This week so far: a great novel & an exhibition

Yes, this is my week so far. Coffee, cake and culture - perfect! I have done some knitting, but need more photos for a proper post, so that is on its way!

I have blogged about visiting our local art gallery, Smiths Row, before. It's a lovely, clean space and they get interesting, accessible exhibitions there. Oh, and it's free! At the moment, it's hosting two exhibitions: Caroline Wright, On Tides and Fathoms, and Elin Hoyland's The Brothers. Wright's piece is a film piece, looking at three Suffolk locations - a beach hut, a shepherd's hut and a beach lookout - and the landscape around them. On Tides and Fathoms seems to suggest the inevitability of time passing, but also to consider how these small, purposeful buildings are - or aren't - used and their role in the Suffolk landscape.

Hoyland's The Brothers is a fascinating series of black and white photographs of two elderly farming brothers in the Norwegian countryside. Lots of Scandi jumpers here, worn with utilitarian authenticity! The sparseness of the brothers' home against the mountainous countryside is beautifully recorded.

I was very excited to get Tessa Hadley's novel, Clever Girl, from the library. I've read all of her previous books and have always found them beautifully detailed in their depiction of everyday sadnesses, joys and incisions. This is a completely captivating novel. It tells the story of Stella, from her childhood with her mother (who tells her her father is dead), to her adult life as a parent, student, lover and wife in her fifties at the novel's close. The story is entirely in the first person, encouraging the reader to empathise with Stella, but also lending the dilemmas, choices and moments of indecision she experiences a vivid plausibility. If you've read any of Hadley's other works, you will be prepared for the startlingly precise scrutiny to which she subjects the world around her characters and this is part of the novel's charm: she conjures up the world of Stella's 60s childhood and adolescence lightly but convincingly. For example, Stella's observation of her boyfriend, Valentine's, family is succinct but deftly suggests his social class: "his mother had a ruined face and watery huge eyes, she wore pearls and Chinese jade earrings at the dining table in the evenings (unlike us, they actually ate in their dining room)." Hadley is willing to probe, through Stella's character, the joys and limitations experienced by parents; parental absences, whether permanent or temporary, recur. Stella's attitude to her children seems always ambivalent. She disappears in the night, then returns at will, to her son's stoical comment, "Mum's back."

A poem I've always enjoyed is Liz Lochhead's The Choosing. In it, she compares herself, carrying a pile of books from the library, to a married, perhaps pregnant school friend whose life has taken a domestic rather than an academic path. Hadley plays with the same ideas here when Stella proclaims: "Men or books? With relief, I chose books." Is that "clever"? The title, and the dreamy pencil-sketched cover portrait of a schoolgirl staring into the middle distance, make the reader wonder, at the end, what "cleverness" is.

You can hear Liz Lochhead read her poem here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00nq5l3

 

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This weekend: a cracker!

Firstly, lovely local yarnbombing spotted at the pub:

Then, feeling in need of a treat, I bought Mollie Makes, after a quick Twitter poll about which crafty magazine people rated at the moment. By the time I got to sit down and read it, we were on the coast and you can just see the sea in the distance here:

Sunday in Suffolk saw the opening of lots of gorgeous gardens in Bury St Edmunds, in aid of St Nicholas Hospice. This is such a good cause; we've been three years running now, and somehow the sun always shines! So many people take the time and trouble to open their gardens - businesses, churches and private homes of all kinds. There are so many moments where we wandered through little alleyways beside houses, only to emerge gasping at the size and beauty of people's gardens. We had some real #CuriousCounty moments: where else would you hear a recorder group play What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor while you look at an informative display of Victorian lawnmowers, or drink Pimms down a lane lined with plant and cake stalls? People must have found the gardening hard recently with the terrible weather, but all the plots looked great and the atmosphere was fantastic.

And, finally - roses from my mother's garden. Their scent is everywhere - finally, a hint that Summer may be on its way!

 

 

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In Which Not One But Two Wool Shops Get Bigger and Better!

 

Wool shops are like buses ... well, nearly! Anyone who thinks that huge resurgence of interest in crochet and knitting is a fad need look no further than sunny Suffolk, where our interest in things woolly goes from strength to strength! This week, Lyndsey Hurrell moved her shop, Wibbling Wools, from Eastgate Street to Churchgate Street. This has more than doubled the size of her shop, as the picture below of the front window shows - it stretches quite a long way...

