wingspan.

3

One Red Admiral 

flying

south from the north.

4

At the man's feet 

two Red Admirals 

rest.

5

American scientists 

are making detectors

to fit the Red Admiral's thorax.

6

On the cliff path

Red Admirals drink nectar

from November blackberries.

7

Feeding Red Admirals 

are undisturbed by

interested people.

8

Why Admiral?

No-one knows.

9

Along the wings 

of the Red Admiral,

black and white frills.

10

For inflight warmth

Red Admirals develop

a hairy thorax.

11

Red Admirals rise above 

turbulence, or wait

until it has passed.

12

Orphan travellers,

the Red Admiral flies

alone.

13

From below, the man

watches the Red Admiral's

dark underwings.

Yes, I'm stitching fish or rather appliqué fish and then some bubble free motion quilting. There are 24 on the quilt so I'm planning to go slowly, maybe 1-2 each day  ... thats if the thread, the needle and my fingers behave well.

and here are the makings of a practice sample for a new project about walking the London Loop.

i have an idea about transferring the map on the TFL website to fabric, using confetti quilting. I just now that much trial and error is going to be involved.

So I have some unwanted fabric and net and oh  scissors to cut the lawn squares into confetti  ... result is below ... not sure I like the net but the technique is fine.

I'll be back ... not sure when!

These are definitely not resolutions

Happy New Year ou Bonne Annee (sans accent!!). I'm in France enjoying unseasonably warm and often sunny weather.

Its that time of the year, people start something new, commit, make promise to themselves. I've done it, although not for many years and this is not what I am doing this year.

That said I've joined a group thats all about walking 1000 miles in 2018 - check it out on FB. And I've devised a way of keeping track of my miles via my Fitbit. Its a bit galling when you find out that what you think of as your long morning walk with the dog is only 1.7 miles so I'm tracking my weekly goal of 20 miles and I'm counting all the walking I do for the rest of my day. So far so good. As I walk I'm listening to Hilary Rodham Clinton reading her book What Happened via the Audible app.  I enjoy this sort of book as a listener much more than as a page reader. See more at www.audible.co.uk

Here's my page reading at the moment ...

Short stories -very readable with a focus on Vietnamese family life 

Just started this ... so far its all about the death of Chatterton & Dylan Thomas .. not as boring as i though it might be 

Edgy, unusal and brave poems in here by a wonderful poet 

What's not to like ... I can read about yoga and practice my french in one place 

A book to pick up and peruse  ... early days for me reading this   ... lots to inspire and help with so far

and now I'm saying this very very quietly but I've also joined a project called 10 minutes drawing ... its all the fault of the wonderful women who run the Design for Stitch course I'm on this year and two of the equally wonderful students I'm learning with. 

Enough said, here's my first two efforts, already on Instagram where we are all sharing our efforts at what I call mark making. Thus avoiding, whenever possible, the dreaded D word!!!

This morning's mark making was done with an iPencil ... so the project is a bonus as its encouraging me to learn how to use this and to mark make in Adobe Sketch. There may be a quilty thing from all this in a few years but maybe not. 

Finally, I've finished another almost lacey scarf in sock weight yarn and have started to add quilting to what I call my 'brick' quilt.   I love the effect of quilting with a double needle. Shame that I managed to break two of these just doing a few rows of stitching ... all down to some less than easy fabric and the rusty effect  -you live and you learn especially that the Bernina sewing 'computer' is a tad sensitive to stuff like that. 

Photos below and thank you for reading. 

Summer 2017 books & review of The Memory Stones

I've just finished reading The Memory Stones by Caroline Brothers, see https://www.amazon.co.uk/Memory-Stones-Caroline-Brothers/dp/1408844494/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1502122304&sr=1-1&keywords=the+memory+stones



Really enjoyed this novel. Clearly based on sound research but written very allowing the evidence stayed in the background while the plot, characters and powerful emotions took centre stage. The web link above gives the outline of the story. For me the book's strength is in the way the story embraces all those affected by Military Rule and stretches this effectively into future generations.  In places the scenery was in danger of taking over but these passages helped to set the pace of what happened to match that of the characters experience. A very good read. 4.5 stars.

Finishing one book set me thinking about all the books around me this summer ... here's a few pics.

 I went to a workshop run by Robert Vas Dias last year ... good to have time to read his Still Life collection.

