Shoshiplatypus

Updated!

New photos of Tudor gown below…

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

I have tidied up!

I still have a lot of fabric scraps to tidy up and reorganise, but it’s so good to be able to see some surfaces again, and to be able to move round the room a bit more freely.

The Tudor Gown

Thank you everyone for taking such an interest in this project, and for all the lovely comments you’ve left me over the past few weeks.

Well, I managed to complete it in time! It was a tight deadline but I wore it on Saturday night and it was a great success!

Edit: A friend came today, and I put on the gown again to show her, and she took the following photos, which are better than the earlier ones I showed before. In these photos I have put on all the jewellery I wore on the night, to give the full effect.

If you scroll down to my previous post you can see some more pictures – when I took these selfies, I hadn’t sorted out any of the jewellery, except for the girdle.

The Tudor Banquet

Here are the photos I took of the Tudor banquet.

It took place in the barn at Trerice, a delightful Tudor manor house in the depths of Cornwall. Beneath the rafters they had stretched some netting, from which they had suspended hundreds of golden stars – it was quite beautiful!

As you can see, there wasn’t much room to move around, and once we were seated, we had to stay put for the duration. There was just enough room up the centre between the long tables for the servers to bring the food. As a result, it wasn’t possible to get any photos of me in my gown at the actual event. I did get some nice comments, though!

We were right up the top end, next to the little band of minstrels who entertained us throughout. They were all accomplished musicians and played a lovely selection of period music. When they went off in twos for their own meal, the remaining two would continue to play – the single recorder and drum was particularly evocative. The ladies in the group also sang a little.

We were entertained between courses by a small group of actors, who played the Lord of the Manor, Sir Thomas (right) and his steward, and also a serving wench.

There was a lot of banter between them, and they sang some pretty ribald songs that caused a lot of laughter! We all joined in for a sing-song at the end. It was all tremendous fun.

This is the view down the length of our table. You can see how packed in we all were! We sat with a delightful family (mum and dad in the foreground in the photo) and their two sons who were all in business together – a close-knit family who continued to do lots of things together even though the sons were grown up. They were such good company!

On arrival we were served mulled wine in the pottery cups, and in the photo you can see us all tucking into a hearty soup made with barley, served with hunks of bread. My hubby and I had the vegetarian option for the main course which was absolutely delicious – chopped vegetables in some sort of a sauce with a crispy topping, and afterwards there was Christmas pudding.

I was pleased that I wasn’t the only one who had dressed up for the occasion! There were several others, including a lady on the other side wearing a gold dress (cloth of gold perhaps?!) and if you look at the above photo, the man third from this end is wearing a brown monk’s habit, on the loose after his monastery had been dissolved by Henry VIII perhaps?

It didn’t finish until gone 10 p.m. and then we had quite a long drive back up to Devon and home again. It was past midnight when we got home.

The rest of the day – creative input!

The whole day was an absolute delight. We had arranged to meet up with some very old friends during the day. They moved to Cornwall only a few months ago from Scotland, and we hadn’t seen them for years. We met at a pub for lunch and then returned to their house for the afternoon.

After we’d finished lunch I looked at my friend’s empty dessert dish (a piece of slate, actually) and thought how artistic it looked!

Jacki is a mixed media and textile artist. She hasn’t managed to do much since their house move because they have been dealing with some serious health issues, so recently she has been confining her activities mostly to knitting. Like me, she adores colour, and I was positively drooling over her various creations which could be found around the house. If you want to see her paintings they are on the Fine Art America site. I am happy to say that I own two of her creations!

She has made two magnificent Kaffe Fasset style quilts which adorn the beds upstairs. I was also delighted when she showed me her acrylic paint pouring efforts – I have been watching a lot of Youtube videos about this recently and am fascinated by it but haven’t yet been brave enough to try this extremely messy technique! She has done a set of place mats, upcycling a tired old set, and each one is of course unique. It was great to see this art form “in the flesh” and hearing her experiences of it.

She had made a beautiful knitted shawl which I was drooling over, and when we left, she gave it to me!! I was overwhelmed by this gorgeous gift. Here I am wearing it on Sunday, over my kaftan (feeling too exhausted to get dressed on that day unfortunately) – it was so warm, and the colours themselves are enough to warm one up!

In reality, the colours are brighter than in the photo – it was hard to get the light just right.

When not being worn, it is laid out on the bed and it looks marvellous.

We had a fabulous time in her little studio, sharing ideas and inspiration and telling each other what we’d been up to since we last met up. She said that living in the middle of a farming community, where most of the interest is in livestock, she feels quite isolated and longs for a creative person to share with, and said she wished we lived next door! We agreed that we had both inspired each other tremendously during those short few hours together. I had taken along a box of goodies to show her – my Zentangle samples album and some Zentangle Inspired Art pieces, and my handmade books, as well as my slippers and my knitted scarf with the crochet and felt embellishments, and a few other bits and bobs.

Our paths have been different, and she hadn’t heard of many of the people or materials etc. that are familiar to all of us here on WOYWW, and in her turn she was able to introduce me to other interesting areas too. One of these was a lady called Mary Fleeson, who runs the Lindisfarne Scriptorium, a website where you can view and buy her contemporary Celtic designs, which I instantly fell in love with. I have always been fascinated by the intricate woven designs and have several books on the subject, and have tried my hand at a few. I loved her modern, freer interpretation of this ancient art form.

Saturday was a very long and extremely enjoyable day for me, and culminating of course in the Tudor banquet. It came after quite a long period where I had been pushing myself to complete the Tudor gown in time, and there was bound to be some payback for all this activity! I was able, in my usual way, to conserve some energy by sleeping in the car on both journeys, but on Sunday and the days following, I have been so tired that I haven’t been able to get up until quite late in the morning, and have needed to rest a lot in order to recover. I wasn’t able to get dressed on Sunday, and spent nearly all day on the recliner, and since then, have had to rest as much as I could.

