Inspiration: St Piran

I had never heard of St Piran before I moved to Cornwall and I had some huge gaps in my understanding of Christianity and some of the part it placed in the history of the British Isles before I moved to Cornwall.  I grew up in the heartlands of England and I knew Scotland, Wales and Ireland had different history to England to a limited extent but it was not really taught in school.  Many of the difficult and divisive parts of our history were completely ignored.

The IRA's bombing campaign was part of my childhood.  I knew to look for unattended possessions in public places and not to leave anything of mine behind.  Every Friday my Dad would be in London for work, driving around.  We all kept an eye on the news on Fridays and that continued until he retired.  Despite all this, I was never taught the roots of the conflict in history.  It was actually my English teacher that caused me to start to understand. She asked us to do a debate on Ireland and I did my research using the schools encyclopaedia's.  I was horrified when I learnt of the potato famine...  Even more horrified when my classmates thought I was making it up in the debate and laughed.

The consciousness slowly seems to have changed and Scotland's fight against the English has definitely taken a place in mainstream culture thanks to Mel Gibson in Braveheart and more recently, Jamie Fraser in Outlander.  Scotland and Wales now have their own assemblies with political power and it makes a strong statement of their differences from England.

Cornwall though is smaller with a lower population and it's right to be scene as different to England has been slower.  Cornish is now an option on censuses though and there is a greater appreciation of the Cornish as being a distinct people now than there was when I first moved here. 

The Tamar River flows along the border of Devon and Cornwall, joining the sea on the south coast while it's source is only 4 miles from the north coast up near Bude.  As a well a physical boundary, genetic studies have shown that the river forms a distinct genetic boundary too, with the Cornish being completely different.

The Cornish are one of the Celtic nations which are Scotland, Wales, Ireland, The Isle of Mann and Brittany in France.  These areas retained languages and cultural traits from the Celts while England did not.  When Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, it reached the British Isles too.  When the Empire fell, the islands fell in to the Dark Ages, so called because the history is harder to piece together.  The Celtic nations retained much of their Christianity while England did not.  

Devout people from Ireland, Wales and Cornwall would still travel on pilgrimages.  Welsh and Irish pilgrims would travel by boat from Wales to the north coast of Cornwall and then walk to the south coast before traveling again by boat to the continent.  The Saints Way is one such route that remains in Cornwall going from Padstow to Fowey via Luxulyan, but there were others.

The Christianity that remained was much more representative of the Christianity that initially existed and it organically adopted the pagan practices and landscape of those in the Celtic nations because they were in charge of their own faith.  When the Roman Catholic Empire turned it's sights to Britain, it couldn't ignore the existing bastions of Christianity, so all the slightly paganish things were retained rather than upset existing Christian territories.  England lost much more of it's pagan landscape.

The power of the Roman Catholic Empire can not be understated.  They ruled Europe without having to worry too much about the actual business of running things in a way.  When Henry the Eighth removed the Catholic Church from his territory, I don't think it would have just been about his desire to divorce...  Without the Catholic Church and the much more relaxed Church of England, the United Kingdoms became a place where different forms of Anglican Christianity thrived.  

John Wesley was born in 1703 and he founded the Methodist church.  He liked to preach outdoors and talked of love  and was one of the first to talk of rights for slaves.  Although he travelled all over the country, the Cornish in particular took his words to heart.  It appealed to the farmers, fishermen and miners and they would gather in their thousands to hear him.  Gwennap Pit is a local landmark where he used to preach which is a depression in the ground which has circular terraces cut in to it.  It is said as many as 2,000 people could be sat to listen but maybe more thousands could gather around the pit.  It is said that Wesley preached to 32,000 people in 1773 at Gwennap Pit.

So to me, the Christian landscape of Cornwall felt different before I understood why.  The Church of England churches I grew up with are much less common here but there are many many simple blocky chapels.  Many places are named after obscure saints you would never have heard of anywhere else.  Many traditions with hints of paganism remained mainstream such as Helston's Flora Day, Padstow's Obby Oss and Penzance's Montol.  The landscape is littered with holy springs and remnants of long ago times.

