Autumn Cottage Diarist

The Dark Side of Life in an Old Cottage

Most of you who have read Autumn Cottage Diarist for a few years will know that the cottage is some three hundred years old. This brings the great pleasures of living in a character home - but it also has its downside..old house equates with old window styles, and although the window in the photograph is a 1960's addition, because we are a historic 'listed' building we are required to make sure that all additions are 'in keeping' with the original house.

Though this window has an aluminium metal frame, (not much of that around in the 1700's!), the person who installed it did follow tradition in keeping to 'leaded lights' - small window panes linked and held together by lead 'cames' - strips with channels on both sides to hold the glass, similar to the much older windows we have at the front of the house.

The result of all this is that indoors can be particularly dark in most of the house - which is why the wall colour most of the way through is a buttery creamy yellow, and the new curtains are of a gauzy, transparent texture. I think they work well, though the fabric - a very open, almost net-like linen, was the very devil to work with.

The next curtains to be finished will be the much-nicer-to-sew glazed cotton for my sitting/TV room (see my last 'Snip, Snip' post) ...though since the garden is yelling for attention particularly loudly at the moment, goodness knows when they will be finished. They sit - and wait - and look pretty doing so - but there is a certain amount of reproach in their presence.

Have you got anything waiting to be finished that sits and reproaches you from the sidelines - and - the garden is my (feeble) excuse...what's yours ??  :-))

Snip, Stitch, Clickety Clack!

It started for me when I was five...when I took apart the drapes on the doll cot that my grandmother had laboriously made for me for Christmas. I was severely reprimanded and told how 'destructive' I was (the first of the litany of reprimands with which my childhood was littered) - when my intention was only to see how it had been constructed.

I have always been entranced by fabrics - textiles of any sort - woven, embroidered, printed, felted...stitched into garments or soft-furnishings, decorated, embellished, and then used for more of the same, making my (or others') interior environment just that little bit more beautiful, enticing, welcoming. (Is there some genetic memory passed down from my ancestor - a merchant in the textile-trading part of London in the 1770's? I like to imagine there is....)

But for easily the last ten years, my sewing machine and embroidery threads have been tucked away, as I have engaged in and been distracted by other ups and downs in life, and more cerebral activities have taken the place of the work of head, heart and hands combined.

Pressing in between stitching...much more patience to do this these days - one of the benefits of being older?

Until last week, when I needed to amend the length of a pair of curtains, just to add the finishing touches to the interior painting and decorating done by my son. Out came the (possibly rusty) sewing machine, threaded up (with the aid of a little bit of black paper so I can see the hole in the needle these days!!) And tested...in with the fabric, down on the foot pedal and wheeee.....away we went, and back came rushing all the joys of creativity with fabric and thread that I had forgotten I loved so much.

Yes - the old machine does need a bit of oil, and my technique needs brushing up - but it is not being packed away again...but installed in the sunroom, I think in pride of place (everyone else probably thinks 'in the way!' :-)) - and all the stitching (and mending!) that has been ignored and neglected for the last decade is being brought out and enjoyed once more - alongside that ignored part of myself that - I now realise - also needs to come out to play. I write and I think and I discuss, yes - and I RELISH those activities...but I
also garden, and cook, and stitch, and paint. ALL components are necessary for me to fully live - as I believe they are for us all.

What do YOU need to live your fullest life? Is there any languishing creative pleasure back in the recesses of your own memory that could be brought out again to play?

The next project already waiting - curtains for the little sitting room

Making an Appointment With Myself

Another visit to the Discovery Centre

Fiona Robyn gave me a 'heads up' this morning in the theme of her blog post  'Running on Empty...'...and Susie Grogan's blog title brought me up even shorter ...'No more Wriggling out of Writing', which made me turn my head here once again and ask myself the same question - am I 'running on empty' for ideas? Have I been 'wriggling out of (blog) writing' since I last posted here?

Far from wriggling out of it, my longing has been pricking me to do more of it, but...

 
...with temperatures last week hitting records for 'the warmest March' etc...etc....and a garden which has consequentially been bursting out all over and positively screaming for attention,
...With the lower garage still singing its siren song of 'clear me out' so that I can carry out the conversion to a library and workshop,
...With all the usual minutiae requiring daily attention which are  the detail of family life that we all have infiltrating our more lofty desires,
...and with the constant overlay of a body which is starting to creak and get tired faster than it used to...(dammit)

Any more - in the form of putting together a coherent blog post has just felt beyond me.

No - I am not wriggling out of it, but more pondering how I can more often, or rather, more consistently, wriggle into it. I haven't run out of things to share with you...on the contrary, (see list above!) - I have lots of things going on here at Autumn Cottage that you might find of interest (though I must admit, I do sometimes hesitate to write about what seems like trivia just for the sake of writing something).

I enjoy keeping this blog, and I really love and appreciate hearing from other people who take the time to write to share their thoughts on their own reading of 'Autumn Cottage Diarist' with me. So there is only one solution. It's the one I offer to all the attendees to my workshops (I am a Past Master at proffering advice to others and not taking it myself!) - I need to make an appointment with myself, in my diary, to meet myself on the (blog) page at least twice a week, and simply hit these keys and WRITE!!!

Now all you have to do is wait to see if I can follow my own orders.

Oh, and by the way...regarding comments from other readers...I think some of you may enjoy looking in at the website of one of my readers - An Historical Lady - I certainly did. Thank you, all of you out there, who do make that appointment with yourselves, sit down and write, and constantly interest and entertain me with the blog posts that YOU all create. You are all an inspiration.

Daffodils and Apple leaves in the garden