Buttercupchappati Chronicles

making lace in a throwaway world

Do you ever watch that movie Love Actually? I really like the voice over part at the beginning where the Hugh Grant character talks about how he feels much better about the state of the world when he thinks about the arrival hall at Heathrow, all that happiness and love right there.

My feel-good place? Spotlight.

You cannot go into a Spotlight store and not feel that everything will be okay. (For those who don't know, Spotlight is a large chain of stores that sell fabric, wool, sewing machines, buttons, curtains, everything you could ever need for making anything!)

These places are always busy, busy to the point of chaos. People, mostly women, are bustling about with arms laden with stuff! They are making curtains, deb dresses, baby clothes, knitting, making jewelry, you name it, it is going on. If there is a complex and time consuming craft that was only done by blind nuns in a remote convent on an island off the coast of a lost country, you can buy the stuff to do it here.

I adore it. No matter what the state of the nation, what terrible atrocities are happening in the world, what the banks are doing, what the government is not doing, women are still making sure everyone has a warm jumper and matching cushions for their curtains. We are still sitting in front of the tv at night making things, because we can and that's what we do.

I don't sew, I can but don't tell anyone. At high school in our compulsory sewing class I accidentally sewed up the leg holes of the phys ed pants we had to make, ummm ... And don't get me going on patchwork, why would you cut  up perfectly good fabric just to sew it back together? But I can knit and crochet and embroider with the best of them. Not to mention all the other crafts that have been big parts of my life over the years.  Lace making was one of the ones that I had admired from a distance but thought life was too short to embark on that particular journey.

Then in January, when in Sydney for an exciting visit to the Harry Potter exhibition (yes, geek out) we found ourselves in the Lace exhibition at the Powerhouse museum.

Wow.

Really, wow. Apart from an exhibition of the most beautiful collection of contemporary lace art works, there is a lace making lab where some truly gorgeous ladies will show you how lace is made, tell you everything your heart could desire to know about lace; and, take you through the permanent lace collection.

Here is drawer after drawer of exquisite pieces, crafted over so many hours its hard to imagine. Lace dating back to the 15th century. A panel of lace depicting the story of Judith and Holofernes, marginally bigger than a credit card, needing a magnifying glass to really see the detail, made in a time when the artificial light was a candle!

But the big excitement for the lovely lady who had taken me in hand was their collection of modern lace. Particularly lace made in eastern Europe after the second world war. There was nothing, absolutely nothing to be had anywhere in Europe at this time, forget about fine threads and the leisure for making lace. But these artisans needed to create again, that was their healing journey back to a place of sanity. So this amazing lace is constructed out of fine wires, synthetic fibres, whatever they could use, they did. The modern designs and stark shapes tell their own story of lives moved into a different paradigm. It was some of the most beautiful art I have ever seen, and the most moving.

My life does not have room for lace making, as much as I admire it, I will stay at a safe distance. But it makes me happy to think that all over the world people are still taking up their bobbins and threads and keeping this tradition alive - don't think for a minute that it is just old ladies either! This and so many other hand crafts might just be saving the world for us in ways we can't see or ever imagine.

 

Digital lace by Natalie Mcleod 

girls on the beauty prowl

I spent a day with my bestie yesterday and we had to go on a mission of mercy for my skin which is in Tibet-recovery mode, and much as I love the place and the people, I have no real desire to look like an old weathered Tibetan lady.

So, we hit the cosmetic counters which is ALWAYS fun. I love this stuff as much as the next girl, and a day  investigating all these pots of magic is a good day. Really, what if just a few dabs of some sumptuous cream can keep us all 18 years old and gorgeous forever?

We ended up at the Lancome counter. I have not used their products for many years after a mini boycott when they fired Isabella Rossellini for being too old. Seriously, I would be happy to be half as beautiful as her at any age. But time moves on  and those with high plateau dehydration must forgive, forget and go shopping.

The mind boggles at some of these products and the sheer weight of money behind them. One of my purchases was ten years in development and has, wait for it, 110 patents pending!

And one of the sneaky pleasures for me, taking me back to my marketing days, is the spin. No longer is your face cream just anti wrinkle, it is anti aging, of course and youth recreating!  Not just firming, it is a re-positioning cream. I love it, can I re-position my face wherever I want it to be?

And will it work on my boobs, because they could certainly be re-positioned - back to where they used to be!

This is still a beautiful face!

I can't complain too much, one of the doctors in Xining thought I was 24, and was quite offended when I fell about laughing.

counting back or counting down?

Happy birthday to me.

51

Now come on, that is just a strange strange number.
51
Really?

Everyone thinks of 50 as a kind of half way marker (but do I really want to drag myself all the way to 100? Only if everything still works and I can look after it all by myself!). But if the way is downhill, why do the numbers go up? Maybe it's pushing those increasing numbers along that wears us out? I don't know.

