'If you make happiness your goal, then you're not going to get to it… The goal should be an interesting life."

Dorothy Rowe

Wednesday 25 November 2009

Degree – day 4

was a curate’s egg. I found the morning uninspiring. It was an introduction to IT – undoubtedly a government requirement. To paraphrase one of my favourite singers, Tom Paxton, ‘even if your name is Bill Gates you still have do the introduction to IT’. Unfortunately college uses Windows 2007 and I don’t – so I am now left wondering whether I really need to upgrade. Does it have any advantages apart from an excess of choice? Comments gratefully received.

The afternoon was ‘Contextual Studies’, which I really enjoyed – a lecture and then a discussion based on the homework from last week. Although I have found the art side of this degree a bit scary, I really feel I am learning something. Unlike the IT.

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Another good thing was that the couple who sell floristry supplies came in to college today. What have floristry supplies to do with Stitched Textiles? Well – this is what I bought. Some hessian mats, some magenta Sizoflor, [both of those are stitchy]some Christmas decorations, [not stitchy] two pieces of what I can only describe as ironed bark, and a giant pencil shaving – which I think is probably the waste from sharpening a fence post. All for £6.20.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with any of it apart from the Christmas decorations – but I’ll find something. The pencil shaving is quite soft so can probably  be stitched through – and the bark should make lovely rubbings.  

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Apologies for the camera reflection in this – these are 4 versions of the same photo of part of one of the CT installations. The background is a piece of tissue paper which came out of a new pair of shoes – and seemed perfect for this theme.

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Speaking of wrappings – what do you think of this?  One of two which arrived today. Fortunately they only contained bedding – a pair of cot sheets in one and mattress protectors in the other. And yes, they would have fitted in the same box.

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To be fair, I don’t think the state of the packages is the fault of Boots but of the couriers – the delivery guy did apologise. And there was a lot of this filling the gaps. 

Do normal people get excited about a pile of crumpled brown paper or is it just toddlers and textile artists? For those who are resistant to its charms, you can scrumple it, paint it, print on it, sew it, etc.etc. etc. – and I got just as excited about the bubble wrap in my last Artesaver delivery. Sad, aren’t I?

 

3 comments:

Margaret Cooter said...

Crumpled brown paper is wonderful - but I remember being a bit baffled, many years ago when starting the textile journey, when Louise Balwin showed us how she uses it!

Lesley said...

Just quick comment. I doubt very much you would need to change to Windows 2007 to use the relevant software for your course, which is probably Word, Photoshop? If you are writing essays the version of Word might be more critical. Hubs was given a small bottle of wine recently. I raved about the beautiful mauve tissue paper that was wrapped around it. Lesley

Julie said...

Not sad at all! I collect all sorts of paper including brown too.