Unusually, I am putting this together almost from scratch on Tuesday night. It has been a week of preoccupation with getting things done.
WES Group met on Wednesday to hear a talk on The Development of Church Vestments. Vikki did a lot of research, and took the trouble to find, amongst many other sources “Church Vestments their Origin and Development” by Herbert Norris, published by J.M. Dent & Sons, which is now out of copyright. It has many beautiful plates that show very clearly the changes in vestments over 2000 years. The photo here is a very early vestment. It is Mazimiam of Ravenna, in mosaic at St Vitalis Ravenna Basilica. He died in 556. My take on it is that over the centuries vestments got very complicated, then, in this century, seem to have returned to something close to this early version.
Much of my week has been spent thinking and reading for a lecture I promised to give to a tour group in Adelaide in August on The Emergence and Growth of English Embroidery in the Early Medieval Period. I finalised the title and details with the organisers on Thursday. Vikki’s WES presentation inspired me to search for out-of-print sources I could use for illustrations.
I found a few but not enough. I then decided I could sketch some of the designs I wanted to show. I spent a day with a variety of circle shapes, a ruler and my own freehand, making sketches of symbols like the triquetra
or the Gosford Stone Cross in Cumbria, and a pattern that appears to emerge from a. cloth remnants in archeological digs.
I won’t win any prizes for drawing, but the drawing might help me explain. I now have a fair idea of the story I want to tell, and a very jumbled and patchy PowerPoint.
I’ve decided I need to write it as a prose account, with links to referenced material, then construct the presentation from that, with visuals for the audience and prompts for me. It’s a long time since I’ve worked like this, but I think it’s called for. Slow, but a better result.
The effort was enough to send me to the Queen St Cafe after Pilates for a late lunch of scrambled eggs, haloumi and asparagus (of course, with a lime milkshake). On Friday morning I visited the dressmaker again, this time taking the orange silk, the habitue lining and the previous dress she made for me. She hopes to have the new dress ready for me in a fortnight, based on the existing one, with the addition of pockets.
'On the weekend, as well as spending hours in the Early Middle Ages (which included more of the RSN History of English Embroidery) I went shopping at Frewville for Monday night- roast pork, potatoes and stir-fried veg. They had some very. decent oysters, so I had a dozen of them for a late lunch, along with zero alcohol Prosecco and fresh Turkish bread. Delicious , and reasonably healthy.
Yesterday it rained heavily. This didn't help my indoor plants, some of which were looking deprived. They picked up quickly with water. Then, around 10pm, the drip in my ceiling returned. I timed it for an hour, and reported it to the Strata rep, who has lodged a work order. I suspect this means it's time for a large drip tray in my ceiling.
I’ve also advanced the shawl. I’ve been weighing the wool after each row to calculated how many more rows I can finish. I estimate about 75. It’s very relaxed knitting.
I am, however, being distracted by some Easter kits that arrived yesterday. Today I postponed a hairdressing appointment, went swimming around midday, covering 750 metres in half an hour then got to work on the Easter projects, They are fun to make and I've nearly finished two. I'll wait till Easter to show them.
No comments:
Post a Comment