Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

T shirt with embroidered honeysuckle (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

At the moment, doing a bit of embroidery on a T shirt fits my life perfectly. Honeysuckle is my fallback flower when I’m not sure what the recipient might like. After another week in London where sewing didn’t figure very large (the only thing I’ve done is to repair Sylvanian mummy bear’s pearl decorated dress), I spent a relaxing Saturday  in Cheltenham embroidering this flower while listening to the Test Match.

Recovery from the damaged Achilles tendon has reached a critical stage when the sufferer might think things are getting much better, is tempted to overconfidence, and ends up doing a bit too much. Of course we learned this after the patient went for a work meeting only to be dropped off by her Uber further away from her destination than was desirable so she had no choice but to walk further than she should have. The next day after a physio session, she attempted a comparatively short walk to meet someone locally but was in too much pain by the time she got to the end of the road, so had to come back. We’re hoping no further damage has been done. Perhaps the warning of doing too much is timely. The London family are now away for a couple of weeks staying with other relatives  and any temptation to take a little walk in a favourite Lake District location will now be firmly resisted.  I shall have 2 weeks of luxury all to myself, including a few days staying in a cottage on the Owlpen estate (of which more next week).

T shirt with embroidered honeysuckle (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

This week saw the obituary of Janet Kennedy, a much loved designer whose work for Clothkits defined an essential part of  childhood for a generation of children who grew up in the seventies. I was too old for them myself and my children were just that bit too young, although I do remember some earth mother types kitting their children out in hand me down Clothkits bits and bobs. The shapes were simple and the colours bright. Prints were bold and distinctive, stylised animals and flowers in a darker shade  of the background colour and there was a touch of the Romany about them. And as the same suggests, the clothes came in kit form. A length of fabric came with the pattern pieces ready  printed, so all you needed to do was to cut it out and sew it up. Spare fabric offered itself up to patchwork or sometimes even came with little rag doll pieces between the main pattern pieces. Somewhere I think I still have a Clothkit kit for a ragdoll. At the company’s height there were a few shops but mainly it was a mail order business. Then came the eighties and cheap readymade clothes and false sophistication trumped the folksy, hippie aesthetic that defined Clothkits. Freemans, the catalogue monolith bought the company and unsurprisingly it sank without trace … until in 2008 the company resurfaced under then hand of Kay Mawer and today it is doing quite well, especially as it now also sells a whole range of dressmaking patterns from all sorts of interesting independent designers.

Honeysuckle T shirt on its new owner

Khaki T shirt with appliqué praying mantis (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Having forgotten to photograph this when I gave it to the small person, I had first to find it, and where should it be but in the dirty washing basket. A wash and dry later, a grease spot was clearly visible slap bang in the middle of the praying mantis appliqué. So, after a quick treatment with a splodge of Ecover Clothes Wash and a brief second wash by hand I snapped it before it disappeared back into the mêlée  that is a 7 year old’s bedroom. No embroidery on this one, just a simple silhouette as  the distinctive shape has an impact all of its own.

Praying mantis T shirt on a rather contemplative 7 year old

Since I’ve been spending more time in London, the small person and I have revisited Channel 4′ s ‘Secret Life of the Zoo’ and watched again episodes we first watched 5 years ago, when he was 2 and when we all lived together for a year in London while builders were at work on the family home. One episode we remembered and particularly enjoyed was the mating triumph of male orchid mantis, Bruce, where the zoo’s 4 previous males had failed (that is, they were eaten). Bruce, a quarter the size of  Natasha, the female, was the zoo’s last hope. Through careful handling  – which involved introducing Bruce while Natasha is fed a particularly juicy grasshopper – Bruce, “short on stature but long on stamina”, successfully set about mating. This perilous procedure went on for 26 hours which is not unusual. The staff, who must have spent an anxious night wondering how Bruce has got on, then decide to intervene to remove him before the female was tempted to call him dinner.  5 tiny orchid mantis babies are the rather lovely result and watching them sent us away happy to bed.

I can’t help thinking what a fine heraldic device the praying mantis would make or perhaps the badge for a new make of car (electric of course).  It would also make a nice linocut or block print for a summer skirt or curtains for an entomologist’s bedroom. In the coming years, perhaps we shall not only feast on insects but borrow their interesting and varied shapes as design devices. I haven’t yet tackled eating them but I’ve become very keen on embroidering them.