This probably explains some of the weird and wonderful legends associated with St Piran, patron saint of Cornwall and tin miners.  He was Irish but was thrown out by heathens who tied him to a mill stone and threw him in the sea.  The stormy seas subsided and he floated safely to Cornwall where he landed on a long sandy beach and established himself as a hermit in the sand dunes.  He was venerated locally and began to attract followers until he established the Abbey of Lanpiran.  It is said that the secret of smelting tin had been lost with Romans and St Piran rediscovered it by accident when his black hearthstone ended up with white tin on the surface which gives rise to his black flag with a white cross.

The bay he landed on has the town of Perranporth at one end and the village of Holywell at the other.  His oratory remained in use until the tenth century when it was buried by the sands.  A new church was built but this was also eventually buried in the 1800s.  It may be difficult to imagine but the sand dunes were not anchored by Maram Grass at that time.  Sir Walter Raleigh was friends with a family who had lands in the bay that were constantly in danger of being engulfed and he brought maram grass back from his travels and gifted it to them.  Our sand dunes still move but not as drastically...  

The Oratory was the subject of an archaeological dig and entombed in a concrete bunker for it's safety before being reburied.  Every year, on March the 5th, St Piran's Day a procession goes across the sand to the site of the oratory.

I have read that some of the stories associated with Cornwall's diverse saints were likely stories of pagan deities that were merged organically with the local christian faith.  The Roman Catholic church adopted all of these saints, unlikely origins and all. 

For my St Piran pinterest board, click here!

Tutorial: Creating Tapered Ends (to Even Count Peyote)

Sometimes you may wish to use a clasp or find ing that is smaller than the width of your beadwork and you might not want a rectangular end.  This tutorial will show you how to taper your ends as shown in my St Piran's bracelet.In even count peyote, the taper will be slightly assymetrical.

In the diagram below, the thread exits the beadwork as shown by the pink thread.  The first bead to add is highlighted in yellow but in order to stitch to that bead, you need the thread to exit the bead highlighted red.

The turn resembles the figure of eight turn used in some methods of odd count peyote stitch.  Stitch into the red bead from the edge of the beadwork.  Stitch through beads to make the figure of eight as shown, but instead of stitching out of the bead highlighted green, stitch out through the bead highlighted in red so you don't finish the figure of eight. 

When you make a turn within your beadwork rather than at the edge, the thread sits between columns and can become trapped on the surface of your beadwork.  This is because it makes a little tiny kink when it makes a turn which is slightly thicker.  Make sure you pull it through completely.  If the tension is such that the thread is being gripped by the edges of the beads, you can bend your beadwork slightly along the length, between the columns.  It won't bend much but it doesn't need to in order to give you a little less resistance to pulling your thread through.

Now you can stitch through and add the yellow bead.

Add the rest of the row.

In order to add the bead now highlighted yellow, you need to do another turn.  The turn begins similar to the figure of eight but instead of coming back through three columns to the edge of the beadwork, come back two, make another turn then stitch through to add the first bead of the next row highlighted in yellow.

The reason I stitch as few columns together is that it can tightened the width of the beadwork as you go along.  It can be very tempting to go all the way to the edge every time and then zip along the tapered edge to add the next new bead at the start of a row.  This can result in a curling taper rather than a flat one.

I also like to go back into the beadwork for turns rather than keeping the thread near the end.  It anchors the taper throughout the beadwork so any pulling caused by the clasp is more evenly spread rather than just at one or two points.  

Add the new row until you reach the end of the taper.

Turn again to begin adding the next row. Exit the last bead added on the previous row and pick up the first bead of the next row highlighted yellow.

Stitch through to the tapered edge to complete the row.

From here, keep making turns in the same way, until you have reduced the width to the required point.  The diagram below shows a full taper which creates a triangular end.  The point will not sit centrally, it will be half a bead out.  The side that you began from (on the left of the diagrams), will be slightly longer.

