There really is light at the end of the tunnel. I have finished lecturing and am more or less over the worst of the marking, so I can get back to my research and textile work. And therefore back to the blog which I have really missed doing, but endless stories about the day job would have been too boring for words.
As a warm-up I thought I would blog about a couple of things which I have found really inspirational. The first is this lovely book which I found in the college bookshop on a recent trip to Anglia Ruskin in Cambridge to work with my Grate Frend, Beatriz. It’s called Textiles: A World Tour published this year by Thames and Hudson and translated from the French text by Catherine Legrand. Every single page is an inspiration and the photographs are sumptuous. I don’t normally find this sort of thing that inspiring because I can’t see myself copying work done so much better in the original, but this is just irresistible because the colour and detail and pattern is just piled up. It has a tiny bit of how-to in the form of some watercolour sketches showing how the pieces are worn, but otherwise it is a gorgeous pattern book. Here are some hazy photos:
It is a book you can open at any page and find something stunning.
The other recommendation is Waldemar Januszczak’s BBC4 programme, The Dark Ages: An Age of Light. I have not seen the previous programmes in the series, but I think I will look them up on the iPlayer, because the one last night on the Vikings and Carolingians was right up my street. Waldemar Januszczak is a bit of an acquired taste:
But the programme was stuffed full of exactly the sort of bling I love and in loving close-up:
After my recent weekend of palate-cleansing stripped down elegant Danish Christmas decorations this was an oasis. I made me desperate to get back to sewing beads on something, anything. So, watch this space.