I'm learning a lot from this book but need more practice at image transfer with Gel medium 

I heard this author interviewed on BBC World service  .. looking forward to starting this tonight 

Another purchase after an author interview but I'm struggling with this even though its set in New Zealand and I recognise much of the geography 

A bit tedious! I'm trying to read two pages a day to improve my French!!!

My breakfast book with lots of helpful examples of how using a sketchbook leads to original textile work 

And if I'm to progress my knitting I'll need to find something to follow Middlemarch on Audible ... another classic comes to mind. The convenience of bluetooth headphones and George Eliot's wonderful writing had me hooked. I struggled to read the book in print but it was a great listen. I'm now watching the BBC series. I'll let you know what my next choice is. 

A few days in a few pictures

Bonjour, its warm and sunny outside and some weeds need pulling, so this will be brief.

Finally, I'm set up to do some natural dyeing .... its a wonderfully slow process

Logwood, Persian berries and onion skins ... 

Solar dying with avocado skins  ... might be ready in July

I'm learning how strong the Logwood dye is even after several days 

I'm also doing more slow stitching, inspired by Hazel http://justtotheleftofthemoon.blogspot.fr  from Institches Creative Textile Courses http://www.institchestextilecourses.co.uk

... this is an old, rust spotted chair cover (provence unknown) and, with some hemp thread that has proved useless for anything else, I'm learning some new embroidery stitches from several great websites including http://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/stitch/

and relearning some old favourites ... only one stitch a day mind, and only one length of thread.

Finally, as I'm at home in France a photo of the new dog kennels and the lime and hemp bricks that will soon be the walls. 

Oh, and by the way last week the wonderful Reuben Woolly published one of my poems on I am not a Silent Poet.
Here's the link  https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/?s=hammick   ... there are lots of other great poems there, so do visit the website and just in case the above link fails here's my poem.

Westminster, March 2017

The people who won't be going home today

are people like you and people like me.

This morning they checked their emails,

read another chapter of their book,

bought a coffee to go and, wrapped against

only the March wind, chose the pavement.

The people who ran towards the blood

are people like you and people like me.

This afternoon they took off their coats

to pillow an injured man's head,

blew their breath into a dying women,

put their palms across pulsing wounds.

All these people walked from the south

or the north, they were willing to cross over

and look east and west towards the other side,

the side with plenty of places for more bridges

if people like you and I make the space. 

Cornwall & London: poetry, art and lines

Catching up at home again after a week in St Ives writing poetry,  enjoying the beach and finding lines everywhere.

yes, Doris was forecast and passed by on her way up country 

some of Hepworth's inspirational lines 

sent out to write about what we found, and now have poems called Lines I and II in draft!  

I'll post more on the poetry retreat later this week ... I've been in London today at a wonderful exhibition of art by my brother-in-law, Andy Thornley. Its on for one more day and well worth a visit. Here are the details ... 

I ended my day at Tate Modern, and captured a few more lines!

Sometime soon something in my line photo collection will link with the fabric and thread and stitch ideas and become, well, I'm not sure what yet.  Maybe the place to stitch one of the Lines poems.

Scalpel, stitch and poetry

Title says it all really!  Firstly, a poem for a dull day  ... comments welcome.

How many candles will we need?

On the third day of fog, I light the red candle.

Inside and outside shouts for brightness

in this repeat of yesterday’s white envelope.

The day before the blanket drifted away

and the sky was sunlit until setting time,

we lifted the cloches, walked the long way

around the woods, you said midwinter has passed.

In contrast, it was a sunny as we walked another section of the London Loop (https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/walking/loop-walk) on Tuesday, this time 17 km from Banstead to Malden. As always there were landmarks ... a prison built about 1770 and a fungi covered tree trunk

The Watch House in Ewell, more details at http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/WatchHouse.html

Possible stitch patterns ... 

There was quiet in the studio on Weds as we 

played with cut outs. I've posted two pics of results below; so glad to have lots of odd pages to ruin in this way. 

I'm now looking for an old hardback book to use the same technique but that first cut is going to be very hard. Cut into a proper book! It feels bad enough to write in one. 

And finally a glimpse at my latest stitching project. A line a day, a variety of threads and running stitch on a very light (and forgiving of a large needle) scrim. It was inspired by seeing lots of folk from many places and cultures waiting in line at US airports.  Often this sort of thinking will result in me writing a poem but instead this time I'm  stitching.  

Two days, two lines,