Thread book

I was given this varnished paper folder when I was a child, and last week I found it again amongst a pile of old stuff.

It's a beautiful and slightly tattered thing, when you open it there are many origami type pouches inside.

Each has a little scrap of something sewing-ish in it.

It has a funny effect on me,  the same effect the drawers and cupboards in a hotel room have - I absolutely have to look inside every single one . . . 

 . . . then I look in every single one again.

There's also this section for keeping threads organised.

And three little drawers that have been rendered useless by the age and general disrepair of the booklet.

A little research on the interweb revealed that it is a Chinese thread book, either Miao or Dong but I'm yet to ascertain which. I think mine it is twentieth century; judging by the fittings and fixtures. It has some sewing bits in it but I don't think it's been used much as it's crisp, a lot of examples I've found have a lovely worn look, like a pair of loved shoes.

I found these last two pictures at tribaltextiles.info, also a good find - it's densely packed with info, overwhelming in parts, but there are a lot of beautiful things to be found - like this thread booklet, whose pockets are made of cigarette packets decorated with paper and foil. Envious.

I imagined I might try and fold my own booklet I know a few bits of origami after all: I couldn't even make something resembling a pocket. Today I will be mostly dreaming about going to China to learn to fold such a thing.

January toot.

This week there's been some mean toot action. I've been visiting my folks for doing the drawing class and buying toot in the countryside - where it is bountiful.

Some Sixties shopping bags in pink and purple which are normally colours I can't like but in these combinations I really like them.

Fish shaped moulds.

And, continuing on the fishy theme, this dried puffer . . . beautiful, and a little painful to handle. Heaven knows why I wanted it, but I did.

Probably it's joyous grin seduced me. Cheered me up in the cold of the early morning. I think I shall add some googly eyes to complete it.

Dad, upon seeing it, decided it was a good time to share disgusting possession confessions - here he is with his foxes tail. Very good.

Back to more decorous objects, this mug is 1850 or there about, probably Staffordshire. With a truly amateur mend to the handle.

I love how o.t.t. the decoration is, busy and bold and colourful, I also like that the 'chinese' people on it look a little more like a pair of shifty interlopers from Staffordshire.

A small needle case found in a basket after I bought it - score.

The worlds smallest picture frame. I'm yet to find the worlds smallest picture but when I do I'll pop it in there.

A whole gang of fifties baskets.

And some pieces of handsome coral.

Very beautiful.
It's February soon and the January fug shall be over, until then if you need a bit of a tickle I'd recommend Kemp Folds.

Craigie Aitchinson

Last week I was lucky enough to attend London Art Fair. I left feeling I would like to buy some art, which I would. But I also left with this strange notion that five hundred pounds is quite cheap really, I guess that happens when you're wandering around seeing four and five number sums tacked onto things. Needless to say that notion wore off pretty sharpish and I've decided instead to pilfer as much art made by my chums as possible. Hear hear!
The best thing I found was Craigie Aitchison, who I didn't know about before.

I like the sparseness his work.

And the fact that he doesn't layer paint, all the objects seem to be slotted into their own gap in the background.

Which help make the colours jump about.

Sadly he died in 2009. Bloomsbury auctions are selling off his estate and had a special room at the fair with some of his possessions alongside his work, which was a wonderful thing.

All the objects were laid out, and it was so nice to see how the objects fed into his work, sometimes very literally.


I thought this cupboard was brilliant, gloss pink with white accents and a red tassle - and best of all it was very badly painted, most heartening. Seeing the toot of inspiring people is a wonderful thing.
The sale happened yesterday, maybe I should have gone because some of the things had five hundred pound estimates on, and that's not much really . . .

All together

Do you remember this post? We were trying to work out what a funny piece of toot was. Looked like a shovel but made of pewter.
Well, I know what it is: and I can tell you why we were all so confused. Because it's a bloody masonic thing, a symbolic shovel that's used in some kind of a rubbishy ritual. That's a real anticlimax for me, I wanted it to be something handsome used in some obscure rural pursuit like worm husbandry or turnip flinging.
Oh well, at least we know now, and to celebrate let's all do a dance . . .

Getting all inspired like.

Yesterday I got all wound up by looking at lovely fabric prints: so I went ahead and made some of my own.



Not too bad I reckon.

Marimekko and Maija Isola

So I'm aware that a lot of you probably know about Marimekko but I still thought I'd like to flag it up and tell you some things I've learnt since borrowing - this book. The company is so strong graphically and creatively you can't help but be sucked into their entire look.
(Here's a photo of the marimekko factory in the 50s, beautiful)

I loved especially reading about Armi Ratia (pictured below), the company's director and founder, because she's a stonker! She left college and ran a weaving workshop with six staff before even starting Marimekko.
Despite this there's an amazing quote in the book from a newspaper who interviewed her - firstly they described her as 'an attractive blonde' then she's quoted as saying - 'Marimekko really started as a joke three years ago . . . We made some of our fabrics up into fashions which we designed ourselves and had a fashion show, just for fun.' Oh the bad old days - when it seems the word woman was roughly equated with the word wazzock.

She ran the company in a really strong creative way - drawing on Finnish history and making a distinct look whilst staying up-to-date with fashions of the day. What I also love is how much the brand was a tangible thing and a part of her life. Below is her manor house in rural Finland called Bokars where she would stay and work and read, and which sums up Marimekko for me - a bit of a utopia.

Maija Isola was an artist, working in her own studio, who Marimekko bought designs from - I think they call this way of working 'living the dream' or sometimes 'being real jammy'. I adore her designs, she's done a lot of my Marimekko favourites. She also designed the poppies, which most people will recognise. Here are my favourite Isola designs from the book:

What did you do this weekend?

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I've been in Bristol working with some friends on a theatre piece - these are some of the drawings I did. Violent.