WOYWW 489

No change on my desk this week. I’ve been really tired all week and in between commitments, I’ve been resting, and during that time, have done quite a lot of knitting, working on my peacock scarf.

This is how much I’ve done so far. The ball is now considerably smaller and the scarf will now go round my neck, so hopefully not too much more knitting now! The yarn is fabulous – I love the way the colours merge into each other. It’s a single ply roving and in places, not very twisted, so it’s easy to split it with the knitting needles, especially working in moss stitch as I am doing, but apart from that, it’s lovely to work with. The edges are getting quite fluffy with handling, which makes me think the whole thing may be a bit vulnerable to that, but we shall see.

In the above photo, I’ve laid a few of the incomplete crochet peacock feathers on top to show and how the colours go with the scarf.

Cooking

Sourdough this week – not terribly well risen but a great texture and flavour.

I also made some more crackers from sourdough starter. These really are delicious and very easy to make. I’m not buying crackers any more. These are so tasty and are made from such wholesome ingredients with no chemical additives. They are also quite filling so you don’t need to eat so many! They are very crisp, and the bumps on them are actually air bubbles. They’d probably come out flatter if I forked them.

Fortunately I’ve got plenty of ready prepared meals in the freezer from previous cooking sessions so I haven’t had to think too much about doing a lot of meals when I am feeling so tired.

Health Update

CT scan tomorrow to check whether my hernia has returned – but I already know it has! I can feel it, and also I can see it, and it’s quite large. It’s really frustrating.

My support pants are due to arrive later this morning. Unfortunately the road is up outside our house at the moment and closed to traffic so I’ve had to arrange for delivery of the parcel (and my weekly Tesco order) to come down the garden from the road at the back of us. I spent a frustrating time of the phone yesterday a.m. trying to get through to the delivery company. They had no contact number on their website and their “contact us” section was useless – just a lot of different boxes that didn’t relate to what I wanted and I needed to speak to a real person! I googled them and found a number eventually, and then had to wait 20 minutes on the phone before anyone answered! I told them their customer service left a lot to be desired… Anyway, hopefully both deliveries will get to us OK later this morning.

My sleep patterns are all disrupted again… I get more and more wide awake the later it gets, and have to make myself go up in the small hours or I’d be up all night. Then, in the mornings, I am finding it very difficult to get going and when I haven’t had any commitments, have rested in bed till about 10 a.m. and haven’t been able to accomplish anything much until the afternoon, often suffering quite severe headaches. With ME, one’s diurnal rhythm is often disrupted, and I go through phases of this and there’s not a lot to be done about it, unfortunately! At least I am sleeping quite well once I do get to bed.

Kitties

Neither of them are doing anything terribly interesting at the moment except sleeping! They go out briefly and don’t like the weather much. Ruby is being a perfect pest at meal times – she has decided she adores butter, which she can smell at 500 paces, and I can’t turn my back on her for a second if there’s butter around! At meal times she’s constantly pestering us, woofling her nose and craning her neck, and climbing up after our food. I keep threatening to put her out!! Once temptation is out of the way, she is happy to settle down on my lap and be a good girl. Lily never bothers us while we are eating. Their characters are so different!

Here are a couple of sleepy photos for you.

Butter wouldn’t melt……. or would it?!

Lazy lot.

Meal Out

We had a lovely meal out with our friend last week and I gave her the box, which she was delighted with. Here is the pub where we had a truly excellent meal.

The food was so beautifully presented that I had to photograph it! Our three main courses:

I love how this fish is served, with the crispy skin matching the almost metallic glaze of the plate, with matching lines!

Our desserts. I had the lemon tarte and I loved the way they had served the lemon sorbet in the shape of a lemon.

We have been given a ticket for a meal for two at a local Michelin-starred restaurant, which we shall be enjoying soon. I’ve no doubt I shall photograph the dishes there, too!

