The guilty parent!

The school summer holidays roll on & tumbleweed blows around my blog. I've been doing that 'being busy but seemingly achieving nothing' thang that parents know oh so well.

Ellie has begun to ask me for memories of the Brood as babies & toddlers, but I haven't yet dared to confess that so much time passed in a blur of nappies, feeds, washing machine loads, post-natal depression and then full blown bipolar, that my recollections are faulty & a little blurred around the edges. This feels me with guilt - it's as though the absence of memory represents a form of neglect! After all, wasn't it my intention to be a fabulous parent and to bring something fresh & vibrant to this child-rearing lark? I was going to do things differently - why I even had delusions of perfection! Well ha ha, the joke's on me - the grind got to me and I am instead a faulty, guilt-ridden parent. But they're loved, adored & cherished and I feel ever so certain that they know this even in their bones.

Of course the idea of being a perfect parent is a mirage - the only thing you can realistically hope for is to be, what John Cleese & Robin Skynner described in their excellent book, 'Families and How to Survive Them' 'a good enough parent'. So as this imperfect parent didn't manage to keep her baby books & photo albums in pristine, lucid order, the wannabe good-enough parent is going to trawl through her diaries, journals and notebooks in order to find the notes & scribbles she dashed off about her Brood.


A six month old Tom in diapers & dungarees - scribbles dashed off in between his cries and mine!

I thank Lord Dodo of Dodo Towers for his gift to the busy family of the splendid five column Dodo diary - without the help he's given us during these past years I wouldn't be able to rummage through old diaries and find the landmark dates that Ellie wants me to remember. Ah yes, Ellie's first steps. Wow, I actually remember that day!

Ellie ...in the blink of an eye!

Just when did she go from this to this?

I turned my back for a second and my baby's been & gone & grown into a woman. Just how did that happen?

Rosa & Co

Rosa & Co

With birthday week coming up ( Lula is ten on Wednesday, Ellie has an honourary on Thursday and Tom hits the big one six on Friday) I'm living in a flurry of wrapping paper. Having tussled with a sellotape dispenser that is refusing to dispense, yesterday I allowed myself time off for good behaviour and did a little light stringing. The result is 'Rosa & Co', a sweet little combo that would flatter any one's skin tone. I've added some blush pink Murano glass cubes & lashings of silver from Shiana to a truly delicious set of beads by the UK artist, Beverley Hicklin with the results you see before you.

Marghanita Laski's book is available from Persephone, one of my favourite bookshops. Jewellery and a good book - what more could one ask for on a Saturday afternoon? A working sellotape dispenser - that's what!!

My heart has been stole-n!

I love the zig-zag stoles I've knitted!! I can fit two of my babes under one so we sit cuddling on the sofa with the wings tucked around us; I'm like a bird in a nest with my brood. It's a little bit of heaven!

The pattern is the easiest in the world - it's just an incredibly long, zig-zag shaped length of stocking stitch - but the yarn I used is what it makes it look & feel special. It's called 'Fandango' ( though 'Isis' is equally excellent - I just prefer cotton) from the Welsh company, Colinette Yarns.

I've made five (!!?!!) of these stoles so far ( Florentina, Adonis Blue, Jay, Zebra & Sweet Dreams, the latter being for 11 year old Ellie) , got one on the go ( Pagan) and have another waiting in the shopping cart. For those of you who know Lula, this may come as a shock, but Lula........wants one too! Yes, Lula the tomboy, she of the mini-tractor & dirt patch fame, wants a stole of her own! She's dithering between October Afternoon & Heavens Above, though there are a couple more that have grabbed her attention. Ideally she'd like four, but as I knit as slowly as a sloth, I've explained that she may not get all of these until she's grown up & got children of her own.

I think the key to this stole's charm, and thus its huge appeal to Lula, is its cuddle-ability. I unfurl one in bed whilst reading or drape one around me on the school run or when dashing down to my Shack studio. I primped our sitting room using Wabi Sabi principles, but it can be cold in winter so we cuddle up together with two babes plus me all under one stole. It's also an anxiety soother. If I'm out in a crowd & that familiar feeling of panic starts quaking, I've got a stole to pull around me; I guess it's a similar principle to baby wrapping & it certainly helps me. Why, somedays, I can actually manage to go shopping with just a stole & Bach's Rescue Remedy for company ;-)

I've been knitting scarves for years ( for which I have Nicki Epstein to thank), but my heart's been stolen by stoles. Not shawls, but lovely, long, drapery, pinned up or just coiled round.

The pattern, 'Elderflower', can be found in Colinette's booklet, 'Isis'.

interpreting roses

Ellie's Roses

I want to tell you a little story. It's quite cute so if you don't like cute, please pass over.

My daughter Ellie may only be 8, but she knows her beads. She can identify beads by Melanie Moertel, Laura Sparling, Emma Ralph & Beverly Hickin with ease. She enjoys browsing bead artists' websites & is desperate to play with the torch in the fullness of time. One day I may pass the bead baton on to her & make her my bead heir. The collection of art in my bead trays deserves an appreciative curator who will cherish & cosset the beads as much as I do now.

Of course it's not just beads that are stowed. There's the silver, Swarovski crystals, pearls & semi-precious stones plus the backbone beads that we all have to hand. What are our families going to do with our treasures? Should any potential heirs be reading this post (unlikely?), let me advise you that there's the bead equivalent of gold dust in our boxes & tins & cupboards. Call in the auctioneer & send the house clearance man on his way.

As is my habit, I digress.

