Wednesday 13 November 2013

Coming full circle

The creative urge has been upon me. Either that or the fear of an empty table with nothing to sell at a craft fair, and a horror of missing out on the opportunity of Clevedon Art Club's exhibition. So I have been making and making and making. Some things are very clearly more suitable for the exhibition:-

And some things have been very obviously Craft Fair items:-

And then we have one or two in-betweens; I am not sure what to think yet. After stitching my felt onto a couple of canvases I bought, I've had an experiment with two new frames: floating canvas frames. What do you think? I quite like them, but husband, being a husband, doesn't like them at all and is spouting practicalities about gathering dust.

These leaves started life as brooches for Crafty Birds but a) I wasn't convinced anyone would want to wear one and b) I was just sad that they didn't turn out as beautiful as the ones on Dog Daisy Chains, for whom I have a new-found respect. But I quite like them all together like this (although again husband doesn't). The other frame was for this:-

I keep humming and ha-ing about swapping the colours over, but probably won't. 

Other than that I am ridiculously excited to have just won something on Ebay: an old 1980's pair of glasses from Belgium. Oh dear how crazy do I sound now? Let me explain: in 1989 when I had a year in Belgium, I used to walk through a beautiful old shopping arcade nearly every day and I always passed an optician's in this arcade, and would gaze in at the artful display of Lafont glasses wistfully. Those glasses just seemed the pinnacle of style and they came in every colour and finish you could imagine back in 1989 when coloured glasses were all the rage - although these were definitely classier and more toned down than your English Timmy Mallett's. Eventually I saved up all my spare cash for a term (£130 which was some feat back then) and, armed with a British eye prescription helpfully written out in several different formats, I went in and got the ones I'd been lusting after for months (despite the optician trying to persuade me in a very Belgian manner that some other ones might "make my face look more cheerful"). I loved them. So how sad I was, just a couple of months later, when I left them on a bus and they ended up on a journey to Great Yarmouth on their own, never to return. I don't know why I've been thinking about that episode again for the first time in years but I did get a glimpse of myself in my 5 year old glasses recently and realised how awful they are (this time husband says they are good, heaven forbid we should agree on anything). So I went on a quest and found the very same Lafont glasses, just one pair, going on Ebay from an old Belgian shop clearance, never been worn, still with the "Jean Lafont Paris" written across one demonstration lens. Not the same colour (my old ones were a speckled chestnut, these are a marbled dark grey) but the very same style and for old times' sake I felt obliged to bid. And for the grand sum of £15.44 including postage to the UK, I have won them. Of course they will probably be terrible: I wonder if they came in different sizes? What if the plastic has decayed over the years? How about the fact that my face has definitely decayed over the years in between and could certainly do with "looking more cheerful"? Maybe the opticians here won't be able to fit lenses in them? And, the dreaded, what if they fit and suit me but they just look really dated and I look like Su Pollard in them? Do you know what? I don't care: I have just had closure. And I don't even have to wear them. Ha. 


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