The first to stand up and the last to fall down...

I've finished my coat.. I haven't taken pictures of it yet as I want my family to see it first. But I've got some 'in progress' pictures.
I'm pretty happy with it i'd say! I shall explain it's various features in due course.

I've come home this weekend to Herefordshire for about 36 hours, and been cleaning out some of my wardrobe. Taken loads to the charity shop, who were very excited to not have old people's clothes!
I found some bits of  my A-Level printmaking work, and I was actually pretty neat at it! Shame etching is so expensive to do now, outside of school.

Also, last weekend five of us went to the South Downs and Beachy Head for a road trip. Dom's band Groves, have just recorded four of their songs and had them produced by a top industry guy, and things are looking exciting for them. So we hired a car and went down to the coast to do a photoshoot for them. My friend Nadine has previously done their artwork, so she came along to help as she's going to turn the photos into her amazing psychadelic screen prints.
It was a mad day - super-wind, hail, driving rain, bright sun. I foraged for seaweed at Burling Gap beach, and took a big pocketful home to dry and freeze and make into soup.

This is a sample of onion skin dyed fabric. I dyed this piece of old jersey a while ago, and i just don't know what to make with it yet...

token studio shot

Sunrise coming through my bedroom window at home this morning

Queen Clarice looking pretty

And below are my old etchings from school!

Oh and below are some scans from my Dressmakers Encyclopaedia! Had to share

Handsome fellow

And I went to stay with Papa at his wee house in Kent on Thursday night. He lives there during the week for work. It's an old tractor shed with a wood burning stove, which I slept right in front of. We listened to country music and drank tea by the fire. Then we went to the pub for dinner with Lucy and Phil, my aunt and uncle who live nearby, and then we came home and listened to a radio show about Van Morrison's influences and drank tea in front of the fire. 

The next day I went to visit his factory and saw all the tailor's dummies in production which was interesting. Really nice to see small scale manufacturing business, where people know each other and all play a distinct role. Much nicer than a huge corporate empire!

We then drove the four hours back to Herefordshire, and passed 18 miles of lorries lined up. They are all queueing to make it to the channel tunnel after the fire in there last week, which has jammed up the lanes. It was mad, looked like something out of the American West.

We listened to Eric Church - I love this song!

And later listened to Bruce Springsteen of course! The new recording of The Ghost of Tom Joad from this High Hopes album is just flawless!!! (excuse the random Greek subtitles) Insane. Listen in a dark room, or outside by a campfire if you can. Or driving at night on quiet roads. Or in the coal cellar!

'... and we shall live by the light of a camp fire and the sound of our little portable turntable. And sleep resting our heads on the bellies of the stray dogs we will take under our wing'

poem by me about squatting in a pub with Dom!