easily distracted by shiny things…
Posted in costume, culture, exhibitions, inspiration, museums on Oct 1st, 2011
So, at long last, here is the completed stripy/steampunk outfit! Paul and I went to the Wild Boy’s Ball at Kensington Palace, and had an absolutely magical evening. You can see all the photos that Paul took, over on Flickr. We started off by going inside the palace itself, which was actually quite different from [...]
Posted in exhibitions, fabric, inspiration on Aug 12th, 2011
I managed to miss the Horrockses exhibition at the Fashion & Textile Museum, so I was delighted to pick up a leaflet for Basildon Park and find out that I could see them a little closer to home. The dresses were beautifully displayed throughout the house, but the highlight for me was this lobster-print skirt [...]
Posted in exhibitions, museums, volunteering on Aug 11th, 2011
These seashells, part of an original Victorian collection, are now on display in the Cole Museum of Zoology. The Museum had recently acquired four new display cases, and the volunteers were asked to fill them! The new cases now contain examples of fossil fish, specialisation in bird skulls, variation in beetles and my Victorian seashells. [...]
Posted in culture, exhibitions, inspiration, nature on Mar 21st, 2011
A couple of Saturdays ago we went to the Natural History Museum. We booked tickets for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition (which was the reason we’d made the trip), and also booked ourselves onto a Spirit Collection Tour. There are a few things-in-jars on display in the new Darwin building, but the 30-minute [...]
Posted in exhibitions, shoes on Jan 29th, 2011
The Museum of English Rural Life have an exhibition on at the moment called Land Ladies: women and farming in England, 1900-1954. It’s on until April 19th. The boots above were issued by the Women’s Land Army, and they belonged to Doreen Thorpe who served in Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Derbyshire and Yorkshire. I’m impressed that they’ve [...]
Posted in culture, exhibitions, inspiration on Oct 23rd, 2010
Yesterday I went to the Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garret, where I arrived just in time for a talk. I was glad of that, because the museum would have made a lot less sense without it. It’s mostly three hundred years of medical history (including bit of bodies in jars) without a great deal of [...]
Posted in culture, exhibitions, inspiration, music on Sep 26th, 2010
This is a little picture of “Shaharazad”, a mechanical organ owned by Boz Oram. Today we went to Crofton Beam Engines with the Aldbrickham Clog & Step Dancers, to dance at their end of season gala. There were some vintage cars, a few different steam engines and this mechanical organ. (And the enormous beam engines, [...]
Posted in culture, dolls, exhibitions, sewing on Jul 19th, 2010
Here I am, in the Science Museum, with my Stitched Self! Which, in fact, looks nothing like me. But a few months ago the resemblance would have been uncanny, I promise. Just in case you can’t spot my Mini-Me, here’s a close-up: I’m not sure what’s happened to my hair, or why my scarf’s all over my [...]
Posted in culture, exhibitions, inspiration, nature, photos on Jul 16th, 2010
This is the Natural History Museum in London. Quite a typical view – looking over the central hall from the giant sequoia tree, over the top of the big dinosaur skeleton, to the statue of Darwin on the main staircase. Usually people are so busy looking at the dinosaur that it simply doesn’t occur to [...]
Posted in culture, exhibitions, inspiration, writing on Apr 29th, 2010
Hopefully you can all see this embedded video of the finches at the Barbican in London – an installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. We went on a little trip yesterday evening, and had an absolutely magical time watching and listening to a room full of little birds and musical instruments. The video is of a previous [...]