Once the last bead has been added that you require, make the first turn between the columns then keep following the diagonal to the far edge of the beadwork.  You should exit the beadwork a few rows back from the tapered edge.  Turn into the row below and then finish your thread in your normal way.  It is best to begin an entirely new thread for adding any clasp.

Inspiration: Don't Panic

Don't Panic

For people of a certain age who like science fiction those words are very evocative.  It should be written in large friendly letters.  The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is a fictional book that Douglas Adams named his classic after.  It is believed the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy outsold the much more detailed and accurate Encyclopedia Galactica in part because it was cheaper but also because of those nice reassuring letters on it's cover.

One day my husband decided to watch the first episode of the old TV series and Don't Panic was the first thing that came to mind and I just knew I needed to do a piece inspired by this phrase.  When I think of the book, I can still see the front cover of the copy I was loaned by some family friends.  It was very bright and different to any other book covers I had.  Definitely influenced by psychedelia....  

The artists of this edition in 1979 were Hipgnosis and Ian Wright.  Hipgnosis was an art collective who primarily designed album covers with the most famous probably being Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.  Ian Wright is an illustrator who also has many album covers in his portfolio, including a picture of Grandmaster Flash made using salt to mimic lines of Cocaine for the track White Lines.  I guess it isn't surprising this cover made such an impact on me and was so different.  

When I created the design I knew I wanted the background to reference this psychedelic style that is almost a little too much to look at and take in...  I knew that using transparent beads can give a really interesting effect where colours can merge a little and actually grow stronger when looked at from an angle rather than straight on.  It's easier to discern the hard lines of the pattern from a distance and an angle than it is close up and looking straight on.  I love this effect, so I knew I wanted to use these beads and a 70s style swirl was perfect.

The bracelet has come to mean more to me than just that book however.  There is something very calming and reassuring about those words.  They recognise that you are panicing which is the first step to calming down...

I am not one to panic generally but it's been a difficult year.  I have been out very little not just because of lockdowns but because I really do understand that as a larger lady with asthma and a variety of other slightly irritating health conditions, I probably wouldn't do too well if I got Covid.  My husband likes me to get out a little though, so we go to the supermarket together, which is fine...  I like to go in the evening when there are fewer people and it's easier to maintain your distance.

On one such trip, we met a friend who had only recently had Covid and was still a little under the weather with a bit of a cough left.  Afterwards I just wanted to get the shop done as quickly as possible and get out.  It only got worse over time until I left my husband and went back to the car.  I can safely say it's the only time I have had a full blown panic attack.  Honestly, I don't know how my husband does it...  as a frontline healthworker he has spent the last year working with people with Covid.  I have nothing but respect for all those people who have worked directly with Covid, knowing al the risks and managed to keep their heads straight.

Don't Panic is now my going to the supermarket bracelet of choice.

If you want to see pictures of Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy, Hipgnosis and Ian Wright's Artwork and Don't Panic inspired things on pinterest, go here!

Inspiration: Explosive

 All of my halloween hazards (so far!) are inspired by the international safety symbols but explosive required a slightly different approach.  It's not easy to just show those little exploding pieces in black and have the symbol be clear because it's actually quite a detailed symbol with irregular edges.  The lines radiating out though really gave me something to play with and I decided to make these look like flashes of light using silver lined beads.  I think this makes the piece look really dramatic!

And explosions really should be dramatic!

Well, maybe that isn't true.  There seem to have been a lot of explosions down here this winter.  Probably no more than normal but maybe the local news has been keener to report on them to shift focus from the dreaded C.  With our many miles of beaches, every year potentially unexploded ordnance is uncovered or washed up.  

My favourite story this year was about a local guy who runs Shiver me Timbers a local reclamation yard that has some really cool stuff online but somehow I have never been to visit....  It's on my to do list once the world goes back to normal...  Anyway, he had wanted a sea mine for some time and found one washed up on the beach and rolled it home, where he used it as footstool.  He had however gone through proper channels and it was known that the mine was a dummy mine used in practices, so it was completely safe.  The Royal Navy reclaimed the mine however, although it appears that wasn't exactly the end of the story....

