I haven’t blogged much in the last month or so: the book project is soaking up my time and energy, but I’m still here and much plotting is going on in the background, plus the next instalment of A-Z of pattern adaptation and more vintage pattern highlights are coming soon!
Even when your nose is to the grindstone you can still find inspiration which you mentally file to follow up at a later date, and I tend to take my inspiration where I can find it in these busy days … it’s great when something unexpected finds you.
I came across the book ‘Sam Pig Goes to the Seaside’ (written by Alison Uttley) the other day which I’ve kept since I was an introverted kid. I have to admit I’ve never made it through ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ but that doesn’t stop me happily flinging about the phrase ‘Proustian rush’. As a rule I try not to give in to nostalgia but the stories, A.E. Kennedy’s illustrations and even the smell of the paper triggered something off and swallowed me whole. I must have spent a lot of time poring over these pages when I was my son’s age, lost in Sam Pig’s world and filling in the empty spaces at the edges of the pictures with an imaginary bucolic world.















Knitting Therapy
So I was fascinated to see this advert for Penelope (a W.M.Briggs brand) tucked away in the back of a wartime era Needlework Illustrated (No.172). The text reads as follows:
“News from a Hospital somewhere in England.
By means of handicraft requiring varying degrees of attention and skill, occupation helps the patients to improved physical health. The one shown in our photograph escapes from the boredom of inactivity and from depression by embroidering Trace Art Needlework designed by Penelope.”
Even more interesting to see sewing being promoted as a male pastime, although it does beg the question: is it only acceptable for men to take up these traditionally female crafts during traumatic times when they need to escape ‘the boredom of inactivity and depression’? Is there a clue in that phrase as to why fibre hobby crafts are so closely linked to female social history?