As well as the box, I also gave our friend a jar of my home-made apple chutney, and I dressed it up a bit with a couple of labels that I die-cut, and a fabric lid tied on with some nice rough jute string I’ve got. Nice rustic look!

Harp Recital

On Saturday one of our church members gave a harp recital and talk. He’s only recently taken up the harp and he has already taken Grades 1 and 2 and passed both exams with distinction! It was a most interesting afternoon, and as well as playing several pieces on his two harps, he spoke about the history of the harp, and how the different types of harp work. He also showed some slides and videos. I had not heard him play before, because I was ill last time he played in church.

I particularly liked his Celtic (lever) harp (in the foreground in the above photo), with its very pretty shape and contrasting woods. It’s apparently even more difficult to play than the pedal harp.

I also took this close-up photo because I thought the pattern that the strings and their shadows made was most decorative!

This week I actually managed to get the accounts done! Whew. That’s a weight off my mind until next month.

So you can see it’s been another pretty busy week. I am trying to cut down on things at the moment because I’ve been far too busy lately, which is probably why I’m back to suffering from more fatigue than usual.

Teignmouth Revisited

Yesterday my hubby took me back to Teignmouth, this time for a shopping trip. It was a bit frustrating on Tuesday, having to rush around because of the car, and I’d seen several shops I was keen to visit.

I rarely get the opportunity to go shopping, and I always really enjoy it when I get the chance! It was time my clothes budget got an airing because it’s a while since I had anything new, and I’ve had to get rid of quite a bit of stuff because since losing weight, it no longer fits me.

We had a lovely day out, in beautiful hot sunny weather, and I spotted quite a few shops and little nooks and crannies in the town that had escaped my notice a couple of days previously.

A shop full of vintage sewing machines.

A wonderfully ornate old machine, and just look at that glorious case…

A miniature iron, in what looks like its original box.

A couple of tiny miniature sewing machines, both by Singer.

The shopping streets are narrow and picturesque.

The shop fronts are very pretty, and it’s interesting looking up above to see the architecture of the buildings.

Gorgeous hand-made leather shoes. Very much my style, but too pricey for my budget.

We came across a busker playing gorgeous American Blues music on a variety of instruments – a guitar, a 3-string cigar box guitar and a 3-string biscuit tin guitar! He played pick and slide style. We had a very interesting conversation with him, and I saw him again later on, on his way home. (Left-handed guitarist like Paul McCartney.)

His cigar-box guitar. I love the fact that the volume control knobs are made of bottle tops!!

He was very happy for me to video him.

He explained that much of this music originated from the slave and ex-slave communities and being very poor, they had to make their musical instruments from whatever they had handy. I love this mentality which shows great inventiveness, and which today has ben developed into the recycling and upcycling culture we are all familiar with. (Think of my hubby’s excellent pedestal for our new sundial! We’d never have ended up with this unique pedestal if we’d had the money to go and buy a proper one.) There’s so much satisfaction in making something useful and/or beautiful from what most people would consider rubbish, which driven by need, produces something often unique and quite unexpected.  It means so much more. I loved the vintage look of the cigar box and biscuit tin guitars, with the scuffs and dents, and the general patina of age. Paul said that these all added to the tone of the instrument. I am reminded of the itinerant Klezmer musicians of the old Ashkenazi Jewish world, travelling from village to village and playing for weddings etc., carrying their instruments on their backs and living as best they could.

Now for my purchases. We went back to the jewellery shop – I was keen to revisit Teignmouth this week, because their sale was due to end at the end of this week. I bought two more of the gorgeous necklaces and also a very pretty ring. You wouldn’t believe how cheap everything was – they weren’t over-priced to start with, but at half marked price, you couldn’t go wrong.

Here are the two I bought on Tuesday, for comparison.

I bought a few items in the Pound Shop, mostly stuff to use in the studio.

I visited a shop which sold some lovely unusual ethnic style clothes, scarves, gifts etc. and bought a skirt and almost matching scarf in there.