 

 

This is fantastic news for Bury St Edmunds knitters - she can now stock more colours and brands, developing the slightly cheaper end of the market as well as keeping stocks of the more luxurious wools.

 

There's more room to sit and browse the patterns, and plenty more wool spun in Britain - and some 'grown' in Britain, too.

 

Once the cafe here gets up and running in July, this will be an even better venue for Bury St Edmunds' knitters! 

 

Now, not content with Wibbling Wools' expansion, this evening I popped to Ipswich for the Opening Evening of Jenny Wren's Yarns. I've blogged about this shop before, when I went to interview Lois about it. She runs the business with her mother, and has been able to expand into a luxurious two-roomed new building, just over the road from their old site:

 

 

 

She too has much more yarn, as well as lovely jars of buttons. She also has some lovely vintage pieces of furniture - including a desirable red vintage sewing box which I found it hard to leave behind - from Betty Blue Hat 's vintage store, over the road.

 

Like Wibbling Wools, Jenny Wren's Yarns is stocking what looks like a great British wool brand, Diggle DK from Woolyknit.com. I had a sneaky pinch and it has a lovely, proper 'wool' texture as well as a good range of tweedy and matt colours. Unbelievably, I'd gone to both shops without a project to buy for! How did that happen?!

 

It's fantastic that two local businesses, run by businesswomen with lots of knowledge and enthusiasm for their field, are doing so well. Long may it last!

 

 

One Normal Knitted Pencil Case and An Exhibition

My 7 year-old nephew has grown up being showered with knitting by many of his relatives... so when he was asked what kind of pencil case he wanted for the new term, he said, "Just a normal, knitted one."!! So it fell to me to produce the pencil case. As always, this was more difficult than it sounded, as it needed a zip (tricky, fiddly) and a lining (tricky, fiddly) but I am really pleased with the results:

 

It's made of very cheap, squeaky DK so the wool panel wasn't terribly enjoyable to knit. But it didn't take long to make - though fitting the zip and lining seemed to take a whole day! Perhaps I've misremembered that, but they certainly took a *very* long time - endless tacking, and retacking... I don't think I'm a natural seamstress. But now I don't really want to give it away .... Pattern to follow!

 

I went to see the Transformations exhibition at Smiths Row last week. Many of the exhibits make use of textiles, sewing and stitching; my eyes lit up as I saw some knitting across the room. This piece is by Freddie Robins:

 

I must say, I felt a bit more ambivalent when I saw the noose-style hanging of the piece and the stab-style knitting needles. You can see from this close-up that the bodysuit reads Craft Kills:

 

Why Craft Kills? A problematic slogan, in my opinion (though it's available on badges in the gift shop!). If Robins believes in the power of craft (as the blurb suggested), then it's a shame if she automatically conflates power with killing. However, I'm sure craft has its darker side, as anything one 'makes' or crafts could be dangerous or harmful - people don't just craft doilies and baby clothes - but I am nevertheless uncomfortable about this piece. Hm.

 

Still, I uncomplicatedly like this piece by Susan Collis:

 

 

This isn't a terribly good photo because it doesn't show the detail of the marks on the boiler suit - which are machine-embroidered onto the cloth. I really like this because it reminds the audience that 'mistakes', blotches, splashes, are part of making things. Also, in a way, perhaps that art leaves its mark on the artist? Perhaps I'd better take off my Art Critic Hat there! It's a thought-provoking and beautifully laid out exhibition in the lovely setting of Smiths Row - well worth a look.

 

Now, to write up the pencil case knitting pattern....

 

 

 

 

Snow in Suffolk

It takes so long to take a picture without any people in .... but there we go. These shots were taken on Sunday in the Abbey Gardens, Bury St Edmunds, after Saturday night's delicious snow fall. It was *so* cold, I couldn't even imagine how much colder the original monks of the ?twelfth century would have been!

There's nothing like snow to make people envious of one's knitwear! I was sporting gloves, beret and snood, all in different lovely warm yarns. I haven't got into knitting socks - but have just seen some gorgeous ones in Joelle Hoverson's More Last Minute Knitted Gifts, so I may give them a try.

Snow does make any day feel like a holiday, though, doesn't it?