It's in the print.......

On Friday my daughter arrived for her Dad's birthday with a wonderful present for me.

A bag full of old newspaper.  The newspaper was found when she had some windows replaced and is dated May 2, 1922.   It was a copy of "The Star"  a tabloid London evening Newspaper which just happens to be the evening sister paper of the News Chronicle where I worked when I first came down from the north, unfortunately it closed a few months after I arrived.
I worked in the newspaper library. Every morning the Librarian would mark  the articles to be cut from all the newspapers and then in the afternoon these were filed in manilla envelopes. The men did the news and the girls did the people, we each had a section of the alphabet, can't remember mine exactly but I know I had the P's as I remember filing Judge Pennycuik(because of the unusual name) I hated the Daily Telegraph because it use to continue  it's stories onto another page, double cutting.
So a few memories in the bag. Breakfast in the Black and White Milk Bar on a Saturday morning.  Felt very sophisticated and exciting.

This image from Getty Images ( breach of copyright intended) is a good few years earlier but it hadn't changed much.

I have just started to try and straighten the pieces as best I can, very careful ironing,  it is very brittle of course and could take a while but today has unearthed a few treasures.  Some intriguing headlines

 and one that I sent to my "touring"daughter.

Who can do all those things. Currently playing Madge in "Top Hat"

Silence and Dazzle...........

..second challenge Q&L  prompt from the Craft Barn.,   I thought of "Give'em the Old Razzle Dazzle"  from "Chicago" but who remembers this gem.

Ah, those were the days!
But the song that stuck in my mind was "I loved you one in silence" from "Camelot".  I saw the original production of this at Drury Lane. It was a beautiful production and years later I drew heavily on my memories when I was wardrobe mistress for our amateur production.  I can't remember how many cloaks I made and working out which bit of armour went where.
But I digress, my first thoughts were to do something medieval and romantic but my lack of artistic skills prevented that and then I had a very silly thought.
 I thought of the wonderfully ridiculous shoes which are about at the moment.  I would love to own a pair but I at my age I know the pain they would cause.My slippers is where I'm at. So it remains an unrequited love affair.   Tenuous I know but if did let me make this dazzling shoe.

If you don't know the song this is Julie Andrews's vesion. Audio only.

K.....

another trip down memory lane with this fortnight's Craft Barn Alphabet Challenge.  There are some really obscure words beginning with K.  I toyed with "kinetic" because I love kinetic sculpture but it is a bit difficult to interprate on paper. Then my eye fell on "kaleidoscope".  We had one when I was a child and it gave me hours of fascination.  Looking at the little bits of foil through the glass at the bottom and then marvelling at the patterns when you looked through the other end.  They seem to be mainly round these days but ours was triangular. If you are  tempted there are instructions for making one here
So here is my take on "Kaleidoscope"

First I made some gelli prints on thin card and  cut six equilateral triangles(Mr Craven would have been proud of me). I attached them with an eyelet, ensuring they would spin. I made a weathered wood background.


 

Here it is with the definition tag.

 and this is a Paint Shop Pro digital kaleidoscope of the second picture

Thank you if you left a comment last time, I did try to visit everyone and there are some great ideas out there.  So fascinating to see the coice of words.
Small rant....Is anyone else becoming exasperated with the increasing "predictive text" on search engines and such.  I know what I want to say and the machine, clever though it is, does not. End of rant. Thank you.

First stop......

on the Big Road Trip and my this brought back some memories.  We visited New York for two days about 20 years ago.  We arrived in the evening and I will never forget the first glimpse of that famous skyline, lit up in the dusk.  Our hotel was just off Times Square and we(I) couldn't wait to go and look. I can remember pinching myself as we walked round the corner.

We packed a lot into the two days including a trip up the Twin Towers. We saw the statue of Liberty from afar but this is as close as I came.

My goodness I was so young. Just after this was taken the heavens opened, just like it rains in the movies. Heavy. Thankfully not for long.
On our second night our friend took us to see his New York, Little Italy, good fun and good food.

I did this collage sometime ago but I have given it a digital frame.It is not New York specific but I thought it fitted here. 

I have thanks Marit for a stirring the memories, I have been wanting to go back ever since and haven't quite given up hope just yet. Yes girls,  that would be some trip.

'orses 'ead 'andle......

For the last few months I have been helping out with a children's theatre production. One of the items is an enactment of "The Lion and Albert" the monologue by Mariott Edgar made famous by Stanley Holloway. I have loved this fun piece since I was small, the children (all from the London area) are making a great job of their "northern" accents but the piece needed a vital prop, as in this verse,
A grand little lad was their Albert
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
'E'd a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle
The finest that Woolworth's could sell.