We also found the ethnic shop I found it so hard to tear myself away from the other day! Their stuff was also incredibly cheap – ethnic and boho-style clothes usually are, and they are generally quite unusual and you don’t see hordes of other people wearing exactly the same stuff. I really stocked up in there.

When we got home we were both pretty hot and tired, so I made us a nice cold drink – lemonade with basil, a recipe I found quickly online, made from fresh lemons mashed up with basil leaves – gorgeous flavour and so refreshing on a hot day!

I then had fun trying it all on and mixing and matching the items with each other and with stuff I already had. Here’s a mini-fashion show starring Shoshi complete with mirror and phone!! (I wasn’t sure how else to take the photos.)

Here’s the skirt and scarf I bought in the first shop, teamed with my navy embroidered waistcoat and red t-shirt to complement the red border around the hem.

Now the stuff from the ethnic shop.

A fun pair of patchwork dungarees. Dungarees always make me look fat but somehow I couldn’t resist this pair!

(Sorry about the bad quality – the sun was streaming in through the window and it was hard to get the photos right.)

I thought the dungarees looked more flattering with one of the scarves I bought at the same time.

I bought a pair of patchwork trousers which are made of heavy-ish cotton. They are much too long so will have to be taken up.

They had a rack of fabulous silk dresses and skirts with elasticated tops and uneven hems with points, which could be worn in a variety of ways. I bought one of the dresses and a skirt. This is the purple dress. It has ties to make shoulder straps but you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to.

You can wear it as a skirt.

Without the straps, and pulled down a bit to make a low waisted dress.

The skirt is greenish-blue.

I thought I could have some fun with this and wear it in all sorts of different ways! Here it is as a head scarf. I hope the length of it down the back doesn’t look too nun-ish! It reminded me somewhat of the Vermeer picture, “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”

As a poncho. I like the way the elasticated waist becomes cowl-like.

The other scarf I bought in that shop. I love big square scarves because they are lovely for tying your hair up in.

After taking these photos, I realised that in most of them I’ve got a really grim expression! I was concentrating on getting the best view possible with the phone camera, and also I was feeling pretty tired after our busy day shopping, and finding it a bit uncomfortable, all the standing to do the photos.

Finally, a pair of green suede sandals with ankle ties.

Recently I had to throw away two fabulous pairs of sandals that had long been favourites – absolutely nothing wrong with the tops, but the soles, made of synthetic rubber of some kind, had completely deteriorated and were crumbling away, and there was no way they could be repaired. This sort of thing makes me sick. I really liked those shoes but they were clearly not made to last. I expect my favourite shoes to last for many years, and at least to be repairable if they wear out!

Anyway, I think you’ll agree I had quite a spree! These clothes may not be to everyone’s taste but I’ve always loved the alternative look and tended to make my own fashion – part of my creative spirit, I suppose!

Recycled Mini-Album Pages–Music

The first of two posts for today.

My dad was extremely musical and played many instruments – all the wind instruments apart from the clarinet and the recorder, and was also an expert keyboard player – piano, harpsichord and organ. I have decided to devote a section of the album to his music.

This is the title page.

The picture shows one of our early annual musical weekends which took place over the spring bank holiday weekend. These gatherings took place for over 50 years, beginning when I was a very small child, and we saw the next generation coming along too. Music would take place morning noon and night – very late at night, well into the small hours! Large quantities of food were consumed, and local Devon cider, and a very good time was had by all. These weekends are part of my heritage of happy memories.

The background for the page was created by laying down a Tim Holtz mask (“Concerto”) and applying white pan pastel. The photo was attached with regular matt gel medium and the text and borders were done with the white marker pen, with the addition of black permanent marker around the title. You can see that on the border, I have filled in the “raindrops” from the previous page, and added stalks to them to turn them into music notes for this page. The text gives a bit of detail about Dad’s lifelong love of music.

