Is it only the second week at uni?

I think I'm beginning to settle into my new routine, although you might not think it when I show you what I've achieved! 

The books of the week are not hand-made, but instead a hand-picked selection for my essay. 🙀 (Plus one about knitting.)

I think all of us mature new textile students were panicking about the essay, but the staff have been very helpful. The general advice we were given was:

1. to pick a topic which was relevant to our studio practice - 

this is my studio practice so far - 

2. if possible, to include works of art we'd seen in real life

3. to keep it simple.

I'd been thinking of something like 'trees in art' but decided that was possibly a little too large a subject for 3,500 words, so I'd narrowed it down to Graham Sutherland's trees - plus, after watching the excellent Mr. Graham-Dixon last week on the subject, a dash of Paul Nash. Not that I've seen many Sutherland trees, but we did potter over to Basingstoke last week to catch the Artists' Rifles exhibition there, which included several Nashes, both John and Paul - though not many trees. 

However my tutor suggested, that, as I want to explore disability issues, I consider looking at outsider art. I wasn't too keen on the idea to begin with, but when I thought about it, it grew on me. I saw some examples by Judith Scott, Ray Materson and Arthur Bispo Do Rosário, at an exhibition at Compton Verney some years ago, so that met criterion 2. They were all textile artists, which sort of met criterion 1, and the fact that they were all institutionalised but for different reasons suggested an essay structure, which helped with criterion 3. Plus there seems to be a lot about them on Google. 😺 

You can tell I've downloaded IOS8, can't you? Don't worry, the novelty will wear off pretty soon... In fact, after I discovered I can no longer use my favourite editing app, iPhoto (that is the iPad iPhoto, not the Mac iPhoto which is >,^*}#]#<>*^) the novelty wore off very quickly.😿 

But I digress. This week I got into Uni for one and a half of my planned two and a half days. Wednesdays look as if they are going to be pretty busy with lectures and tutorials, which means I've got to focus for the other one and a half days on the things I can't do at home - like relearning machine knitting. I was going to have a go on Friday but starting research for the essay took over. University libraries have changed a tad since I was last in one, and I had fun exploring. 😻

I have managed to finish my strange socks, and I have resisted starting another pair, as my studio practice makes excellent subtitle knitting.

I've been procrastinating about finishing the shawl, as I've been so tired that reminding myself how to add a lace edging, (which I do know how to do) has been quite beyond me. The upside of the tiredness is that I am still sleeping well, and I will tackle the shawl this evening as, apart from the excellent Mr. Graham-Dixon, there isn't much I fancy on TV.

The big piece for Visual Marks was also been on hold as I hadn't had time to heat up the soldering iron. I did that today and cut out 66 petals, before having another look at the flowers I'm using for inspiration and realising they don't have heart shaped  petals. Tough, they do now...👹