My First Coat

 I've never had a grown up coat, one of those smart long ones. And now I have!

It's a nice relaxed fit so that I can wear big jumpers underneath it and, having taken my daughter's advice and gone for a 'petite' size - by which they mean 'short', the sleeves are the right length without having to roll them up.

I'd never have managed to buy it without Rose's help. I'd seen it in my newspaper and it was surprisingly cheap for Marks and Spencer but, as we no longer have a branch here, I couldn't check the colour or fit. Rose went into her Marks in Oxford, tried one on and took photos to send me. She then ordered it for me in the size we decided would fit. Ordering clothes (and especially returning them if they don't fit) is too complicated for my Covid brain so I don't often do it.

I'm really pleased with my new coat and, having worn charity shop jackets for decades, it feels very smart. However, it turns out that it's not actually my first proper coat.

Here I am in 1967 at the age of six with my brother Stephen. Note my alice band - remember those? - and Stephen's traditional plaster on his knee. Those were the days when boys wore shorts up until they were about ten or eleven. The photo was taken in Hamble-Le-Rice (isn't that a great name?) on one of our days out. Here I am wearing my coat again, this time somewhere you probably recognise. I'm glad to see that Stephen's knee is better.

Stonehenge

I seem to have had a bit of a run of buying things for around £70 lately. First there was the coat and then I invested in this wonderful Piano Lamp.

I haven't been able to play the piano for several years because of not being able to read the music. Then it dawned on me that I could ask the optician to prescribe me a pair of fixed vision glasses just for the piano. It took a couple of tries to get the distance right, what with not having a piano to hand in the consulting room, but we got there in the end. The frames are the same as my normal glasses so the piano ones live on the piano (and have an elastic band round one arm too) so that they don't get muddled.

The glasses have meant that I can read the music but I realised that I also needed stronger light, hence the new lamp. It's very bright and also adjustable with a dimmer switch. The picture above was taken in the evening when it was the only light on in the room. The black lamps are intended for modern black pianos but I think it goes well with my old 1920s upright.

Of course, my playing is very rusty so I'm starting with some simple studies by Burgmuller. I never had these as a child learning to play; my violin teacher told me about them. My only experience of studies were the Demnitz ones for Clarinet which weren't exactly exciting. The Burgmuller ones are proper tunes and lovely to play.

My other £70 purchase was this big pile of magazines.

I've been filling in the gaps in my collection of 'New Stitches' magazines for a long time, mostly buying individual copies as and when they come up. I was enquiring from a seller on ebay about combining a couple of small lots when she said that she had lots more to sell. She kindly sorted out all these magazines, 58 in all, to fill in quite a few of my gaps. They arrived in two heavy boxes and will keep me busy for quite a while. Doesn't that cat on the cover in the middle look like Tolly cat?

I particularly like these magazines because they have a range of projects and masterclasses covering lots of different needlecrafts rather than just cross stitch. I think I now have about 80 issues left to find (out of 261). I don't have any of the latest ones though, Issues 213 - 261 and I've never seen them for sale. I expect they'll turn up one day, all together.

This Week ...

... I've re-learnt how to tat. Tatting is a way of making lace with a series of knots, using a shuttle and your fingers. I taught myself how to tat years ago, using this little booklet by Rosemarie Peel. I see you can still buy it for £1; with that, a ball of thread and a shuttle you're all ready to go. I was inspired to have another go at tatting by this book.

New Tatting by Tomoko Morimoto is full of lovely colour pictures and the instructions for each technique are well illustrated and explained. So far, all I've made are some little flowers like those on the cover - mine are the two at the top of the picture - but I'm going to try the Christmas Rose design next.

This week ...

... I've been working on my Tunisian Crochet blanket.

This is worked round and round, one colour at a time and, as you only have six or seven stitches on your hook, you can use an ordinary crochet hook. Shades of my Ten Stitch Blankets here. I found the instructions for this technique online (it's called Tunisian Entrelac in the round by the way). It was ages ago and I can't remember the site I used but there's a good Free Craftsy Tutorial by Kathryn Vercillo.

While I'm on the subject of Tunisian Crochet, I've just ordered a Double Ended Crochet Hook from Purplelinda Crafts. I've got a digital copy of 101 Double-Ended Hook Stitches by Deborah Levyhamburg and I've been wanting to play with this technique for ages. I was given some money for Easter and this is what I've bought with it (thank-you Janet). According to my daughter, choosing a crochet hook over all the chocolate available at the moment is very sad.

This week ...

... I've been knitting lots more little squares for my rug.

Only 40 to go - whatever possessed me to start knitting a rug?

This week ...

... I've been working on two big pattern collections, one for Christmas and the other for 2018. This is the Christmas one ...

... well, you didn't really expect me to show you any more than that, did you? I've also been planning a new knitted blanket using Stylecraft Special DK.

I have knitted so many samples, trying out different colour combinations and I'm still not sure which ones to use. I spent hours this morning, laying them all out and squinting at them. There are times when being very short sighted is useful and judging colours is one of those times. For those of you with better sight than mine I can recommend looking backwards through binoculars - jarring colours will jump out at you.

And finally this week ...

... I've been enjoying wrestling with my first Bach piece on the violin.

It looks simple but there's so much to it I keep losing track of the time when I'm practising. I love Bach. This naturally led me to search out some more Bach to play on the piano.

This one's not so simple but oh, so beautiful. Here is someone playing it much better than I can ...

This is Tzvi Erez playing the Adagio from Bach's Piano Concerto in F Minor. I hope you enjoy it.

The Silent Piano

It looks like a normal piano, doesn’t it? But when you press the keys, there’s no sound. It’s been in this sorry state for a few days now, ever since the piano tuner took away the mechanism inside to do some repairs. All the felt pads and little leather tabs on the hammers are being replaced which means that the dreaded ‘clicky keys’ will be a thing of the past. Of course, now that it’s silent, I keep wanting to play it every time I walk past …

The piano is about ninety years old so it’s not surprising that it’s a bit worn. It belonged to my Grandmother who gave it to me when I started learning to play at the age of nine. My best friend was from a musical family and I think going to play with her was the first time I saw a piano in someone’s house. So thank-you Heather for a lifetime of music.

The other person I have to thank is my Great-Grandfather who bought the piano in the late 1920s. He took Granny up to London on the train when she was about thirteen and bought it for her on a whim in Selfridges. They weren’t a well-off family and nobody played so that must have been quite a day.

This piano has moved house quite a few times and even survived the ceiling falling on it a few years ago so it deserves some care. I can’t wait to be able to play it again.