So........


I formed this out of Crayola Model Magic and then covered it with a layer of scrim and PVA, a layer of gesso and then a layer of Paverpol Next came the paint with beads for eyes, I added the "silver" band(tape covered in silver Rub and Buff and a final layer of Paverpol.(I am hoping it will last more than one performance!!)

I have never attempted anything like this before so am quite pleased with my efforts, obiviously my time watching Royal Ascot wasn't entirely wasted! (I thought there were some really stunning hats this year which made up a bit for me missing the exhibition at the V&A)
If you want an old fashioned chuckle listen here.

Doodle Day- Kitchen Chaos..

It's funny how a seemingly unrelated thing can trigger a memory. I had waited a long time to become pregnant with my first child. The resulting euphoria put me into a sort of dreamlike state for quite some time and during that time I served some pretty strange meals but the thing I remember most is staring in bewilderment at the tea leaves floating in the milk jug, the milk turning the sugar into a sticky mess, coffee in the tea pot. I must have had every combination possible. So here is
the doodle
Thanks for the memory Helen Suzanne.

If you want to get ahead......

get a hat, runs the old advertisement. I have always loved them Who remembers trying them all on in the British home Stores? When I first came to London you were expected to wear a hat (and gloves) for interviews now apart from the winter warmth variety I suppose most of us only wear hats to weddings. This week there is an exhibition starting at the V&A Museum

I am definitely putting on my "to be visited" list. If you can't actually visit just take a wander round the website, not only are the hats amazing, you can actually make your own paper hat and there is a flikr group where you can post your creations.

They don't make them like they used to.....

The snow has melted but it is still much colder than we have been used to recently.. This evening, my sister (who is nine years older than me) and I had an interesting conversation about an "igloo" . We were both reminiscing about winters gone by and she was about to tell me about an igloo she has built, when I interrupted with what I thought she was going to talk about, i.e my memories of the "igloo". There was a stunned silence and she said "But you weren't there"....after some conversation we realised that we were both talking about different winters when it was possible to build "igloos". My memory was of 1947, her some years earlier, who remembers chapped knees, snow inside your wellies and an itchy balaclava???

Meanwhile back in the 21st century.......



These are two photographs of my Seth, Disintegration challenge. The first with flash and the second without. The blob on the left hand side is a piece of bread which some over ambitious bird has dropped...(not sure what is going to happen to that after the thaw!!) What I would love to be able to preserve, is the layer of ice which was there this morning, it blurs the words so beautifully. What I wish I had done, is wrap the wire more imaginatively though I am pleased with the way it is beginning it rust and spread the the colour of the rust through the pages.

Take a little gesso......

Two similar techniques, very different results.
I took two of my recent experiments and worked with them to see where they lead me. This is from the Firbre in Form workshop
Possible book or box lid cover I think.
This is the one from my first dib into Maggie Grey's Textile Translations

A little personal reminder to me of magical visit to the caves at Niaux in France a few years ago.
For all of you who have been playing with gesso these last few weeks here is an inspirational page by Michelle Ward.
By the way who pinched my Links list?.........well I guess I must have, I was carefully (I thought) moving things to the new blog list (which I like) and when I returned my old list had vanished, so if your names not there yet it isn't because I don't love you anymore...

Challenges contd.......

The TIF challenge "What is it to be at the Half Way Mark?" I played with "marks",and thought it felt "been there done that" and then "Way" as in the path that life takes but in the end I couldn't rid my mind of the old Glass Half Full/Empty thing. I first came across this when I was at school. I had changed in the second year from an all girls school to a co-ed, we had a lesson with the Headmaster, he was very tall and always wore an academic gown which used to billow out behind him as he strode the corridors. He learned every pupils name and could identify you from 500 yards, so you behaved when he was about and you behaved just in case he was about!!!! I digress. In one lesson he strode around the classroom pouncing on people and asking them "Whe you have drunk half of your drink is the glass half full or half empty?" I hadn't a clue what he was talking about and was terrified of giving the "wrong" answer, I stammered out "Half Empty" and slid in to the role of one of life's pessimists. So here is my Half empty Glass

I used the alphabet facility on my sewing machine to make the works Empty and full and free machined the rest.

Incidentally the Headmaster gave me a reference for my first job which I still have. He became less scary as the years went by and I hold his memory in a mixture of respect and affection.

Suits you Madam......