Last year, she alighted on Emma Ralph's website & eventually opened the door that led to the Customers' Gallery. If you follow the link & look in the Gallery for yourself, the first thing you will see is a beautiful bracelet made by Jean Yates which features some fabulous polymer clay beads by Emma. You can also spot more examples of Emma's roses in Jean's entry for Art Bead Scene's competition in May (I've entered too. I'm forever copying Jean. I know I should desist, but I'm hooked on her ideas!)

Ellie was enthralled by Emma's depiction of roses & decided that she wanted to draw her own interpretation of the rose. She doodled & sketched diligently and eventually settled on the design up above. This sketch is an early example. She's firmed it up & it's become her trademark - Ellie has 'ellified' everything with her roses. Naturally I'm biased, but I love her roses & I've even taken to doodling them myself. Roses bloom throughout the house so thanks to Emma, via Jean, through Ellie to me, we have all been interpreting roses.

I wonder what the great man would think?

The rose as interpreted by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

how to embarrass your grandmother with William Blake.

Foxglove Necklace

My dear friend Jean has urged me to relate a story from my childhood, but before I begin, jump over to Jean's blog and have a good wallow in her wonderful words. Amongst other things, you can read about The Ruse, Paul Yates, scuba diving, divine jewellery and on 8th April, 100 things to know about Jean. Jean is very kind to me & she's encouraged me to write a list too. My brain is so tiny that it doesn't have room to think of too many things at the same time so given this limitation, I'll have to lay my facts before you a few at time.

1. I once kissed a man who told me my hair was the colour of a tawny owl's feathers. I believe that men who come up with compliments like this should be encouraged.

2. Eleanor Romy was named after Eleanor of Aquitaine ( my heroine), my step grandmother, Ella & my mother, Romy. These are sensible reasons.

3. My daughter Lula was named after a dog & my son's favourite teddy bear. Indeed 'Lula' was his first word. Loopy's real name is Georgia Alice ( which she hates) and in her case she was named after my dog, Georgie Girl. These are not sensible reasons. To avoid confusion between Georgie Baby & Georgie Dog, we decided that we would give the babe a nickname. This seemed a reasonable solution. James & I couldn't think of anything suitable but when Tom suggested Lula we cheered because it suits her perfectly. BTW Tom's intuition was spot on. I have never met anyone who is as Lulaish as Lula.

4. I embarrassed Ella with the help of William Blake. I was always allowed to rummage through my grandmother's library of books. I fell for 'Songs of Innocence & Experience' with my favourite poem being this. I knew it off by heart. When I was circa nine, I was allowed to attend one of my grandmother's afternoon tea parties. She asked me to recite a few lines of poetry to her friends. She'd been reading Walter de la Mare, John Masefield & Tennyson to me & was probably expecting a few lines from'The Lady of Shalott'. But OH NO!! Ms Dangerfield gave a perfect rendering of 'The Sick Rose' instead. I was still allowed to read any book I liked, but it was decided that I needed fresh air when my grandmother was entertaining so no more poetry recitals for me!

4. I am not ticklish.

5. I know a lot of gossip about the Pre-Raphaelites. In my opinion, a man who has his wife exhumed because he wants his poems back, is not fit for polite society. I would tell you who this was, but I fear that I have bored you so much that you're probably asleep by now. I don't want to disturb you whilst you're slumbering so I'll save my tittle-tattle for another day.

Sweet dreams!

so what did God do on the seventh day?

Amber Swing Earrings

Please forgive the irreverent post, but the following makes me smile. Ellie's entranced by what I do & likes to talk about it. Daily, hourly; basically a lot! Today her seven year old pal Jason plunged in with a finely honed rebuff.

'Your mother isn't the best jewellery maker in the world - God is!'

I now have this rather kitsch vision of a white haired, bearded old man in flowing garments sitting in his rocking chair & thinking something like,

'Do you know - it's time I had some me-time. I think I'll make a pair of earrings on Sunday.'

Jewellery design & photograph by Jennifer Dangerfield ©

Spinning in their graves? Warning - this entry mentions intimate parts of the body!

Kronos Crab

Via Radio 4, I have just been introduced to 'Menopause The Musical' which has crossed the Atlantic & can now been seen at the Shaw Theatre in London. I laughed all the way through the interview and couldn't help but wonder what Rogers & Hammerstein would think?

I'm a fan of 'The Vagina Monologues', but I've not seen 'Puppetry of the Penis'. Frankly I've no wish to see the latter - viewed as a design, in my humble opinion it's not the most attractive part of the masculine body.

I must bare my soul now & admit that I would rather give birth than sit through a musical (with the proviso that I had been pierced with an epidural first. One day, remind me to tell you about the birth of Ellie which was so excrutiatingly painful that I seriously considered throwing myself out of the window. At one point I also dived under the bed and refused to come out until they gave me something for the pain. This was one tantrum too many for OMD & he finally lost his temper with me and told me to stop behaving like a child. Don't you dare feel sorry for OMD though. After the birth of our son, he voiced the opinion that men evidentally have a higher pain threshold than women! I could tell you more of my husband's birthing sins, but the list is a long one & I don't want to bore you.) To get back to musicals, to please a dear friend, I did once sit through a performance of 'My Fair Lady' & it had the same effect on me as dragging chalk down a blackboard.

Despite my aversion to musicals, I wish 'Menopause The Musical' much success. Once again the women who sprang forth during the age of the baby boom are challenging the traditional view of women. As a grateful recipient of the changes that have resulted from this witty reappraisal, dear sisters, I sincerely thank you. You're doubly beautiful for doing it with humour.

Photographs of jewellery © Jennifer Dangerfield 2007