A whitework alphabet: letter G (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)
A fortnight away – and one of those weeks in sole charge of two lively kittens growing daily in confidence – means that this week I’m slowing down and spending time catching up on things and people at home here in Cheltenham. Yesterday, London and Cheltenham collided as daughter No 1 dropped in on her way to a solitary writing holiday in Devon. Having booked into The Ivy Restaurant for a birthday meal, it was delightful that she could join us – and even more delightful that she ordered champagne and then paid for the whole thing! The Montpellier Rotunda, a splendid building modelled in part on the Pantheon in Rome, had been a branch of Lloyds bank for years until, shortly after we moved to Cheltenham, when more suitably it became one of the new baby Ivy Restaurants set up in a few large provincial centres. We love the fact that the building has been returned to its original use as a place of eating, drinking and meeting friends and we have enjoyed making it our place to go to for special occasions – and only 10 minutes walk away from home!
John Piper ‘Foliate Heads’
Tomorrow will find me seriously re-engaged in long sessions on the altar frontal quilting. The wedding at Ipsden is now only 6 weeks away and I’m sure the bride’s mother would love to see the quilt in place but is much too polite to even make an enquiry as to how it’s progressing. (It’s not for the main altar but for a table in the so-called north transept – an altar that isn’t really an altar because the table is just a table and isn’t consecrated!) If I can get the three visible sides quilted, I shall be happy as nobody will be able to see the side facing the wall which can be done later as it will be nice to turn the whole thing round from time to time so you can see the different flowers.
John Piper ‘Foliate Heads’
Meanwhile, as I shall be concentrating on the altar frontal, here is my last whitework letter for a while. ( I shall probably take a month away from the alphabet.) G is for green man – or green person, though of course for current purposes it’s all in white! A folk symbol found carved in both domestic and religious settings, I’ve always been much taken with John Piper’s painted and tapestry versions – he calls them foliate heads – and here are a few images from my scrapbooks.
John Piper : tapestry with foliate head
16 Comments
I feel clever that I thought of the Green Man immediately upon looking at your embroidery (I usually go ahead to the embroidered piece before going back and reading your story about it…cheating?). The face is so sly and mischievous in a joking way.
Thank you for sharing it!
ceci
Well done Ceci – and I’m glad too that although it’s white you could immediately see it’s a Green Man!
It sounds a lovely place to eat!
Still sending encouraging thoughts for the quilting. I hope the kittens don’t “help”!
Keep those encouraging thoughts coming – fortunately kittens sleep lots between short periods of crazy activity!
I hope everything is o.k. I miss seeing your posts!
Thank you for getting in touch, Bev and for saying you miss the posts.
I’m having the altar frontal long arm quilted in the ditch as like Topsey, it just got too big. Meanwhile we decided now was the time to sort out all the family things in the garage and in store, prune things down and bring what remains into the garage. We are progressing well but I won’t do any embroidery until the job’s finished.
I hope to be back blogging by early October – fingers crossed.
I too am growing concerned and hoping all is well. You are much missed
Linda, sorry to be a cause for concern and thank you for telling me you miss the bog – it’s very touching.
The altar frontal is with with a splendid woman, who ‘likes a challenge’ and is quilting it in the ditch for me.
This summer we decided to attack all the things we never quite sorted out after our various moves and once you start, you can’t really rest until you’ve finished, can you? The garage now has industrial style shelving and next we need to load them up with the boxes from storage.
I’m hoping to be ready to blog again in early October
A great relief! I wish you well in your efforts- good to use the momentum!
Indeed you are very much missed.
How lovely to hear from you too Anne.
I’m missing blogging and wonder how in the years to come I will know what I was doing at this time of no blog posts!
We’re pouring ourselves into mammoth sorting out and rationalising of possessions sessions and now we’ve started we just can’t stop until, like the harvest, all is safely gathered in (into the garage in this case, rather than a barn, though a barn would be excellent)!
Blog posting to start again early October – I hope.
I’m relieved to hear that you are busy sorting and tidying and that nothing untoward has happened. I look forward to October when we’ll be able to see your exquisite embroidery and lovely knitting again.
I’ve just seen your reply. We had a small hurricane happen by and lost power and internet for a few days, however all is more or less back to normal.
Looking forward to October and your return.
If you have any hints on sorting I’d appreciate them too.
Looking forward to October and your return, also. Hope your sorting and sifting process is going well. I’ve been significantly thinning the load in my mother’s home, so I understand how much brain power and physical strength it takes.
Just pointing out that it is October !!!
Hope everything is going well.
I know, I know. I had a post all ready two weeks ago and then I couldn’t download photos…
Photo problem dealt with, the sun came out and lured me into the garage to do just a bit more organising…
It’s raining again now.