Neki Desu had a story on her blog A Moveable Piece about a salesman adjusting his patter to clinch the sale. Very funny! Go read. This jogged a memory. Does anyone remember the dress shops that used to be, on what was then the "wrong" side of Oxford Street, in London. These shops had entrances like funnels so that if you were looking in the windows you were unwittingly channelled towards the door where a charming (forceful) assistant was waiting to guide you in. One in there you were lost in a barrage of "Oh it's just your colour Madam", "The length is just perfect for you" "You couldn't have a better fit" ......and yes, I swear they were holding in a fist full of material behind you back!

All the Quilters.....

out there are probably going to throw up their hands in horror at my attempt at "log cabin" for the February TIF second offering. This one is using both memories and the colour pallette.

This is my school "satchel". I am left handed and pens never went the way I wanted them too, I suppose the only thing I was fortunate in was, that unlike some of my contemporaries, I was not forced to write with my right hand, thanks to the tiny village school I went to see here. The blue and white gingham is reminiscent of school dresses and the peach colour is not a million miles away from the colour of my school blouse at my first secondary school. The navy blue round the edge is, of course, my gym knickers complete

complete with pocket and clean handky on the back, though I don't think my school handkerchiefs ever had lace on them or stayed clean for long!!

So much going on...

did I say, already, that someone asked me if it was difficult to fill you days when you retire???

I said there were two things for the TIF memories that I was going to work on. The first one is the Liberty Bodice, this image is from the V&A Museum of Childhood.
This unlovely garment was invented to make sure your wool vest itched to it's maximum potential. Well no, it just seemed like that, it was designed to keep you warm, the thing I remember most about it is the rubber buttons which started to crumble as they perished. This is a bit of a cheat as it is actually made from bits of the January piece and is therefore in January's colours. I couldn't find rubber buttons in my stash but these I thought filled the bill,the felt backing represent the itchy vest and the lace represents my remembered longing to have a dress like the Cinderella in my Ladybird book.

And then there were the navy blue gym bloomers with the pocket for your handky, but that's for another day..

The Memory Game.......

it is going to be really interesting reading people memories as they start the TIF challenge. Two I have seen so far are Julie of Mixed Media and Carol-Anne of Threads Across The Web. Carol-Anne left a comment which brought two more memories back to me, my imaginary friend Millie Belter and the triple mirrors on my mothers dressing table which gave you unlimited people to play with if you angled them just right. It seems I have not quite outgrown this fascination as this is a photograph I had a friend take for me in the ladies of a cafe! Sad!!!


and then there was my doll Poppy..........Stop already!!!!

These are the material things as per the challenge,
going to bed by candle light and brass oil lamps which had to be polished, we didn't get electriity until after the war when we had our own generator.
Flat irons,Carol made a clever replica of one,
blue bags for whitening in the wash(a post for another day),
Clothes airing on a rack on the ceiling and on clothes "horses"
bread rising in a huge brown bowl on the Aga,
triangular bags of sweets which held the 2ounces from your sweet ration and ration books.
Stone hot water bottles like this one
photo from Virtual Victorians,
washbasins and jugs (with matching coap dish),I cry now when I look in antique shops!
Blackleaded fireplaces, and much later our first television with a 9 inch screen!!! There are two others that I think I am going to use for the challenge,more about them later.

Now to the present, later today I shall be slipping into my nightie and getting out a blanket so I can snuggle up with these two young men




and watch the Super Bowl. Everyone seems to think that Brady and the Patriots will walk it but I'm not so sure, Eli has a lot to play for. I love 'em both just hope it's a close game.

Open the floodgates...........

Sharon posted the new TIF challenge for February. The colour scheme is an interesting one

but the concept "What are you old enough to remember?" occupied my mind for most of yesterday evening.This may be, of course that at my age there is quite a bit to go on.

I realised that what Sharon was talking about were things that have been superseded by technological advances, or objects that have disappeared all together but first I sat and tried to think of my earliest memory and that was when I disappeared into the past for hours.

I was born in 1941 in Barrow in Furness which at that time was in Lancashire. My earliest datable memory was the birth of my brother in November 1945.but some of these memories may date from before that. When I was about two we moved to Ulpha in the Duddon Valley where my mother ran the Travellers Rest while my father was a mechanic in the RAF. All my earliest memories therefore belong to Ulpha. I will list them just as they came to me.

Sunshine and male voices singing, I have always thought they were Polish soldiers who were billeted in the hall further down the hill,as that is what I remember being told. They may well have been detainees.

The hill, still known as Travellers Rest Hill though the TR is now appartments I believe. You can see from this photgraph how steep it is and on more that one occasion I can remember a lorry in the yard.



