while you're ahead...

– 47 – KITSCHen sink quilt

Monica Dunkley

March 23, 2017

Last night was football night… and football night is also known as sewing nights around here. Husband on sofa watching aforementioned football and me in my room downstairs sewing.

Everybody’s happy.

I had all intention of practicing my ‘walking foot mad skillz’ but when looking for a large scrap of fabric to work with I got totally sidetracked by the box of ‘leftover’ blocks.

It was kind of like taking a walk down memory lane… piece of quilts for friends and their babies, for my babies, blocks that never made it into quilts, blocks abandoned for who knows which reason… quite a lot of those … ahem…

And then an idea popped into my head… (maybe the large glass of red wine Mr M had poured me had something to do with it. Maybe).

…what if?

… no… it’ll never work…

… but maybe…

… why not…

… worth a try…

A little rummage here and there… and I had myself a ‘kitchen sink’ quilt I’m actually really happy with…

‘kitsch…. yes that too..

but fun right?

… so much fun!

(now I need to work out how to stitch it all together…)

– 46 – E is for Eco, Umberto Eco

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

March 22, 2017

Have you ever read ‘The name of the rose’? or you might have seen the movie with Sean Connery…

“Stat rosa pristina nomine”…

Same author. Umberto Eco, in English the title is “The mysterious Flame of Queen Loana”. I read it Italian because well, that’s the book I had and also it’s good to keep the old mother tongue going).

I’m not one of those people that just because they like a book by one author go and read all that he/she has written… so I’m not really sure why I ever bought this one in the first place… All I know is that I’ve had it by my bed for years. Seriously, years; it was published in 2004 and this is a first edition.

…Ahem…

I think that what must have caught my eyes is that it’s described as an ‘illustrated novel’. At the time I must have thought it a good enough reason. The main reason of this A-to-Z exercise is to make me read books I have rather than reaching for the book shop (isn’t book shopping just the best? So even though I REALLY didn’t feel like reading this book, I forced myself.

10/10 for effort on my part.

4/10 for the book.

URGH.

The premises of the story are interesting: a 60 odd year old antiquarian wakes up from an accident with no recollection of his life. He doesn’t recognise his wife/family/friends, doesn’t have any personal memories anymore BUT he remembers everything he’s ever read. Oh and he’s obsessed with ‘fog’.

Fascinating… for a few pages… then it gets a little weary because nothing actually happens story-wise…

Eventually he goes hunting for his pasts in the family country house he spent his time during the war (WWII)… the attic (of course) is full of books/magazines/records which is, again, fascinating for a while but when you have hundreds of pages of tedious descriptions… it kind of makes you want to hurl the book out of the window a little. (Often). The pictures of newspapers and magazines of the time are fascinating and really interesting… but come on let the story move on Umberto!

(The whole life ‘under fascism’ is very interesting though, I enjoyed discovering about that)

2/3 of the way through the protagonist finds this amazingly rare Shakespeare edition and he’s soooooo excited about this that BAM… ends up in a coma again… so in the second part of the book we get the ‘personal’ side of his story. He narrates/he relives in his head all those personal episodes that were missing from his life and went hand in hand with the music he listened/magazines and books he read etc. whilst in the attic searching for his past.

Clever idea.

But again… boooooriiiiinggg. And frankly at times totally bizarre.

And after he tidies everything up… the whole fog things becomes clear (no pun intended)… he…

Well, I won’t spoil the end if you’re masochistic enough to want to read it!

I’m glad it’s over. Onwards and upwards.

– 45 – vintage quilts

Monica Dunkley

3 comments

March 21, 2017

Allow me a little moan.

A couple of Saturdays ago I managed to get into this ‘talk/small tour’ behind the scene at the Wilson Museum here in Cheltenham. The subject? vintage quilts from their archives.

How fab!

(side note I got in on a ‘senior’ tickets that somebody returned…. nobody queried it… slightly depressing)

Anyway, we were shown three incredible quilts. I mean seriously beautiful… BUT… we weren’t allowed to take any photos. THAT I don’t understand.

We were given an A4 piece of paper with a tiny partial photograph of each quilt… and that was it.

Now I could understand if the quilts were perhaps part of their regular collection and one were able to purchase materials on them or see them all the time… but no… they’re carefully rolled up or boxed away from the public.

Hidden! Secreted away! Buried!

(I should add that if you wanted photos of any detail of any quilt you needed to fill a form and the curator would have taken the photos… available to you for £1 each…)

We were shown a superb example of crazy quilting of probably 1887 (one corner says Mother 63 years 1887), incredible array of fabrics (including ribbons and bookmarks) and wonderful embroidery… It’s not my favourite style but I had to be impressed with the craftsmanship. The photo does not do it justice.