The second page background was created by stamping with my music background stamp (Artistic Stamper music background) without the use of an acrylic block, so that it moulded itself to the page and also left some gaps to give it a more distressed look. I stamped with Versamark and then embossed with black embossing powder.

Adding the photos, using regular matt gel medium.

The borders, text and embellishments, all done with the white marker pen, with the addition of some blue acrylic paint. Spraying with Rustoleum sealant spray completes the page. This spray is matt, which had the effect of dulling the shiny surface of the black embossing of the background, making it appear an integral part of the page.

The picture on the left is one that Dad took many years ago, of all his instruments lined up. This was taken before he started playing the bassoon. The viola was a long-standing family joke because of all his instruments, this was one he did not play well, and when he started, the room tended to empty! At the annual music gatherings, it used to come out in the small hours when the less stalwart musicians had all retired to bed, and a few intrepid musicians would generally tackle such pieces as Schubert’s string quartet “Death and the Maiden” which goes on for ages! Definitely one to separate the men from the boys.

Dad was a member of his local symphony orchestra for many years, playing in turn the flute, the oboe family, the horn, and latterly, the bassoon. He also played chamber music at every opportunity, being a member of a chamber orchestra for a number of years. There were occasional musical evenings when friends would gather to play and sing, and when I was a small child, I was often lulled to sleep by the sound of live music ascending through my bedroom floorboards. I am sure this is why I love chamber music so much. My dad’s lifelong favourite composer was J.S. Bach and when he retired he bought himself an electric organ, on which he played nothing else. He passed this love on to me.

The picture on the right hand side shows my dad playing the organ at a Christmas service at church. He was a very reluctant church organist and helped out only when there was absolutely nobody else to do it – he preferred his keyboard music to be a private affair and only felt happy performing in public on his woodwind family.

To complete the music section, I could not leave out a page about Dad’s harpsichord.

He made this instrument himself, entirely from scratch. It took him four years to do (including moving house in the middle of one of the severest winters on record in February 1963). It played extremely well and was used for many local concerts.

As a result of my dad’s passion for music, classical music has been a major part of my life, and I am very grateful for this influence.

WOYWW 268

What’s on Your Workdesk today? Show and tell! To join in the fun, click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar and go to our hostess Julia’s blog where everything is explained.

I can tell you in one word what’s on Shoshi’s workdesk this week – chaos! I do wish I was a tidier worker but the creative flow grabs me and I just dump stuff willy nilly so I can get on with the next bit. Fortunately in my new ARTHaven there’s plenty of space – and all-importantly, space to dry things.

I haven’t done anything in there for the past fortnight because it’s been such a busy time, and with Mum having her mini-stroke etc. I’ve been pretty exhausted and haven’t had the energy to be very creative. However, I realised today that I have a birthday card to make before Thursday so I thought I’d better get my skates on.

Here’s the main work area.

From left to right at the back: a pot of puff binder which I recently got but haven’t tried yet, and which I may use on this project; gel mediums of all shapes and sizes, acrylic paints, distress stains, ink pads, brushes, gesso, bubble wrap printing block, some unmounted stamps and scraps of card. In the foreground, from right to left: the card base, which has been inked and spattered with acrylic paint. Centre; the main background for the card, with more spattering. On the left, an offcut of the purple card which I’ve used to clean my brushes, which has made a nice background for something or other. On the far left you can just see my small circles stencil.

Just behind the gel mediums on the left you can see a piece of kitchen paper maturing nicely with a bit of a build-up of blue paint. Although you can’t see it on the photo, it’s also quite shimmery (as are the card pieces on the desk) because I’ve been using quite a bit of iridescent gel medium today.

Across the corner, to the left of the main area, in front of my iMac you can see my Perfect Pearls palette, and some gems, sequins and stickles for the current project. My Cougar cutting machine, Sheba (sorely neglected species these days!) is peeping out from behind the iMac and some external hard drives and my drawing tablet. In front of the blind you can see how my current scratch paper is progressing, with the addition of a lot of blue today (which will be toned down by the next layer) and my purple box containing the pens I use for drawing.

