Today I spent some time in the studio. After living with this piece which I mocked up over a month ago, I still like it... I moved a few of the elements this way and that half an inch or so but, basically, I think this is it (except for the quilting, of course). I love the way the coloured bars appear to emerge out of and fade back into the background piece, a hand-dye by Marion Barnett. The blue bar on the right begins at the bottom of the piece and actually stops where you see the little yellow dot (the pin that is holding it in place). The same colour blue above the bar is part of the hand-dyed background. I also like the way the dyed design in the upper left corner seems to blend into the white and green swirls in the coral square. (You can see this better if you click to enlarge the photo.)
I've been studying colour more closely since rewatching the film, The Namesake this week on DVD. The film, by Mia Nair (the woman who directed Monsoon Wedding), is saturated with colour--and the most wonderful colours at that: orange-golds against rust-reds, greens and blues, oranges and purples. In addition to the fact that The Namesake is a wonderful story, the look of the film is breathtaking, in part because of the colours.
I also was taken with how graceful a woman looks in a sari. I actually have one which was included in a bag of fabrics that the above-mentioned Marion gave me when she was having a clean-out before she moved from Scotland down to England a few years ago. It is a long length of a light and floaty synthetic small print in mostly hot pink and gold which I've never been able to bring myself to cut into. Curious about how the sari actually works, I Googled "how to wrap a sari" one night this week while Don was at a meeting. You won't believe how many sites came up. The first one I opened (and many others, as well) had step-by-step instructions plus photos for doing the proper wrap. I followed them and, lo and behold, I did it! Despite the fact that I was wearing the sari over my jeans and the entirely wrong shirt, I got it wrapped correctly. The result was the most graceful and charming drapes here and there, plus the decorative end of the 6+ yard fabric which dripped over my left shoulder in the most wonderful way. Later, looking at another of the sites, I realized I had not used the wrap that the women in The Namesake used because there is a special Bengali wrap (and the women in the film were all Bengali). That wrap is even more graceful, if you can believe it. Or perhaps it's the Bengali women who make it so.
We had snow again yesterday and the day before. Today it is bright and sunny but still quite cold. The snow that remains on the ground doesn't appear to be shifting very much. But Don went to St. Fillans this morning just in case. What he found was that St. Fillans got a whole lot more snow than Comrie did. There is still snow all over the golf course. So he came home disappointed. This afternoon, Juliet dropped by briefly and mentioned that they had actually had close to 10 inches of snow in St. Fillans after all was said and done. She said three inches remain even after the thaws. (The problem at St. Fillans is that it is surrounded by much higher hills than Comrie is and so many areas don't get much sunlight...that is, when the sun is out.)
One last item: Don's Aunt Shirley turned 103 last week and this week, she died. This is what she wanted. Cousin Ruthellen wrote that she went peacefully and quite contentedly. Don's Aunt Esther is now the last remaining member of her generation of 13 brothers and sisters.
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