The next one was huge and in a style I had never seen. All the motives had been cut out from different fabric and appliquéd (quite roughly in places, suggesting perhaps a few different contributors. What the museum knows from its donor is that it was made in Golagh, Co Monaghan, Ireland by Elizabeth Isabella Wood-Wright, her daughters and her maids. It contains flowers, animals, the family motto and one of the patterns in the fabric used is the Thames Tunnel built by Brunel in 1843. (Very odd…)

The only photo I have is taken from the sheet and is pretty useless:

But it’s the last quilt that we were all there for.

It’s called the Jane Pizar cover from the lady who made it, again in Ireland between the beginning and middle and the 19th century.

I’ve only got a postcard of it and it was really sad not being able to take more pictures. A few years ago it sparked a mad craze amongst quilters all over the world. There are so many pictures on Pinterest of people who have reproduced it or have taken inspirations from it. (See here). People who have analysed the fabric used in this quilt speculate that perhaps Jane either worked to an old pattern for the design of the quilt, or she worked on it every many many years. (… not a modern phenomenon… procrastination…). It’s all a bit of a mystery. Some people call it a marriage quilt because of the motifs (hearts, birds in nests, moons…and if you really would like to make your own this lady has created a pattern for it… (for purchase as a kit here).

The design is inventive and original, full of surprises… and the fabric is just incredible… I wonder what it looked like when it was first made. The calico white… and the vibrancy of the colours must have made it look totally different.

What I don’t understand is why oh why is it tucked away in layers of tissues where nobody can see it? These days we know how to preserve mummies and dinosaur bones… surely…

I honestly thing this quilt should be treated like the uber famous ‘Dear Jane’ quilt that each year gets exhibited for a little while at the Bennington museum in Vermont. The museum could definitively make money out of it…

Sigh.

End of rant.

– 44 – poetry Monday

Monica Dunkley

no comments

March 20, 2017

A walk (Rainer Maria Rilke)

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

Gorgeous walk in Crickely Hill Country park with a friend and two dogs last Friday.

– 43 – random

Monica Dunkley

no comments

March 18, 2017

You know that feeling you get when you re-emerge into the world after you’ve been reading for hours and you kind of feel disconnected and dazed and not quite sure in which reality you are? (If you don’t you should try it… it’s weird but wonderful).

Well I’m in this ‘in-between’ at the moment. Yesterday I spent hours (seriously, hours) digging into Mr M’s family history … his grandparents were living in India when it was part of the Empire and that also forced me to look into some history I don’t know anything about at all… still don’t really.

I’ve met tradesmen, soldiers, surgeons, teachers, engineers, government employees, East India company employees… his ancestors were Huguenots, they were Indians from the Portuguese Colonies, English, Scottish and even Prussian!

Today I’m forcing myself to take a little break, it’s for my brain… and for my children safety too, they’ll probably need feeding at some point, and ferrying around the various engagements. Mr M is away on business and flying solo is tricky even without ghosts from the past crowding your mind.

The magnolias are in bloom. Such wonderful trees aren’t they? I’m trying to make an effort and walk the dog a little further and, more than that, to explore all the little street around my town. I love to find pretty corners and interesting plaques on the walls.

I guess history is really on my mind. I feel like I want to know more… about everything.

What is the connection between Mr M’s grandmother and Belgium?

Who lives behind the colourful doors?

We’re all connected somehow. The great circle of life and all that… Looking back at the past really makes you realise that. It’s not just us, we’re part of a process, part of a cycle, who we are is also who all those people were.

And it’s the five degrees of separation that connects me to Bruce Springsteen (in my dreams, but still the theory holds), it’s the Armenian soldier of fortune who fought in India for a rich Lord, it’s the taylor in Scotland, it’s the post master in Italy, the coal miner in England.

We’re all connected.

Maybe even the person who painted this graffiti…

– 42 – ladies who lunch

Monica Dunkley

3 comments

March 16, 2017

If being a dear friend’s birthday wasn’t an excuse good enough, the fact that it was the most gorgeous sunny/blue sky/balmy day of the year so far totally clinched the deal and made it a no brainer for a day out.

We decided to head away from Cheltenham and it’s racing madness (never seen so much tweed and corduroy in my life!) and headed for the hills… The Painswick is a gem of an hotel in the charming village of the same name. Beautifully decorated, attentive staff and great food.

We had drinks in a cute loggia enveloped by an ancient wisteria … a cheeky prosecco in the sun… if that doesn’t say spring… (I was too busy relaxing to remember to take a photo…)

I had a delicious beetroot tart (and… ahem fries… shhh), my friend’s souffle looked amazing too.

The bread basket alone would have made me whoop with joy!

Conversation flowed, presents were handed over and the world straightened where it needed to be.

Quite perfect.

– 41 – red and white quilt

Monica Dunkley

4 comments

March 15, 2017

I was going to begin by saying that I’m not a huge fan of the colour red… but in hindsight it might not be strictly true.

True I don’t own red clothes – Chris de Burgh did not write that song about me – but every year I’m tempted by a pair of red Converse, and I do like red nail polish.