The pull-out unit to the right of the main work area is a mess as usual. There are scanned photos on there for the recycled mini-album (resting on top) and the paper stacks for the album I’m making about Dad (on the back burner while I work on the recycled mini-album).

In front of the box of acrylic paints you can see some wrapping paper with butterflies on it, which will be used for the current project, and also the narrow strips of inked kitchen paper from a Dylusions playtime I had some time ago. It’s all resting on more used kitchen paper which is ready to be used as backgrounds in projects. Back on the main work surface, on top of the guillotine you can see my heat gun and palette, and the desk organiser has all my stencil brushes and sponge applicators in it.

Beyond, on the other side of the room, you can see my guitar, which is now seeing the light of day again after several years (don’t my fingers know it! They are quite sore!) and a pile of teabags on the sewing machine. I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into the teabag art again but the mini-album has to take priority at the moment. Hopefully there’ll be another post shortly, about the card I’m working on.

Told you it was a tip, didn’t I.

Happy WOYWW, everybody!

Dad’s Funeral, Thursday 19th December 2013

The past few days I have felt absolutely exhausted, but better enough today to put fingers to keyboard and share with you what a wonderful service we had for Dad on Thursday.

My hubby, my sister and I planned it from beginning to end, and it was very hard trying to decide what to put in and what to leave out, because Dad lived such a full life with so many interests and skills, but I think in the end we did him proud!

The above photo was taken at his graduation from Manchester University in the late 40s. He looks so handsome! We put this on the back cover of the service booklet.

I designed the service booklet myself, and the funeral director submitted it for printing. This seemed so right, and it felt like a beautiful service I could perform for Dad, to put my design and layout skills to their best use, to produce something beautiful that would honour him, and that his friends and family would want to keep afterwards.

We asked our local organist, who is extremely gifted, to play a selection of J.S. Bach chorale preludes at the beginning of the service, and one at the end – Dad loved many forms of classical music but Bach was his first love (something he passed on to me), and these pieces were also played at our wedding. During the service we played recordings of other favourite pieces of Dad’s, and as his coffin left the church, carried shoulder high by four bearers (my hubby being one of them), “Syrinx” for solo flute by Claude Debussy was played. Dad used to play this piece often, and it is so haunting and atmospheric. You could have heard a pin drop. Throughout the service, Dad’s flute lay on his coffin. He played all the woodwind instruments during the course of his long life, apart from the clarinet and the recorder, and self-taught, achieved a proficient enough level to play each one at various times in his local symphony orchestra. The flute was his first instrument, which he took up when at Manchester Grammar School.

Also during the service we sang a selection of his favourite hymns. One in particular stands out: “Teach me, my God and King,” written by George Herbert in 1633. I wanted this hymn at our wedding, but since I had chosen every hymn and every piece of music, I thought it only right to let my poor hubby choose at least one thing! It was this hymn that had to be dropped, which I was very sad about. It is a most unusual hymn, written at the dawn of the Age of Reason when alchemy and superstition were giving way to modern scientific method and discovery. It contains references to both disciplines, and points to Dad’s many interests in the nature of the physical universe, and also describes his character – someone who did everything to the very best of his ability, for the glory of God. Somehow, not having it at our wedding was made perfect by having it at Dad’s funeral instead.

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee.

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heaven espy.

All may of Thee partake;
Nothing can be so mean,
Which with this tincture, “for Thy sake,”
Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.

The service consisted of exactly the right balance of solemnity, beauty, joy, fun and laughter. My hubby, my sister and I were all able to speak about Dad, sharing our own reminiscences of him, and there were many amusing anecdotes! My talk, which I entitled “My Inheritance” was a distillation of my blog post about the importance of objects as symbols, and I took along the objects described in that post and made a little display on a table at the side, complete with explanations for each one, and selected half a dozen to include in my talk.