There was a WWII bomb found and exploded in Exeter and a phosphorus flare was blown up at Polhawn Cove just in the last few days...  (Yes, this was posted retrospectively!)

But there is something about explosions.  One of my childhood memories was watching footage of old brick works chimneys being brought down at Stewartby.  If you want to skip to the best view of the explosions though, go to the last minute!  

I guess it isn't surprising that artists like to play with explosions too....  there is something so powerful about them.  One of my favourites is Cai Guo-Quiang with the Ninth Wave and Transient Rainbow being just a couple of his works....  There are many other artists that use explosions though.  Martin Klimas photographs flowers as they explode and the images are so beautiful.  Nick Knight photographs powdered paint explosions, as does Irby Pace, but the two could not be more different in their styles.

Of course, there is a tragic and sad side of explosions, but I just don't really want to go there right now...  Not really...  But, Hayat Nazer built a sculpture of a woman from rubble left from the Beirut port explosion last year.  It's a beautiful piece.

If you want to have a look at some pictures on pinterest then click here!

Tutorial: Beadalon Slide Connector

This clasp is a Beadalon Slide Connector (4.5mm / 0.17 Inch and 20mm / 0.79 Inch) in gold. It suits a dainty bracelet which needs an adjustable fitting.  Lucky is elegant and classy and needed something exactly like this clasp!  

They are really easy to fit because you just have to attach the two bead slides, one to each end.  The clasp comes with the lobster clasp and chain already attached. The bracelet I made was 16 size 11 Miyuki delicas wide.

Begin by finishing all threads and then add a new thread ready to add the bead slide beads.

Stitch through until you exit the bead highlighted blue as shown.

I used size 11 seed beads for the bead slide beads.  Pick up one bead slide bead.

Stitch back through the bead highlighted blue, passing through in the same direction as before so that the bead slide bead sits over the bead highlighted blue.

Move through to the next high bead, highlighted blue and add another bead slide bead in the same way.

Continue adding bead slide beads in the same way to all the high beads.

Each bead slide has a slit down the side and at the ends of the tube there are bendable flaps.  Make sure one flap is tight to the tube and the other one is open. Slide each of the bead slide beads in to the tube so that the threads between the bead slide beads and the peyote bracelet beadwork fit into the slot.  All the peyote delicas sit outside the bead slide.  Once you have worked all the bead slide beads into the tube, close the second flap of the bead slide.

Inspiration: Spring Tartan

 It's that time of year, winter is dragging on in a damp fashion, compounded by lockdown.  It's dreary many days.  We don't often see snow here and have few frosty mornings.  It's not that cold most days but it rains...  frequently.

The upside of our climate is that spring comes early and green things thrive.  And the landscapes here are truly glorious so when we do have a clear blue day, we get to take advantage of it...  when we can leave the house.

Daffodils are a sign of spring all around the UK, but they flower earliest here, well except for the Isles of Scilly which are off the coast of Cornwall as they have an even milder climate than we do in Cornwall.  Daffodils are grown here and sent to the flower markets and muddy brown fields with brilliant yellow stripes are common.  

The Daffodil is the national flower of Wales and is worn on St David's Day which is the first of March.  In Welsh though, it is known as St Peter's Leek.  Originally, the national plant was believed to have been the leek but the Daffodil was adopted in the 19th Century.  I am not sure what the daffodil has to do with St Peter!

As much as I love Daffodils however, the flower I grew up with as the first flower of spring was the humble, shy Snow Drop.  A flower that is strong enough to flower while snow is still on the ground but fails to thrive if picked.

Galantamine is a drug used to treat Alzheimer's to help slow the cognitive decline.  It was first isolated from the common Snowdrop but was later produced from Daffodils.  Although daffodils are still used, it can be produced commercially.

It's still dark right now.  It's some time till the clocks change, but here at least, the world is green.  So my spring tartan is mostly green with black but there are threads of yellow and white...  either for daffodils and snowdrops or snow / frost and the returning sun if you live somewhere a little colder!

If you want to look at my pinterest board it is here!