Autumn Cottage Diarist

More Antiquing Fun

Took myself of for my regular visit to the Antiques Arcade this afternoon - my couple of hours "treat time" each week...and struck very lucky today, discovering this beautiful Victorian embroidered needlepoint picture (measuring about 2 ft - 60 cms - square). It is in extremely good condition, with the colours still very bright - though it does need cleaning - but that can wait.

Look at how immensely skilfully the stitcher has rendered the faces...a quite amazing ability to shade so subtly with thread. (None of it is painted on - though it looks as if it would be impossible to stitch this finely...but that is exactly how it has been done!)

I won't tell you how much I paid for it - though it was a great bargain. I'll just say that you could add another "0" at the end of the price if you bought it in a London or specialist antique shop.

Any visitors to Autumn Cottage get a complimentary (i.e. Compulsory :-)) visit to the Arcade!!!

To share  in a little of the fun with you, here's another Friday giveaway in the photo below....a bag of lace scraps from the Junk Shop at the Arcade - not worth much, but one or two pretty pieces in there, and great for stitching to a small cushion (pillow) to enhance a pretty boudoir, or to use somewhere in a dolls house.

Any takers? As before, tell me what you would do with the scraps, and I'll choose a recipient at the end of the weekend...

Distraction Tactics and Give-away Result

Hare through the woods - from the website of Wendy Bramall

To avoid getting my head down and just GETTING ON with my academic work, my main distraction tactics this weekend so far.... a) to go shopping yesterday and buy £20.00 worth of costume jewellery in the sale (would have been over 100 uk pounds at full price - fab chunky pieces that I love) and b) to browse through the brochure for the county-wide Hampshire Open Studios which is coming up on the second half of August. (if you go to the website, do look through the 2008 brochure which is in .pdf format but full of inspiring colour illustrations of each artist's work). I spent a happy half hour planning a tour of some of the exhibiting artists - an amazing way to have a great day out (you don't HAVE to buy original art, most of the artists have postcards and greetings cards of their work available which can also look good framed).

The artist I absolutely MUST get to see is Wendy Bramall - who works as an illustrator and has the most extraordinary eye. I'm including this image above as it is the one from the Open Studios catalogue, but I urge you to browse through her website and particularly look at some of the illustrations under the "Personal" button. Look closely to see the way she has merged skeletal remains with images of live animals...I think they are absolutely beautiful.

She was apparently brought up on Guernsey (though now lives in Winchester) and has some gorgeous illustrations of Channel Island cottages in her "Commercial" section, which remind me of the charming work of Richard Bell and illustrations in the book "Island" by Garth and Vicky Waite. Oh, I'm so inspired to start painting and drawing again...lets find a sketchbook and start small....

Thanks for those of you who wrote in for the Poetry Card giveaway... I loved reading what you would do with them. If you will email your home addresses to me, cards will be going to Darla, Gina and Anna (I've decided to give all three sets away) - but I will be back in college tomorrow, so if there are any more, I'll bring another set home and send those out as well.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Coming up for Air - and a Little Give-away

A cool corner in Chez Russell

Can it really be a month since I was sitting on the patio of Elaine's cottage, writing in my journal and watching the little lizards scampering about in between the sun-baked stones? Or resting, in the cool of her sitting room, from the blazing afternoon heat outside?

Blue skies over the rooftops of St Emilion

Time is flying, the midnight (to 4 am!) oil is being burned and words are slowly stacking up on the pages of my dissertation (in the UK, a Master's degree is awarded on submission of a dissertation, a Doctorate on thesis).

I do escape occasionally - to meet with friends/co-students and tutor at college - (where two of my fellow course members have now been accepted for PhD's - yeah!) and to see counselling clients - but (as my brief guest Diana will attest), the garden at Autumn Cottage is looking distinctly - well - cottage-y - which is Brit-code for unkempt and overgrown! C'est la vie - there will be more time to attend to it when the job in hand is finished.

Diana Birchall visiting Lissie (and Roz!) last Sunday

One of the byroads that my research has taken me to is as the result of some lovely conversations with Rosie Morris, who is the UK authority on Maidens Garlands and is currently herself working towards a PhD on the topic. Our discussion rambled off into many bywaters, but one fascinating area came to light when she pointed me towards looking at Victorian ceramic flowers (after I had mentioned those I had seen in France).

Ceramic flowers in the cemetery at Pons

As a result, I did a bit more research on line and as a result have encountered the whole fascinating subject of "Immortelles" - china and/or glass bead flower arrangements which were placed, under glass, on Victorian and Edwardian graves. I will be including a body of research into my dissertation in the section on grave flowers - but I thought you would all be impressed to see what modern bead-workers have produced in the tradition of glass bead funeral flowers.

(From the site of Rosemary Kurtz)

Readers in the USA may well already know about this - but I was stunned to see the sumptuous and intricate wreath above, created entirely from glass seed beads - (about 3 feet across, apparently) - made for the Pentagon after the events of 9/11. How fascinating to see this tradition being continued into present times - and how immensely skilful the creator, Rosemary Kurtz. I want to discover a LOT more about this craft...especially as Venetian beads did - and do - feature extensively in the creation of these flowers.

See where this course has led me?

I also find all sorts of things apart from books in the University Library - yesterday, I was given permission to take *three* sets of these attractive poetry cards which had been placed there for passers by to enjoy. I only want one set for myself - so thought there may be two other readers out there who might like a set like the one below (of nine cards) to pin up on their wall or use in collages or their art journals. Leave a comment today on how you would use them if you would like a set and I'll choose two recipients at the weekend.