By Stephie, on Thursday 3rd February, 2011 at 09:50 am
 For Janie This little pillow is filled with roses. Well rose pot-pourri. And it smells wonderful. Just imagine popping it on the pillows on your bed and falling asleep breathing in the smells of a summer garden. Romantic nonsense? No! Everyone needs a little bit of romance don’t they? I know I’d like some. There’s been a serious lack of it around here for years  (It’s true!) But I digress. What do you think of the pillow? I made it for my exceptionally patient friend Janie (it’s a belated Christmas present) and I think she likes it, which is important! As you can see it’s an asymmetrical patchwork design with hand and machine quilting, some applique and embroidery. The small floral prints are from Liberty and the one with pink and yellow roses is from Tilda.
Are you wondering about the embroidered word ‘trees’? Maybe you’re thinking “it’s a bit random that bit”? You were? I thought maybe you’d be thinking that! Janie and I go for regular walks and I wanted to evoke something that might remind her of the beautiful places we’ve been, Trelissick in the autumn, Lanhyrdock in the summer…Miss P’s when it’s raining! (Slackers the pair of us.) And there’s a certain shade of green that she loves, so I included plenty of it here. And green, well it does remind me of trees…
I hope you like the photo mosaics I made too. They’re a lovely way of showing related pictures together, but I think maybe I need to take some better photographs. Or get a better camera, that might help. I wonder if the images are large enough too – if you click on them you’ll obviously see them full size, but I wonder if people actually bother to do that. Well people, do you?! You will let me know won’t you? I know I can be a miserable git but I really would like you to come back, so tell me what works best for you and I’ll give it a go.
 Details of the front  Hidden heart Until next time then.
Love Stephie x
By Stephie, on Monday 2nd August, 2010 at 04:35 am
“I don’t get marriage,” I said. At the top of my voice. At a ‘ladies that lunch’ lunch. The sun suddenly went behind a cloud and I swear I saw one of those Western tumbleweed bundles blow past. It was an exhilarating moment: I had said something controversial, amongst a number of strangers. All eyes were on me and I looked back at them square on. “Sarah’s getting married at the end of August.” It came out of nowhere, like the trilling notes of a skylark. Sarah, a blonde, tanned early 40-something mother-of-two was sat beside me. She looked at me shyly and I looked at her with pity. “Why?” I asked her. “We’ve been together for five years and the time feels right,” she said. I just raised my eyebrows.
“Haven’t you ever been married?” came another voice from across the table somewhere. “No,” I said, “I don’t see the need. I think it’s just a way of handing over your identity.” This last part was completely misconstrued: apparently, to ladies that lunch, “handing over your identity” simply means changing your surname. I began to point out that this wasn’t what I meant, I meant that in the eyes of society a married woman’s needs and wants are secondary to those of her husband’s/the society. The idea of an interesting debate drifted off on the summer breeze along with the tumbleweed. It turns out that the owner of the voice across the table had been married two or three times (I’m not good remembering numbers), so I asked her the same question I’d asked Sarah: why? Apparently it was about “showing commitment”. Commitment to what? At that point in her life she’d made a “commitment” to more men than I ever have. I asked her how long her longest marriage had lasted. (Was I impudent? I don’t really know.) “19 years,” she said, smugly. “My ex-partner and I were together for 23 years,” I retorted. Marriage a commitment does not make. So what is it, really, that makes women want to be married? What do you think, ‘cos to be honest, it’s still lost on me.
This article on Feminist Philosophers‘ blog helps illustrate what I mean. It refers to an article by JK Rowling in The Sunday Times. It’s about how David Cameron planned to give a £150 tax break to married couples – if that isn’t social engineering into marriage I don’t know what is. And please, just reflect on the gender bias of the UK government; what does that say to you? I know exactly what it says to me: men are trying to manipulate me into marriage with a carrot on £150 stick so that they can wipe me off the single parent list, which does nothing for their image with their voters. I say sod you, do you really think I’m that stupid? And you’re not telling me what’s good for me mister, go sort yourself out first.
Oh god, I’ve just noticed it’s 4.30 in the morning. I’ve got to be up again in three hours. Probably time to stop then. Night, night.
Love Stephie x
By Stephie, on Tuesday 20th October, 2009 at 01:34 am
There’s a crisp wind picking up this evening. It gusts and stumbles through the hedge outside my bedroom window and I listen. Leaves are blown free from their trees and skitter across the ground, scratching autumn into the cobbles. I love the sound of the elements; the window rattling, the odd car in the distance. I feel safe inside, warm and secure. Occasionally I catch the mumbling voices from Kim’s radio next door. He’s sleeping soundly, but finds the voices and music soothing if he wakes before it’s time to get up. I don’t like the intrusion of stranger’s voices in my room, but it’s comforting to hear them coming gently from next door, reassuring me he’s there.
By Stephie, on Friday 4th September, 2009 at 23:54 pm
There’s a kind of tornado going on in my head; it’s uprooting all my thoughts and ideas, plans and expectations and spinning them in the vortex. Rough and brutal.
Loose sheafs of paper are lifted with the same ease as lead weights. I become drowsy as the storm subsides, my energy sapped. Everything falls to the ground, randomly , and I can’t find anything that makes sense. They’re all parts of me. They’re all disparate and I don’t recognise them in their new guise.
By Stephie, on Thursday 11th June, 2009 at 22:27 pm
 Letter and my notebook A letter arrived on my doormat one morning this week. It was different from the usual brown envelopes: it was transluscent and hand written. I picked it up and felt its smooth surface – and a flutter of excitement. I knew who it was from. I’d been hoping, waiting for just this letter, but I had no idea what would be inside. I just knew instictively that it would be beautiful and deeply personal. I looked for the opening and found that it was taped tightly closed. I didn’t want to rip it, I wanted to preserve the envelope just as it was. So I headed straight to the kitchen table, my creative space, to find a scalpel. I sliced through the layers, imperceptibly, to find a sheet of folded paper wound with thread. I slowly untied it, unfolded the handmade paper and stood like Vermeer’s woman in blue; still, contemplative and lost in another world.
 There were lines of poetry  and a bird furled in its shell.  Now the letter waits, with my notes and thoughts, until I have something to send on its way back. Letter by Chantal Brooks for Unspoken. More Creative Spaces over at Kirsty’s place.
By Stephie, on Saturday 2nd May, 2009 at 20:22 pm
I opened the door from my bedroom onto the dull, north light of the hallway. It was mid morning and I’d just forced myself out of bed, really not ready to face the day. I noticed the postman had been: a small brown packet was on the floor beside the front door. I wasn’t expecting anything and was curious about what was inside. There was Cellotape right round the edge and for a moment or two I didn’t recognise the handwriting. I tried to open it carefully, realising that I might damage something precious inside, but in the end had to tear at it because the tape refused to come away.
Inside was
 an old tin that made me feel nostalgic. Made me think of children and their mothers tenderly wiping a grazed knee, adding a plaster for protection.  I opened the lid and there were no plasters.  But I found a message. And held my breath.  I took it out carefully and discovered the loose pages of a story behind.  A woman stared at me through the fog.  Was this her? Her child? Fragile and vulnerable.  Watching and waiting.  Hoping.  Despairing. Gently I put the pages back in the tin and I closed them into the dark again. Into the silence.
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I'm running a 28 mile marathon in memory of Josie this February. Come and find out why.
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