degreeshow.eca.ac.uk
17 - 27 June
Mon -Thurs 10am-8pm
Fri -Sun 10am-5pm
(closing 23 June: Ceramics, Textiles,
Glass, Silversmithing & Jewellery)
Edinburgh College of Art, Lauriston Place, EH3,
and Evolution House, West Port, EH3
LETS MEET...
Almost impossible for me to blog now but I am aware that some of us do want to meet to see the Edinburgh Degree Show so how about Saturday afternoon, say around 2pm? Weekdays are better for me but I'm guessing most of you would prefer the weekend but I am happy to go more than once since I never fit it all in in one visit anyway.
If you want to come then leave a post here (or on my email if you have it, I never post it here) saying if you'd like Saturday at 2 or a weekday at another time and I'll find ways of accessing it to sort something. I'm so much looking forward to seeing the show AND meeting some of you too.
I think I may try and go on Thursday afternoon for a first look. My person faves are always textiles, tapestry and jewellery. I also like ceramics, glass, illustration and sculpture, though it depends what they have produced. But I'll look at anything that interests others too, it's good to see new things with people who have different tastes.
The hardest thing will be seeing stuff and not being able to asily blog about it. Darn this pesky melting computer.
Still no joy getting my computer to work so only a very quick little post, just to keep me linked to this bloggy place, I can't save anything just now so I'm dipping into archives for nice images.
I love this bed/seating boat which was featured in a Scottish Interiors magazine a few years ago (maybe Scottish Homes & Interiors). I think it is totally wonderful, this is exactly the kind of found and reworked furniture that I would gladly have all over my home if I lived in a warehouse with LOTS of space. It's a long time since I read about this but I think the house may be in Fife, Scotland and may be a converted disused cinema with a view of the sea!
The piece below is antique silk embroidery and cutwork. I really enjoy doing this kind of work but I never have the patience to get this level of quality and finish, I'm a girl who always has threads hanging everywhere, but I love thready things so I have no great desire to be more perfectionist about it, though if I make things for others I do tend to clean things up and tie them off a bit more (which reminds me, Nikki, did the package arrive yet? Lots of threads there for Mouse's pleasure).
Will this post ever work, will it format correctly? Who knows.
My Mac is dying, I can't afford a new one just now, so I'm afraid that my blogging will be incredibly intermittent for goodness knows how long. I can smell burning and even a single sentence takes a few minutes to show up on screen. So sad. These are a few images from the life I have when I don't blog.
The cones are on the tree outside. The pink corner is MrP's mum's wall, before I repaint it, I liked the way the shadow gathered all soft in the corner. The leaves are my Rowan, still living in a carrier bag after 2 years, but still surviving and lovely. The door is a pic Mr.P took for me when I had cramp and couldn't come on a day trip, I asked for an interesting image of doors or texture or blue-ness, he managed 3 in one!
With things as they are I'm also unable to keep up with blog reading though I am trying to peak at some of you when I get my break at work, though that is very difficult now that the men have discovered online poker! Rest assured that the minute I have a reliable machine I will be blogging my little heart out in traditional style, like you know I want to.
I've been too tired to blog or even read blogs but I did a little perusing today and here were some things that caught my eye...
Abigail posted about 3robbers
Jessica had things to say about smell that are just so true.
Patty has a great garden blog that just makes me want to stop blogging and start digging
Wah, I had more to say but my computer is definitely dying on me, no response to mouse clicks, sometimes it won't type for 5 mins. What will I do? I can't possibly afford a new one, though I would LOVE a laptop so I could sit in the garden to blog.
I'm sorry not to be posting, or commenting on the great blog reads, especially Alicia, VeniceandVegas and Ulla, I tried in vain to send comments earlier but it just wouldn't respond. Luckily Peggy Lee, June Christy and some Yodel music are keeping me calm.
Enough of this, I'm going to feed a cute cat, water my oriental veg (my mizuna makes me deliriously happy, it is so beautiful AND tasty) and then I'm going to sleep, more, before work. Who knows when my computer will let me post again, hopefully something tomorrow.
That previous post was meant to be sent yesterday, and is no reflection at all on today which has been a beautiful day, as long as you kept your jacket on. Lots and lots of sunshine and only a few drops of rain.
I'm cat/house/garden sitting for my friend Caroline and today was the perfect day to do some work on her garden ( a trade for her giving me reflexology). It's such a pleasure to work there, not that it is exactly easy, but in her garden if you want to plant something you dig a hole in the soil. In mine, if you want to plant something you dig a hole in the CONCRETE!!!
I was digging at 9am when the fire engines arrived to put out the fire a few houses down. I had been speaking to the guy the night before and I knew he was out at the vet with his cat. God only knows how he felt when he got home, but I saw the place and it was black inside and the windows were smashed out. I couldn't bear it if that happened to me. Blimey, I hope his little dog wasn't in the house when it happened! I worry about these things a lot and one of the few things I do spend money on is insurance. Not that I could ever replace my lovely things, I mean, all those buttons and fabrics. And photo's. I'm very slowly digitising my photos to get them onto discs so I have backups, but life seems too short to spend the whole of it archiving memories.