I remember the swing fixed on the branch of a tree, a pet lamb we had, called Larry of course, listening to Listen with Mother on the radio and another programme which was called "Music and Movement" I think, "Find a space and we'll begin". As well as the lamb there were bantam hens and pigs, a horrid memory this, of pigs squealing at slaughter time. There was the snow house we had, must have been the winter of 1947, we had an old piece of carpet to sit on so our bottoms wouldn't get cold. I broke my sisters tooth when she was teaching me to skim stones and there was the monkey puzzle tree which we used to hide under, I visited a few years back and it was still there.

There was old Joe Yoodle (yes that is a real name) who wore corduroy trousers and big boots which I would stand on and he would hold my hands and walk me round the back bar room.
I went to the tiny school, only 15 children in the whole school and when I was the youngest they used to turn my table upside down so that I could have a rest in the afternoon, the teachers voice would lull me to sleep.(Used to affect me later in life in things like Maths and Physics!!!)
This is the school building (with ugly addition) it is now a house.


But the best memory of all was my "house". At the bottom of the hill there is a field which leads down to the River Duddon, over a dry stone wall like this

, these wall are wonderful and many have little gardens growing on them like this


and in the middle of the field is my "house" where I played, by myself, for hours, and hours.

What do you mean it's a pile of rocks!
This is what I saw.


Thank you Sharon for giving me such a wonderful evening. I have a list of objects too but that is for another day.

What a different world...............

<............ It's funny how things come together sometimes. Yesterday we had a good talk by http://www.ginaferrari.co.uk/ and Judith Songhurst. Titled "Life after City and Guild " they told us how they met on a City and Guild Machine Embroidery course at Missenden Abbey and showed the work they have done since then. About half way through my brain kicked in and I realiesed that Gina was Fan My Flame who has been in my bloglines for a while. We even saw they fan which is on her blog. Beautiful delicate machine embroidery. Judith quoted a piece from a 1949 book on machine embroidery which has us all falling about.

'Prepare yourself mentally for sewing. Think about what you are going to do... never approach sewing with a sigh or lacksadaisically. Good results are difficult when indifference predominates. Never try to sew with a sink full of dishes or beds unmade. When there are urgent household chores, do these first so your mind is free to enjoy your sewing. When you sew, make yourself as attractive as possible. Put on a clean dress. Keep a little bag of french chalk near your sewing machine to dust your fingers at intervals. Have your hair in order, powder and lipstick put on with care. If you are constantly fearful that a visitor would drop in or your husband come home and you will not look neatly put together, you will not enjoy your sewing as you should.'



What a different world!!!!

We were reminded of the song "Wives and Lovers " by Burt Bacarach sung by Jack Jones

Hey, little girl,
Comb your hair, fix your make-up.
Soon he will open the door.
Don't think because
There's a ring on your finger,
You needn't try any more

For wives should always be lovers, too.
Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you.
I'm warning you.

Day after day,
There are girls at the office,
And men will always be men.
Don't send him off
With your hair still in curlers.
You may not see him again.

For wives should always be lovers, too.
Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you.
He's almost here.

Hey, little girl
Better wear something pretty,
something you'd wear to go to the city.
And dim all the lights,
Pour the wine, start the music.
Time to get ready for love.

Dim all the lights,
Pour the wine,start the music.
Time to get ready for love.
Time to get ready,time to get ready for love.
Time to get ready,time to get ready for love.

I can remember when my mother was staying with m after my daughter was born and my mother would send me to "tidy youself up" before DH came home!!!!


What a different world!!!!!

Today Joanna of http://serenityisbliss.blogspot.com/ posted about an article she had written for the Ragged Cafe on Matt Baker and the work he has inspired.
Joanna pointed out how the illustrations promised more than they revealed! I remembered similar romantic comics from my teenage years, which my parents frowned and the occasion when, at about 16 years old, I was about to go out with the shoulders of my sweater pulled down revealing my shoulders. My father sent me back upstairs to change before I was allowed out.

My mother used to say that "sex appeal was not what you could see, but what you thought you could see!!"



What a different world!!!! ............or is it???????????

We will remember them............

I watched the Ceremony of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in London. One of the most moving parts was as the veterans marched some had an expression on their face which suggested that they were marching not down Whitehall but in another time with other companions.

How sad, that inspite of all these sacrifices, we have not learned to live and let live.

Yesterday I found these very moving Christmas cards by Barbara on her blog Rainbow. A message for Christmas, today and always.

TAST rolls on.......

I took the opporunity to have a quick five minute on my new toy to make the background for this weeks TAST> Buttonhole wheels.

A great texture adding stitch, I love Sharon's examples especially the last one.