Putting my inspiration into practice

During this time, my creative juices were not in resting mode, however, and having visited the Lindisfarne Scriptorium site, I decided to turn my hand to a couple of my own designs. My friend had not heard of Zentangle before, and with her in mind, I decided to incorporate some into the two designs I came up with.

I called the first one “Calligraphy” because once it was finished, it reminded me of some Islamic calligraphy. The photo doesn’t do it justice; the longest thread running the full width of the design is painted with gold acrylic, which doesn’t show up adequately, I’m afraid.

Most of the colour is Derwent Inktense pencils, with the addition of a little Derwent Graphik paint pen for highlighting and to cover a few mistakes.

The second piece is “Tree of Life.” Again, the photo doesn’t do it justice; the leaves are painted in gold acrylic.

This is definitely something I want to do more of. I would like to incorporate some text into this kind of design as well.

All in all, our time spent with our friends on Saturday was so inspiring and it did me so much good! I can’t wait to get stuck back into my studio again and I am sure that the coming year will be more fruitful creatively than this year has been.

Health Update

Bladder clinic

I mentioned last week that I had an appointment at the physiotherapy department at the hospital for a group session. This was a group of ladies experiencing various bladder problems. I thought it was a rather weird idea to have a whole lot of people sitting around talking about their waterworks with a lot of total strangers, but it wasn’t like that at all! There were about ten of us, and the meeting was led by a delightful physiotherapist who specialises in this area. She told us that the thinking behind this approach was that if she could give a general talk on various techniques that we can learn, many people can self-manage their problem and overcome it without further intervention. If, after a month or two, the problem still persisted, we were invited to phone for a one-to-one appointment which might involve further investigation. Doing it this way saves a great deal of time; most people only need a bit of teaching on self-management and they don’t need to clutter up the waiting lists for specialist appointments, and this means that the people who do need further help, get it a lot more quickly.

She illustrated her talk with slides, showing the anatomy of the pelvic region, and what can go wrong and why, and what can be done to resolve it. She taught us how to do pelvic floor exercises correctly, and how to retrain an overactive bladder. She said that gone are the days of suffering in silence, often for years, and having to resort to incontinence pads, because these very common problems can usually be resolved with a little help.

A few of the ladies didn’t speak at all, but several others of us were a bit more forthcoming; I think it was helpful because it showed the group the sort of things we were dealing with, and how we were coping with it, and the physio’s advice was interesting to us all. One poor lady became distressed and tearful; she has suffered terrible itching and problems with infections etc., and has absolutely no help or support at home, having recently lost her husband to cancer. She has also lost her son a couple of years ago. This made me think that there is always someone worse off than oneself, and it makes one count one’s blessings. We all rallied around her and tried to encourage her, and the physio had some helpful advice for her, and suggestions of what to say to her doctor, and offering a follow up one-to-one session. When I explained my problem of nerve damage as a result of chemo, and the fact that I need to drink a lot of liquid because of the risk of dehydration with an ileostomy, this poor lady said she felt so ashamed… her problem seemed so minor compared with what I’d been through. I felt the exact reverse! I do believe we are all given the strength to deal with whatever comes our way, if we will only avail ourselves of it. The group was so useful because it did open up a bit of discussion and dealing with an area that many people find too embarrassing to talk about, which can make one feel very isolated, in the group we could feel that we were not alone. The physio was so lovely; very practical and down to earth, and also put things in a very human and humorous way too, which put everyone at their ease.

As far as my own situation is concerned, I had already been putting into practice quite a few of the things she mentioned. She said to me that with the ileostomy, my fluid intake management might differ from her usual advice, and that my bladder isn’t simply overactive, but lacking normal sensation. She asked if I’d had a bladder scan when I first reported the problem to the oncologist, and when I said no, she said that should have been done. Anyway, I shall keep an eye on the situation and try and abide by as much of her advice as possible, and if things don’t improve in the next month or so, I shall phone her and she may want to take it further and perhaps refer me for a bladder scan. With inadequate emptying, there is always the risk of infection.

Teeth

Yesterday was the time for the dreaded six-monthly dental check-up again. After examining me he said that all looked to be fine, but it was time for another X-ray. This revealed a small bit of decay in one tooth which means I’ve got to go back in January to have that dealt with. I haaaate going!! After all the trouble I had earlier this year I was hoping for an all-clear. Our dentist is so nice, and he is always so encouraging and said I would be fine. He knows how I feel about it and always tries to make things as easy as possible.

Pants

The replacement first pair of hernia support pants has not yet arrived. The fitting lady had written on the form that this must take priority and I should have them by the end of this week, but we shall see. I have to phone her when they arrive and if they are OK, they will then make two more pairs, and if they are not OK, I shall have a screaming fit.

Kitties

On Saturday, the kitties thought all their Christmases had come at once. They had two breakfasts! Since we weren’t going to be home till late at night, we had to give them extra food to keep them going. We told them, “Don’t eat it all at once!” but of course they did. Then they got fed again when we got home. I was worried that Ruby would eat it all up too quickly and then be sick, and get terribly hungry afterwards, but all seemed to be well.

Here they are, cuddled up together as usual. Two little spoons.

No recipe of the week this week – I’ve been far too busy for cooking! I’ve got to get some done this week, though, because the freezer supplies are rapidly disappearing. At least I haven’t had to feed my hubby so much lately as he’s been gadding about eating Christmas dinners here there and everywhere…

Have a great creative week, everybody, and well done if you’ve made it to the end of this rather long post!