And on that note I'm off to feed her cat and dig her garden before the deluge that is supposed to come tomorrow. But before I go Hiya to NIKKI and ANDY my friends who sadly (for me) emigrated to Melbourne. Nikki has followed the clues and found my blog, which is great. Hope you are enjoying it folks, think of me tomorrow, getting soaked in the rain, or even tonight when they predict it will be only 4 degrees while you bask in your autumnal warmth! Here are some black antique buttons just for your viewing pleasure, I picked them for the photo cause I'm having a week of button pics (till I find my camera cable) and I bet they'd look good with your black chandelier or your black Torde Boontje Garland lights...
I think I linked to these recycled bill poster bags by Ecoist.com from an article by Holly at Decor8 that I saw yesterday. Honestly, I don't know how she finds the time to find so much and do her interviews and everything. I can never keep up.
I wasn't meant to be blogging today but it is pouring with rain and there is a viscious cold howling wind. What's going on, it's crazy, the sun was shining this morning and we had frost the other night. Unfortunately I've not had the time, energy or inclination to go and get food in since I got home the other day, and now I really have to go it's too yukky. It's times like these I wish I had a Smart car... (apparently they have finally reached the States)
I picked up these last week after a bit of a search for just the right buttons to go on an aqua piece I'm making. I especially like the top one which reminds me of retro crockery.
I'm a funny one about colour and pattern, I honestly love so many different colours, combinations, styles, periods, patterns etc. In my home it's all about white's and ivory colours with the occasional wall in a single different colour. I like the ivory as a backdrop to which I can bring in any of my fabrics to create totally different moods. I think I tend to be quite seasonal about it all. There is definitely a preference for reds and whites at Christmas, and in the summer all the pale icy blue and turquoises get to dominate (which is why I LOVE Camilla's photo's like this one of Morran on the stairwell).
Then again, it might be the more Mediterranean blues, all zingy and bright in multiple shades, combined with pattern and shots of lime or orange to create areas in my white home that look like bowls of exotic fruit. I just love how the feel of a room can completely change just by using a different piece of fabric over your furniture, or by hanging a piece of antique lace across the centre of a large room to create an airy partition.
Before all the house demolition I was the kind of person who loved nothing more than dressing the house for a themed party or even just for a friends visit. If I have a friend that likes retro I'll get out my 1950's curtains and my 3 leg wooden coffee table. If they like girly pinks then out come the florals and maybe some garlands, and if the have a thing for bright colour, well then I can just go wild!
I think my taste and personality is reflected in my home in a way that it isn't in my clothing. I like very specific clothes but it's pretty rare that what I want is actually available in my size in the charity shops or in the sales. So it follows that it's the house that gets to wear a new outfit for special occasions. In theory I like the idea of have a nice tidy house with a defined stlye that stays pretty consistent, but it's just not in my nature.
I'm a bit nomadic but since I stopped travelling around I have to change my home constantly so that I get the feeling of having moved to a different place. Sometimes I like the beach house look, other times something more urban and then maybe quite kitsch for a while. I hoard a lot of stuff. Really I just need more than one house, and each one can have it's own style and I wouldn't have to keep re-arranging. Anyone want to buy me a beach hut? Or a cedar cube in the woods with a glass walled courtyard in the middle.
I was talking to a nice woman called Tonia recently (who works in Concrete Butterfly, a great shop in Edinburgh) about how my blog might imply that I'm all about the pinks and flowers and that I was worried Anna might get a shock when we met up to discover I'd be all in black, beige and a mossy green. I'd wear more blues if I had the hint of a tan, but even when I was living in LA it took me months and months to pick up any colour, I'm just a pale Scottish lass.
For those of you who haven't witnessed it we have a thing here that girls have tartan legs in winter, which means they are so white and when they get really cold you can see blue and purple veins making a pattern across their legs! You don't see it so much these days because everyone seems to go to sunbeds through the winter now. In some ways it's a good thing because as a nation, we often looked pretty unwell in winter, not like the Swedes who look so healthy even when pale. But the problem is, all these ultra tanned folk are making me look even paler than before!
Now how did I get from floral buttons to pale legs and sunbeds? I never saw that one coming.
Just a little note to say I'm going to be easing off the posts Friday-Tuesday though I have set up to post a button picture each day if possible. I want to be really focused on the people I'm with over the weekend and not accidentally get sucked in to posting or replying, so to anyone leaving comments or emails, I won't be replying till Tues/Wednesday, but thanks for your feedback. Fingers crossed for good weather! I'll no doubt take lots of photo's for you.
Some of my bigger (thanks to Samantha fo alerting me to that rude typo!) white buttons , I love white. And cream.
I especially love these white teapot and chair cosies by Ruth Cross found at Loop thanks to a link by Holly at Decor8.
