hidden places

This week , a busy week... of discovering hidden places... and I am so reassured by how little J coped... the book festival (while J enjoyed rhymetime, sticking and colouring and people watching, I discovered gorgeous new fairytales by Carol Ann Duffy), train travel (our favourite way to travel), castles (and a whole room dedicated to weaving tapestries for me to enjoy), lakes, trees, colours, faces and turkish delight ice cream. She took it all in her stride.

hey, love, castle

My house is my castle and full of the things I call treasure ... but the roof is leaking again and I am uncertain of many things. yet rather than brood, I always seem to be somewhat observational in these situations and perhaps ever hopeful that fortunes will change... I would like to type this sitting in the kitchen sink, for I am in a rather Cassandra Mortmain sort of mood today...

Everything is so pretty but there is a terrible draught...

white bears

Gosh... we have colds and runny noses, little toddle-belle and I. We are truanting from playgroup and hiding indoors today with homemade soup, The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe on DVD (with some scary bits fast forwarded as she is too small), play doh and fairy lights...

The temperature has dropped to zero now and there is frost and rolling mist. I am re-reading North Child by Edith Pattou. It is wonderful, based on the fairytale East of the Sun , West of the Moon, a white bear takes a girl away to a place carved into rock. Oh how I love it. Set in Norway and another of the animal groom fairytales I love so... Just as Beauty in Beauty and the Beast has her room of books in Beast'd castle due to her love of reading, so Rose in this story has her room in the white bear's castle full of threads and yarns and a loom due to her love of making things.

There is also The Princess and the White Bear King. This book's artwork adorns my daughter room...

How I love white bears.

The Lying Carpet

We are in the library at least twice a week so I always spot the new titles and am often the first person to hire things out (!) Last week I took home The Lying Carpet by David Lucas. It is the most head spinning book. I think it reminds me that life is a choice, its about truth and lies, inertia versus adventure, whether to watch or whether to 'do'.... that sort of thing. It involves a talking tiger rug which frankly I just love... and a beautiful little girl statue called Faith. The drawings are perfect too. Anyway its wonderful, mysterious, a fairytale, a bedtime story... and now I want to own it so I might read it whenever I like.

More Bill Gibb...

I adore this woodland inspired dress. the dress itself is perfect, the setting, her hair... its like a glimpse through the trees at a magical realm.

Little bumble bee buttons and a whitework embroidery depicting a bee. At some point I will doubtless steal these bee themed ideas for my own creations. How I love them.

Pretty fabric designed in 1977. I love the stance of these birds, one serene and watching the other startled and about to fly. The thistle there I guess for Gibb's Scottish roots.

I hope our trip to the library tomorrow throws some more unexpected published magic my way.

a hummingbird with a paper heart

If I were a word, I would be verb. A 'doing' word. I do not stop. I am never static. Like a hummingbird I must keep flapping my wings, must keep thinking, changing, making, doing, becoming...

I have been taking some time to gather ideas this week. To be inspired... by the blogs I read of course and also by some new books, both bought and borrowed, and by the slow turn of summer into my favourite season, autumn.

Last night I read Magical Hoofbeats . I imagine galloping towards woodland on the back of a white mare. Do you know I have never been on a horse? I have added it to my list of 101 things I must do soon, or at least, sooner or later.

I have read LOTS of books this week. Each will be mentioned in their turn.

And I have been playing with paper. So I have also finally started my little scrapbook project. I keep a paper journal you see. But lately I took a notion that I would like to 'depict' as well as write my life on to paper. So my new scrapbook journal is in words and pictures. Therefore it is less rambling and more satisfying... but oh, I see that I have started to ramble on this blog instead...

White as Snow

I have already written about my tendancy to move from obsession to obsession when it comes to fairytales... Most recently it was The Princess & the Pea and for the longest time Beauty & the Beast was my fixation. Over the past weeks it has been Snow White. I find that these obsessions overtake me quite naturally. I will be sitting there and suddenly think "I must read Snow White". I think its because in some ingrained way these tales are part of my psyche and whenever I need a little help to work things out, the right tale for the job pops into my head.





If you analyse it, Snow White is about puberty and the steps we go through to reach maturity. I may be married with a house and a kid, but I still need to enter that glass box now and again for some thinking time. We all do. Or maybe take a long hard look in the mirror mirror?



I really love the above edition by Josephine Poole which I amazingly found in the charity shop around the corner from my house. Why do people give these things away? It was 35 pence.




I also love this edition by Berlie Doherty which i bought ages ago in 2004:

Just look how beautiful Snow White is in the illustration.

So now I am inspired to design a Snow White themed journal... since my Princess & the Pea journal worked out so well (and recently sold on my Etsy , yay!)

Baby & the Beast

Another day spent crawling around the floor of the library. ah bliss. Hired out a few craft and cookery books... then we went home and ate lunch in the garden. Yes! it was actually sunny enough. I remember last year we had a glorious April and May and then a rainy, stormy rest-of-summer. My July baby was born during a thunder storm.

Beauty & the Beast - I always imagine Beast as a lion... and I never want him to change into a Prince at the end... Is that just me?

Blowing Bubbles

I have spent the day playing at 'blowing bubbles' and crawling around the floor of the library. It is certainly true to say that having my daughter has freed me up to finally spend my days the way I always wanted to...

Ideas sort of come to me in flashes and its sometimes difficult to reach out and catch one... especially when I'm tired. In my head swims visions of dolls dancing with bears, a domestic cat with a mane like a lion, pockets full of stars and roses roses roses...

I have also been thrifting and collecting and making and ordering things for baby j's little room. Its pink and green and polka dots and flowers, its dreamy, sleepy and cut and paste, its books books books...

We are reading Minty & Tink tonight. Its just perfect. Are you really real?

On peas and princesses...

I seem to move from obsession to obsession, especially when it comes to reading and fairytales... Whatever the tale, I read every version I can find, I buy the editions I can afford, I read the literary crit on the tale and then come up with my own interpretations too...
This month I have been obsessing over 'The Princess & the Pea'. Its certainly a very pretty tale. I say this because there is so much art work out there, like that above by E. Dulac, which has been inspired by it.

It is a very visual tale. It conjurs up strong images of soft versus hard, little versus big, rich versus poor, lies versus truth and not forgetting a very Royal Pea indeed.
I just love the idea of the tower of mattresses. I wish I could sleep on a bed like that. I also love the idea of the pea itself. Where does this come fom I wonder? I can find so little that attempts to explain any underlying meanings to this tale. Its joy comes from the fact that it is so simple and so short. Perhaps this is why there is so little written about it in response?

I have just finished reading Lauren Child's gorgeous photo art version of the tale. Its such a beautiful book. Oh and also I re-read The Pea and the Princess by Mini Grey, told from the perspective of the pea. ha! I remember reading this for the first time many moons ago when I worked in children's publishing. It made me laugh. It still does.

So of course, this months obsession has influenced some of my new designs.

First I started making peas. There is something entirely satisfying to me about having the ability to sew a sphere. Especially a tiny one.
I wasn't sure exactly why I was making peas, but now I do know. The Princess & the Pea inspired loveliness will be revealed soon.