Birmingham

On Wednesday I went to Birmingham and to a meeting of the Midlands Textile Forum, which is held in the Birmingham Art Gallery Tearooms. Another exhibition has been organised which has intrigued me - it is entitled 'Legacy'. You can read all sorts of meanings into this and my mind is busy imagining and rejecting! After the meeting, I went to see the Exhibition 'Lost in Lace'. I have read two slating reviews of this. I walked in, took in the scale and colour (none) and thought 'This is a Pat Exhibition'. I urge anyone who can to visit it. It is wonderful. One of the best Textile exhibitions I have seen in a long time.

The idea is that modern artists create a work, or two, based on lace. All are in black and/or white except Michael Brennan-Wood whose is bright red. Everything is on a large scale. One exhibit has a large room to itself, about 20 foot cube and it is three quarters filled with what looks like a black spider's web- see it here. If you Google Lost in Lace, several links have photos. 

The Birmingham Christmas German Market was on and there was a stall selling nothing but stamps, made of metal. There were some flamboyant Fonts but, at £20 a letter, a whole alphabet was a bit expensive. So I bought some trees - see left. The workmanship is too fine to use acrylic paint, it will have to be ink and have I got any textile ink?

I also visited Waterstones and bought a book or two, then took the train home and set about the Christmas cards. I then wrapped the Christmas presents, rushed out on Thursday and bought the last ones, wrapped those and posted everything.

I had someone round to help me turn out the garage and we took a car load to the tip. The garage is now in a fit state to do some dyeing in. I need to do that this weekend as I have promised Tie-dyed T-shirts to Ruth for Christmas.

The car boot is now accessible. A local garage sorted out the problem in 20 minutes. I was shocked to discover that the Saab garage I have used for years has closed down. It is not surprising since Saab has gone broke. It was in Droitwich which is at least 30 minutes and often 45 minutes drive so taking the car there occupied most of a day. The local garage, which is not a Saab specialist, says they can service the car so I will hang on it for a few more years.

Today it is Christmas party time at the Bournville class and then I have the weekend to myself. I have a lot of Christmas presents to finish making and hope the weather is good so that I can work in the garage and in the cellar.  I have realised that it is sometime since I had anything on the Megado and will try to start on the next warp over the weekend. I am missing it.