I know its not even 9pm, on a Saturday night but I'm in bed and loving it. It's been a long day in the shed. After nine hours of machining, I thought I deserved an early night.
With every bag I make, I learn a little more about myself. Today I discovered that I'm not keen on working with only one colour palate. To be happy bags, my bags need life and life is all about light and shade, and colours. Looking through my stockpile of fabric, I've found there are very few books with plain cloth. I've turned into a magpie.
As well as bags, I love stained glass. I used to make windows and tea light boxes. Thinking about it, they were always every colour of the rainbow too. And my knitted jumpers and crochet blankets are the same, why have just one colour when there are so many in the spectrum?
My favourite new trousers are mustard yellow. I have orange shoes and a bright apple green hoodie that I'm not able to take off anymore. In short I look alarming and no doubt mutton. Do I care? Not even an itsy bitsy bit. If I had a purple and red hat right now to put with it, I'd wear it with aplomb. Colour cheers me up.
Many, many years ago in Brighton where I grew up, there was a little Spiritualist church. I used to go there out of curiosity once in a while with a friend. Nothing ever really made much sense to me but an elderly lady one Sunday wouldn't leave me alone. She kept telling me that a long time from then, I would work with lots of colours, never a few, always lots of colours; this would become important to me. At the time I was in my early twenties and worked in a laboratory, I spent my entire life in a white coat, I had no idea what she was talking about, I did no crafts. Tonight, out of nowhere the old lady's words popped into my head. And then it struck me, I'd spent a blissful whole day in the shed with every colour and pattern of fabric around me; I had completely forgotten about the cancer. I may be making the old dear's words conveniently fit to make me feel better, but I'm sure I could see her smiling face in my minds eye.
