Post Hoc Exilium (after this exile). A line from a very early Christian hymn, Robert MacFarlane talks, in his book 'The Wild Places', of monks who chose to live on remote Scottish Islands building tiny cells and living in harsh conditions in order to be closer to God. They felt that they were in exile from heaven.

  

In a remote Cornish bay in the idyll of my childhood I would stand in the clear water and try to touch the ferny seaweeds that floated there. Their texture was beautiful but I could not touch it, I was of the earth and air, they of the water. I could only try and touch them with my mind.

 In 2016 I began a residency with the vascular surgery unit at St.Mary's hospital in Paddington London (see the Thread Management blog in the side menu). Whilst working there with Professor Colin Bicknell I could not touch I could only look but I saw him train a young surgeon by allowing her to put her hand on his as he felt his way through to where he needed to be. 

 

Between the seaside holiday and now I have learned many techniques with textiles, the most obvious involve touch, the less obvious are about sight and visual texture.

The piece that you see here represents all that I know of my craft mapped onto what I know of the surgeons. 

The vascular system of the hand is made using the needlelace cordonnet technique, the glove has seams which mirror those arteries. Both pieces have cuffs, one in a sturdy reticella style lace with branching arterial pattern, the other is a freestyle needlelace.

I took particular care to retain the 3D quality of the arteries where the deep palmer arch seperates from the superficial palmer arch.

 Though there is the obvious parallel between our knowledge what it also speaks of is the extension of touch that I already understood and the extension of empathy that I had to make to understand the world of surgery.  

New in the shop

 

 Well, after moving home and studio, it has taken a while to unpack and find everything! Here now are a few new items in my shop...

The first is 'The Attached Spool', above. An antique spool of hand spun linen which has become mysteriously attached to a long couronne chain.

 These chains are found in the Italian technique called Casalguidi stitch, a branch of stumpwork techniques, and are made using a couronne stick. The beauty of them is that the rings are properly linked together which inspired me to try attaching them to existing objects.

Next are two hand stitched ring brooches. They are both early 20thC. pieces in brass or silver coloured metal, one has couronne style embroidery and the other a little needlelace edge. 

All can be found on my shop HERE