Yes my house is not decorated in red but on my kitchen wall there is 1m by 1m print of giant red apple (La Mela, by Enzo Mari).

So maybe, just maybe I like red. In the right place.

And the right place for me is in a quilt.

I LOVE red and white quilts.

They’re happy. And wholesome. The right mixture of old and contemporary.

If you’re interested in red and white quilts this book is just amazing. It’s the catalogue from this incredible exhibition a few years back. The photos on the website are worth looking at.

– 40 – family history/family mystery

Monica Dunkley

4 comments

March 14, 2017

This is how you end up losing a whole day …

First you need to have a few books to put into your bookcase and because they’re in colour order this always require a little bit of shuffling and moving.

Then you end up getting slightly distracted and start looking for books you haven’t read yet to see if there are any whose author’s surname begins with ‘F’ in order to carry on the AtoZ in books crusade you started in January. (Secretly you hope you won’t find any so to earn a trip to the bookstore)

Suddenly your eyes catch the – extremely old/need to be replaced – sofa and notice that one of your offspring has voluntarily removed one of your quilts from the storage box and placed it onto the sofa.

Moving on from the miracle of initiative exhibited here … you had totally forgotten about that quilt!! (and you still like it… so that’s another bonus)

And this is were the real time wasting started.

Are you keeping up?

I remember being inspired by the genius of Denyse Schmidt and wanting to do a quilt that was dark enough to withstand three young boys dirty paws and would utilise that checkered fabric in an interesting way. Why that particular fabric?

Well… I was always told that my mother in law’s surname was Maitland-Hudson and that Maitland was (still is) a Scottish clan with his own ‘tartan‘… so of course we gave all our children Maitland as a middle name and as soon as No 1 was born I purchased a piece of the family tartan to make… something. You know how it goes… a family quilt… a piece of heritage… blah blah blah.

Mr M’s uncle came to our wedding splendidly clad in a tartan suit which seriously impressed the Italian contingency. Trousers, jacket, waistcoat… the lot.

Anyway, moving on… a few years ago I began searching the family tree and for the life of me I couldn’t find any reference to ‘Maitland’. None. Zilch. Not a sausage. Not a haggis…

What was going on?

(The moral of the story? Check your facts before you get the suit.)

Yesterday I received back from Mr M’s uncle all my research notes and began again. FOR HOURS … I’m determined to get to the bottom of this. The name first appear on Mr M younger uncle’s christening certificate as a middle name. Ok I buy that. The family lived in India at the time and Mr M’s grandfather was in army there so perhaps (big maybe) ‘Maitland’ was the name of someone in the army with him, perhaps a superior? perhaps a friend? Was in honour of someone? A debt of gratitude?

That name doesn’t not appear in any of the other people on the family tree on either side of Mr M’s grandfather… but from the moment they set foot back in England post India Independence it becomes part of the surname.

Strange eh?

I need to get myself to the British Library in London where most of the records of the period (what survived) are kept.

I trawled through what I could find online FOR HOURS but to no avail…

The day was gone.

The mistery stays.

The quilt is by now probably on the floor.

– 39 – poetry Monday

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

March 13, 2017

Morning Poem ( Mary Oliver )
from Dream Work (1986)

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

– 38 – local history

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

March 11, 2017

Charles Sturt was born on 28 April 1795 in India, the eldest of 8 boys – and I struggle with 3…- his father was a judge under the East India Co in Bengal. When he was 5yrs old was sent back to England to study – so that’s how you deal with 8 boys… – and because his father reversal of fortune prevented him from attending Cambridge University he joined the army. He fought in the Pyrenees, then in Canada against the Americans, returned to England a few days after Waterloo and was sent straight to occupied France and then at the age of 31 arrived in Sydney with a boat of full of convicts.

250px-Charles_Sturt_by_John_Michael_Crossland_lowres_color

He fell in love with the country and developed a keen interest in its exploration. In his first two expeditions he travelled the course of two main rivers in New South Wales.

He struggled to gain just recognitions for his effort back in England though and eventually he forfeited his pension rights in exchange for 5000acres of land back in Australia where he returned in 1835. He began farming and raising cattle near present day Canberra.

Sturt was driven by a conviction that it was his destiny to discover a great salt water lake, known as ‘the inland sea’, in the middle of Australia. At very least, he wanted to be the first explorer to plant his foot in ‘the centre’ of Australia.^[7] In August 1844, he set out with a party of 15 men, 200 sheep, six drays and a boat to explore north-western New South Wales and to advance into central Australia.

He had to abandon his dream when he developed scurvy and was forced back to England. The Royal Geographical Society finally awarded him a gold medal for his travels and explorations. After another stint in Australia he was forced back to England not by health but by the rising cost of living in the new continent and retired here in Cheltenham where he died suddenly in 1869.

(do you think he would have liked the net curtains?)

I must passed this plaque at least a hundred times. I though it my civil duty to find out more. Also I’m nosey and totally fascinated by this sort of things.