2013 in review

So far this year, I have had quite a few conversations about when it is best to stop saying "Happy New Year!" In a way, it feels quite clumsy to carry on saying it to everyone you see for the first time this year. However, on the final class of my beginners crochet course last week at City Lit one of my lovely students told me a lovely story, with the moral being that you should always say it to anyone you haven't seen, even if it is in August! 
So now I feel confident instead of awkward saying it and, with that in mind, I am going to start the year off right, if late, with a "Happy New Year" to you all and a little review of last year, especially because the last part was so eventful in both exciting and worrying ways - hence my lack of posting about it. The City Lit class on Friday was a catch up session as I had to cancel the actual class at the end of last year due to ill health. I am hopefully finally on top of it and having a medical action plan for at least the next year or so is making me take stock, look after myself and my family and to celebrate some of the wonderful things I have done and have planned. Hopefully without stressing too much over them! So this is a sort of montage of what I got up to last year - some parts will be elaborated upon as I hoped to do originally over the next few posts.

BOTTOM PICS, from left to right, top to bottom: shot from The Knitting Collection, taken by Britt Spring; view from Gawthorpe Hall on a trip to the textiles collection; shot from Inside Crochet taken by Britt Spring; drawing at the anorak summer fair; shot from Inside Crochet taken by Britt Spring; at DK books; the beautiful Midland hotel, morecambe; at shoot location; The Knitting Collection; photoshoot coffee break; Pauline Turner's library; Home London; drawing at babyccino shopup; Eric; at shoot location; student's work at Pauline Turner's anniversary celebrations; my Jess headband from The Knitting Collection, taken by Britt Spring; Toft at the Stitch and Knit show; my throw on the cover of Crochet, which I consulted on, contributed to and commissioned for; shot from The Knitting Collection, taken by Britt Spring; swatch for the Gawthorpe collection project; teaching how to crochet at City Lit; judging the textiles prize at the Stitch and Knit show; photoshoot action shot. TOP PICS: fragment from the amazing Gawthorpe textiles collection; party bags, Alice in wonderland party; beautiful double rainbow while judging student's work at Pauline Turner's house; my beginner students' grannies.

baby crocheted loveliness

Firstly, a very happy new year to you all, hope you had a wonderful festive period. I wanted to quickly share with you all a thoughtful gift received beautifully wrapped for my little girl's first Christmas.

Emma Varnam, a very talented designer who I have met through Inside Crochet magazine kindly sent it to us and it has been very useful already, as well as being a very pretty accessory which has received countless compliments from strangers as she is proudly pushed around town in it!

I don't think Emma has written the pattern up yet, so head over to her blog and pester her to do so!!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all have a fantabulous 2011! I feel that this year will be a year when hopefully you will see a more focused and organised Monty. Last year was more of a transitional year for me, with many changes and projects and yet not a huge amount of time for decisions and planning. I achieved a lot, including becoming a magazine editor, which I love, and finishing a book that aims to teach children to knit (above), which I have wanted to complete for many years. However, as a freelancer, one always feels that no offers of work should be turned down, as you do not know what the future holds, so I have often wasted energy working on things that I have little interest in. I hope 2011 will be the year when I may complete fewer projects, but base them around themes and goals I have always wanted to achieve, while also working on having a lot more relaxation and personal time! (I am hoping that a long awaited holiday is on the cards this year!!)

Before I move on totally from 2010 however, I have just found a whole camera full of pictures from the end of the year that I never got round to posting about. So, over the next few posts, I shall give you a quick round up of those things, and some other important parts of my 2010.

Way back in the spring, I went to see the Quilts exhibition at the V&A with a very good friend who I did my textiles degree with. I really enjoyed this show, and surprisingly I loved the older quilts more than the modern versions, some of which I feel lacked the beauty and intricacies of the antique blankets.

However, I adored Sara Impey's Punctuation (above) and I have always loved Tracey Emin's quilts. At around the same time as the exhibition was on I read a great interview with Emin in Vogue where she stated that:

'...there [is] a contraditction within the quilts: the message [is] immediate, but that message would have taken a painfully long time to put together.'

This is what I love about Emin's and Impey's work, as well as that of the older quilts. The messages are important and instant to the viewer, but when you begin to look closely at the stitching and fabrics, you see the maker's hand and processes and the piece takes on a whole other importance, life and meaning. In Impey's work the negative space is as important as the stitches, as the lettering is made from the plain, unstitched fabric and the words chosen derive from a personal, family letter. Some of the older quilts were displayed so that you could see the reverse, with the templates the maker had used to create the quilt still visible. I love this reverence for the skill, process and time involved within the craft. As a textiles designer, I have always felt that the making is as important as the final piece with involved and time-consuming crafts, where the thoughts, conversations even relationships you have as you make a certain piece all add to the final product. As Emin stated in Vogue:

'It is not just the words I make that are sewn onto the blanket that are important. It's the thoughts and the words that are spoken as the blankets are sewn.'

This is a great way to end this post, as it refers back, in some way, to what I was speaking of at the beginning of the post; I am going to give myself the time and space to concentrate on my knitting, crochet and sewing this year and hopefully the decisions I make while creating some fabulous pieces will be all the better for the added time and care I have taken over them.

I still have some more pictures to show you from 2010, here's hoping I can learn more about where I want 2011 to lead from looking back at those, too!! More soon.