Friday 9 September 2011

Art Crochet

Whilst off sick, a friend of mine bought me a book of Art Nouveau as I am well known to be very fond of the style, particularly the work of Alphonse Mucha. I was looking though Mucha’s work and kept seeing crochet designs within his motifs. There was nothing for it but to make some sort of sampler, and this wallhanging has been the result.

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Tuesday 6 September 2011

End of the Road 2011

Once again we have been to the fine EOTR festival and I think it was the best ever! The capacity was increased this year, but we also had a new Woods Stage in a big enough area to accommodate everybody. The idea was to relieve the squeeze in the Garden stage area and I think it worked well. We were extremely lucky with the weather which helps keep the atmosphere cheerful. There was a beer festival running throughout the weekend with some lovely local ales on offer. Our favourite was the Entire Stout from Salisburys Hopback Brewery, and I also enjoyed the Gold Spice ale from Sixpenny Handley brewery, right on the festivals doorstep. The food stalls didn’t disappoint - may I recommend the Curry Shed for a range of veggie curries and the Tibetan Kitchen for a lovely rich beef stew with stuffed dumplings.

The most important ingredient to the weekend was obviously the music. Highlights for us were Lykki Li, tUnEyArDs, ‘Allo Darlin’ and Laura Marling. Brakes once again asserted their ground as my favourite live act ever. We have now seen them 6 times and it is always brilliant. The new comedy area was also great – a small stage nestled in a sloped area of the woods. The midnight Storytellers Club and Robin Ince’s Book Club were really busy this year. Less intimate experience but still hugely enjoyable. Anything that persuades M to stay up until 2am on two nights running must be special!

On the craft front their were many more makers stalls this year and I bought a fine set of jewellery from zincwhite.com made from recycled reject colour pencils from the Derwent factory. Truly original and very pretty. Keep and Share were also there offering lessons and an opportunity to make a ribbon scarf for a community project. The book stalls were great too, and like last year I managed to bag a couple of graphic novels at knock down prices. I haven’t even got onto talking about the art and library in the woods…..

Rather than posting a load of photos on the blog itself, click here to see my facebook photo album of the weekend.

I have been absent from the blogosphere for the summer as I have been recovering from a big op in May. Happy to say that all is well and I am due to start a phased return to work next week. I feel more well than I have done in years. You will be glad to hear that I have not wasted my summer sick leave and have been busy on the craft. A lot of what I have been doing are presents for Christmas and birthdays, so I won’t be posting them until after they reach their recipients. Knitting-wise, I made a rather fetching pair of ‘Circle Socks’ for my mum from Noro Sock Yarn, and a Sun Ray tablecloth for Christmas. I used Regia sock yarn as it is machine washable and would come up bigger than lace weight crochet yarn.

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I have also found a new fondness for making cards. I am always envious of designers and artists who manage to have an instantly recognisable style, and for the first time, I feel that I have created a range that has a definite individual style. Obviously I am not the first to draw with a scalpel (Rob Ryan has brought this technique to the fore), but I do think they look a bit different to anything I have seen before. See what you think.

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Continuing on the art and craft theme, I had a lovely day with my mother-in-law at Walford Mill in Wimborne. As I have said in previous posts we are aiming to furnish the house with original art pieces, and have a new addition to our collection by a very talented artist called Anya Keeley. She uses antique and found objects as the base, and creates scenes with recycled vintage papers outlined with silver soldering. I love the dreamy quality of our sculpture as "Softly the Night is Sleeping”. This isn’t the best quality picture, but you get the idea.

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On the vintage/furnishing front, we continue to visit the Bridport Vintage Market each month, and found ourselves a lovely 1960s coffee table with black angled legs and a walnut veneer top.