Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

V & S stripey monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

There were no hand made church biscuits at the weekend because of London babysitting on Saturday morning and the village Cricket Club Quiz on the Saturday night. I thought I might manage a bit of baking but in the end it was as much as I could do to rifle through the cupboards and dig out a couple of packets of custard creams. My next church biscuit will be number 50, so perhaps I shall have to try to produce something special. As you’re no doubt dying to know, our quiz team finished south of middling, let down as usual by our lack of knowledge of TV shows and pop music. Once again all that listening to opera and German Lieder has gone untapped and reluctantly I realise it’s about time I learned the names of all 7 of the Dwarfs from the Disney film which have come up at least twice in recent quizzes (Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy and Sleepy, just so you know).

V & S stripey monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Embroidering light colours in winter is quite challenging, even with the right sort of artificial light (which keeps me awake at night if I use it all evening) so you  would think all this lovely daylight would have me doing nothing but whitework. The trouble – well scarcely trouble – is that bright light, a bit of sun and the odd spring flower has made me long to have coloured threads running through my needle and my fingers twitch irresistibly towards electric blues, lime greens, scarlets, etc. and veer right away from off whites and pastel shades. My monograms are usually more complicated in design with filigree backgrounds or trailing flowers but I think this one makes the right statement for an elegant and strong minded recipient.

V & S stripey monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Enthused by the colours used in the embroidery I went round the house snapping brightly coloured things that took my fancy – just for the fun of it…

A line of Fortnum and Mason biscuit tins

A row of wooden dancing toys

Embroidered honeysuckle on kimono silk

Painting ‘The Blue Vase’ by David Addison

A row of Noddy books

Grandmother’s Flower Garden Quilt

Stained glass star

Japanese woodcut

I thought I’d try to get a quick but pretty looking post out and as my latest monogram is unfinished (awaiting approval), I decided to haul off my external hard drive photos of some Japanese woodcuts. Getting things off the external hard drive is aways slightly traumatic for me as the albums appear in iPhoto and look very like the current iPhoto albums in use on my lap top. I always think I’m going to end up deleting all my current albums when I close down the visiting albums even though I know I’ve closed iPhoto (laptop) in order to go iPhoto (external drive). Now you’re confused too. Very stressful.

Japanese woodcut

Having summoned these dozen or so prints up from the genie of the hard drive (not all are shown here), I wanted to tell you a bit about them. I bought them, one by one, from Liberty’s old print and antique department on the top floor of the store (well, I think it may have been in the basement when I bought the first of them). They came in the form of birthday or Christmas presents or even just as a treat for me from me (probably most appeared like this). In the last house I lived in in London, they hung on a terracotta stair wall as it snaked up to the top floor and they seemed eminently suitable there – you don’t really want pictures too interesting on the stairs or they might be too distracting and send your visitors skidding off and ending up in an inelegant pile on the floor below. In the vicarage they occupy the wall above the bed in the guest bedroom, although the odd two or three appear elsewhere where their colours look happier.

Japanese woodcut

I think the handwritten blurb on the back of the prints suggested they were designs for fabrics and I think they were dated as early C20th – of course that was covered over when the prints were framed. You think you’ll remember these little descriptive notes but of course, you never do – did the writing suggest they were prints for kimonos? No idea. But, armed with the certainty that they were fabric prints, I thought it would be easy enough for have a bit of an internet search and come up with some  similar image whose accompanying text would then enlighten me as to my prints. Well, I couldn’t really see anything similar except for a rare book of Japanese prints with little in the way of information.  With no time for further research at present, I now crave to discover more…

Japanese woodcut

Recently I returned to Liberty with money in my hand and the intention to spend it. When I retired from Balliol Library the staff had given me some Liberty coins (one of their versions of gift vouchers) and heavy in their purple draw string bag they would attract my attention whenever I delved into my handbag. I also feared losing them. Imminent spending was essential. Thinking how nice it would be to buy another woodcut I burst on to the top floor with joy in my heart … and stopped … all was very different.

Japanese woodcut

There were a few nice Japanese prints but they didn’t look very at home and when I think about it they looked rather apologetic for being there at all. I’m sure quite a lot of British Liberty lovers must have tuned in for the TV series taking us behind the scenes at Liberty (were there  2 series – one just before last Christmas and one just before the Christmas before?)? I haven’t mentioned it until now as I was very disappointed by the whole thing and couldn’t even watch the whole series through.

Japanese woodcut

The magic had gone. New Liberty management no longer wants people like me as customers, they’re really after flashy new money. The fabric is still wonderful – possibly better than it has been for years although there are few silks (if any) but the scarves are now very expensive – anything I picked up was £150 plus. Gone are the days when female relatives and good friends were given one of these each for Christmas. Coffee/lunch/tea is still affordable, though the last time I went the cafe was looking a bit tired. Enough said.

Japanese woodcut

Meanwhile I hope you enjoy looking at a few pretty pictures – I often think some of the motifs would be rather easy to copy as lino cuts and would make fun decorations for cheap calico curtains, summer dresses or children’s clothes. Of course, I have as yet not done this…

Japanese woodcut

Japanese woodcut