I do know what makes me feel old, and what makes me connect with my younger self - who is never very far away.

Feeling old:

Housework, I'm telling you, it's killing you in all sorts of ways

Pictures of 70's fashion

Hanging out with people who decided early on in life that they were old

Being good at Trivial Pursuit

There is a hemline age marker you cannot cross, I cannot even define it, but when you try on something that is too short you just know, and it need only be too short by a  millimetre but it is tooooo short. sigh.

Writing thank you notes, apparently that makes me a dinosaur

Feeling young:

Well most of the time really but especially when I am with my boys, they get older not me!

Skipping, yep still a skipping girl

Peanut butter on toast

Earrings, and remember there is no such thing as a complete set

Red anything but especially lipstick and underwear

Laughing - best beauty cream in the known universe, forget about smile and laugh lines, they are proof that you are a living laughing being. Who wants to go to their grave with a smooth un-used face?

Buying the short dress anyway

And lastly, love love love, you know it's true what Saint John of Lennon said, it is all you need.

 

 

 

an open letter to whoever is in charge

the creator?

Whatever, that will do for now.

Thank you, yes I slept much better last night knowing that my laundry is now a place of cleanliness and order.

Why?

I mean, re-play that sentence in your head (as my number two son so often says to me after one of my comments). What in this life is so good about having a clean laundry?

In fact, what in this life is so good about having a clean house?

Is this some obscure cosmic joke? Ah yes, lets fit the girl babies with the cleaning gene, oh yeah, and ovaries.

Because, with respect, there were a thousand more important or even enjoyable things I could have done with that time. Same for the household males who were press ganged into helping. (Although, only have moderate pain on that front, most of the mess was theirs.)

The boys tell me, with great glee, that when faced with the prospect of visitors, I come over all 50's housewife and go into a frenzy of housework and properness. Yes, properness, if it is not a word, it should be, and is now.

And I have seen it happen over and over in intelligent, creative, important, busy women, whose lives are crammed full. Cleaning rears its ugly monster self, and in the grip of this beast everything else fades away.

Maybe it's the gathering thing, while the men are out hunting we are gathering up their crap from all corners of the cave.

But for the record, next time I would rather lie on the couch, eat Turkish Delight and watch Oprah save the world, again.

the healing powers of shopping and girl talk

Really.

So, so cold today it was necessary to go into all the shops rather than just wander past. Just as it was essential to chat and chat and chat....

Although tonight when I am staring at the ceiling well after midnight I might rethink that second coffee. Oh well.

Had to buy the green scarf with the silver sparkles, it reminded me of one I had when I was 17. A gift for my mermaid self.

Did resist the bookshop, which probably saved lots and lots of money!

But even without books (what am I saying?), a happy time.  

Thanks beautiful girls.

Is grey the new black?

Every magazine I pick up lately, and we are not talking about just the women's glossies, has had a piece on the - how surprising - fact that we should all allow our hair to go grey naturally.

Hmmm.

I don't have a problem with the concept of going grey. I have only ever coloured my hair for fun, and because it is a boring colour to begin with. But who are we trying to kid here? In whose best interests is this little campaign? The feminists will do as they please, as they should. The hairdressers and the big cosmetic companies don't want us to stop colouring our hair. Haven't seen any grey-headed Playboy Bunnies lately.
When Lancome fired Isabella Rosellini as their "face" because she was too old (Please!), her hair wasn't grey, and her beautiful face just keeps getting more beautiful. I haven't bought another Lancome product since that day. Clearly they haven't gone broke on the strength of my little protest, but it made me feel better.

We all of us associate grey hair with the crone. Now here's a thought... we are younger longer now, we have some of us 20, 30 years between ceasing to be an active mother (or indeed being able to give birth) but we are not at the crone stage yet. We need an extra face of the feminine goddess now. We don't go straight from maiden to mother to crone anymore. What do we call this new phase? It is certainly a time when many of us can please ourselves. We are old enough to know what we want, and what we don't want. We are still feeling feminine (mostly), and are probably, finally, comfortable in our own skin.

So is this where grey becomes the new black? Is this when the hair colour we have all been taught to fear becomes alluring, attractive, flattering, a badge that shows this is a woman, not a girl, and not yet an old lady.

In a strange way I look forward to the old lady with her wrinkles, her chin hairs and her wild untameable hair.
I look forward to one day throwing away all the mirrors and being Baba Yaga. Will people then really look at your face, into your eyes and see who and what you are?

And as for the two white streaks appearing at my temples? I kind of like them, like racing stripes.
I am not going to fuss about hiding them. So we will see, maybe I'll get bored and go and get hot shocking Schiaparelli pink put in again. It's just hair.