We picked up a leaflet last month for a textile art exhibition taking place in October 2021. I started making patchwork quilts when I was nine – made one, over a few years, then another at the age of nineteen – and, er, that’s it. I have stitched a few oddments like a cushion for my niece and a bag for Scrabble tiles as a present for a Scrabble-mad neighbour, but largely, there’s always other jobs to be done and the sewing hobby is last on the list.
Today we went along to see the exhibition. It was tiny. One room, roughly twice the size of our kitchen, with exhibits ranged around the walls and on the windowsill and tables. A lot of exhibits. The room was bright and subtly lit and the exhibits were incredible. We spent almost two hours examining each exhibit, discussing how they’d done this stitch or that knot, and took a lot of photos. The one at the top is my favourite (and sold before we got there) – a padded silk fabric picture that is soft and invites a touch but represents a section of flint wall.
Margaret Kay got the look of a Derbyshire stone wall down accurately in cloth – the fossils, the lichen, the ferns at its base. I envied a person who offered to turn the pages of the octopus books on the table, as she came equipped with a pair of cotton gloves. It’s hard to stop yourself from touching these artworks – stroking them, pressing the padded parts, twirling the ‘grassy’ fronds between your fingers. These are gorgeous artworks by people who are fiends for detail and in love with colour and texture. It’s an exhibition worth visiting. If you’re close enough to south Suffolk to get there before the exhibition closes on 31 October, get down to the Mill Tye exhibition at Great Cornard. I mean, you’ve seen my photos, but – you have to get nose to nose with these beautiful artworks to really appreciate them.
I did manage to submit something for the latest Scriptly challenge on time, so I’m now eleven down and three to go. Challenge 12 arrived at ten o’clock this evening and it’s not as tough as the last five or six they’ve set. I can’t help thinking, though. Next up is Challenge 13, and they’ll surely have some wicked fun with that number – and then the final challenge, due to be fired at us at 10pm on Saturday night, for us to write up and fire back by 10am on Monday morning. I’m flagging. I am. I will finish this damn challenge, even if I write them the world’s first ever ten-second long script. Then I suspect I’d be tempted to turn my back on writing for a month – except that I’m due to attend a reunion of the OU writing group in a few weeks, and November is Nano month. I can’t believe I used to gripe over not having time to write.
Julia Chalkley 