In my sister’s talk, she included a reading of two of his favourite Hilaire Belloc nonsense poems that he used to recite from memory to anyone who would listen – having heard them so often over the years I have them by heart myself! She remembered things about Dad that I had forgotten – such as how he and she used to climb trees!

My hubby spoke about him after the reading of Psalm 1 (“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly…”) which so summed up Dad’s integrity and righteousness; he spoke about Dad’s faith, and shared his own reminiscences. Between us, we included his diligence in his profession as a surgeon, his music, his engineering (and especially clock repairing) skills, his love of astronomy, his general eccentricity, his great sense of humour, his love for his cars, snooker, croquet, fencing, tennis and table tennis, and his enthusiasm for life and his constant desire to learn new things, which kept him forever young.

After the service, the pews were pushed back and we tucked into a splendid Devon cream tea, with sandwiches and lemon drizzle cake, and plenty of opportunity for further reminiscences. Lots of old friends and colleagues were there, and family members from as far afield as Yorkshire and Staffordshire – my only regret was that so many people had to leave so soon, as they had long journeys to make in the darkness and the rain, and I only managed a few minutes’ conversation with my cousins and Godmother, for instance.

In addition to the display of objects on the table, I also set up my laptop with a slideshow of photos taken throughout Dad’s long life, and this was watched with great interest by all and sundry. During the wake, a CD was played of further favourite pieces of music which Dad had loved.

The beautiful little country church was decorated ready for Christmas, with the candles lit, and the Nativity on the table to one side.

We chose a beautiful willow coffin for him. I have a thing about coffins – I really hate them! My hubby knows a wonderful local firm of funeral directors who offer “green” funerals and in their catalogue, they provide several different willow coffins, and also shrouds on a bier – we attended a funeral a couple of years ago when this was used, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. They cannot use shrouds for cremation, though, so we chose the most natural-coloured willow one, which rested on two simple ash trestles. We chose beautiful flowers, all in white, with some greenery – Dad loved simple, unadorned things, and I think this would have pleased him immensely. As he was borne out, I had a thought that it was fitting that he should be in a Moses basket – just like at the beginning of his life! We had chosen his favourite clothes to be dressed in for his final journey, including the green velvet waistcoat with the silk applique ivy leaves which I had made for him many years ago.

When the funeral director returned to the church after taking Dad to the crematorium, he told me that on the drive there with Dad, the sky became very dramatic, with a huge dark cloud behind them, and shafts of sunlight ahead, which he said made the grass greener than he’d ever seen it, and the sheep more luminous! As he watched, a rainbow appeared. I believe this was a beautiful sign that God was smiling down on Dad and welcoming him into His Kingdom.

Golden Wedding Card

No new photos today, but here's one I did a while back:

It was for the golden wedding of a couple we know. He plays the organ and conducts, and she plays the double bass. Both have been professional musicians (now retired). I printed out several images (keyboard, double bass, music background) and overlaid the background with translucent parchment paper, on which I printed a monogram of their initials in my desk top publisher, and then embossed it in gold.

Edit: If you go here, you can see the card I made for their diamond wedding, ten years on.

Today I was absolutely thrilled, because I bid on Ebay for a set of stamps, stamp pads and blocks, all in a storage/carry case, probably worth something in the region of £5o - and I won it for £6! There will be lots of useful stuff in there.

I also made a discovery, that there is an amazing kit available, for making your own rubber stamps, from your own designs. You can print them out on the computer and then use the kit to transform them into stamps. The substance comes in a sachet, and is light-sensitive. You set it up under a lamp and time the exposure, and the print you made lets light through or prevents light getting through, according to the design. You can even make your own embossing dies. I have simply got to give this a try! Here's a link to the site:

http://www.imagepacdaylight.co.uk/Default.asp

Looks like a lot of fun, doesn't it.