Conversations with Greens

I missed you all last week as I was catching up on the day job, having spent the previous weekend delighting in fantastically colourful conversations with many arty ladies at Textiles in Focus. What a show! Opening on Friday and finishing Sunday late afternoon, it was wall-to-wall colour, both from other exhibitors and displays of groups’ work to the visitors themselves. I’ve never seen so many amazing hand-made nunno felt jackets, woven shawls, felted bags, art embroidery and clothing of all kinds. I was even shown how a humble piece of brown wrapping paper could be turned into an absolute work of art by distressing it and applying different surface treatments like metallic paints. Incredible.

Attracting much more attention than me and my Country Spinner was my peg loom, a very kind birthday present from life-long friend Frances, on which I’d started to try my yarn in rug form. Many ladies stopped to ask, to share memories from childhood, to watch or have a go themselves at the easy weaving. Being thick yarn the rug grew very quickly! I’d taken my skein ‘Among the Aspens’ out of circulation as I was itching to try it on the peg loom during the show. I also decided to spin a skein with a different green-selection colourway during the show to demonstrate the Country Spinner, as not many people have seen these big wheels. It must be spring coming in - the array of greens seemed magnetic to visitors. The emerging rug and my working baskets of fibre, ranging from minty greens to mustard colours, enticed many ladies to stop, feel the fluff, and talk.  

I’m no artist: I just love plants. And as every artist and gardener knows, there are very few greens and yellows that don’t sit neatly together in some kind of order. You’ve only got to look at the early spring sunshine coming through the backs of evergreen plants’ leaves to see a world of variety in one entity. Interestingly the greens drew much more interest that the blacks, bronze, whites and creams of the zebra-style material I was spinning on the first day of the show. The greens even attracted an interview with Just Hands On TV  - not something I’m used to. As a PR person in the day job I’m usually crew-side of a TV camera, not in front of one! I gather when the videos are uploaded from Textiles in Focus I’ll be sent a link, which - if I’m not too shy! - I’ll share here.   

Most of all at the show I enjoyed the company of very many interesting, intellectual, colourful women, and exchanging wildly enthusiastic conversations from the production of madder in Zeeland to ways of mapping out and creating circular rungs on the peg loom. Sharing their insights, looking at their work, and sharing a common passion for colour and creativity was an experience second to none. Here’s wishing you a week of creatively profitable conversations, and a sharing of goodwill with all those around you.