London larks

Off to the Mall Gallery last week to see the Prism exhibition. This is so inspirational, and was even better this year as I met one of my Morley classmates there and so had someone to rhapsodise with.

There is a “no publication policy” of photos from the exhibition, so I’ve posted some links below to a few of the artists who had pieces on display.

Gina Ferrari lace book

Rachel Gornall

Anita Bruce

Fiona Rainford

I was also intrigued by the work of Bea Sewell, who had a tree draped with samples of textiles dyed with plant and mineral dyes. she had some charming miniature notebooks with scraps f dyeing experiments, accompanied by a tiny sketch on each page. She also had a basket of tiny samples inviting attendees to have a rummage and take a tied bundle away. A lovely touch.

This exhibition really stretches the boundaries of textile art: photos of flowers, cut in to circles and appliquéd on to calico in the shape of a DNA double helix; wooden wall-mounted boxes with only the smallest amount of textile in them; embroidered organza strips sandwiched between blocks of glass , giving a completely different look to the organza. Wonderful.

Then out in to the Mall for some very different textiles.

Statue with a mischievous addition in the eye socket

Colour and form inspiration

Finished off with a dash round Anthropologie, with some quirky textile inspiration as ever

Calico bag, painted to look like a jotter

and then off to Liberty to try on the Richard Weston scarves

and have a scarf tying lesson with the great assistants in the scarf hall ( thank goodness I was wearing my one and only large Liberty scarf already).

Great fun.

Join Liberty today

This is not post about Liberty fabrics, so sewers may not want to read on. However, if you value civil liberty, please do.

I have been dithering about for a few years about joining the campaign group Liberty. Today I did, after an incident last night with the police, claiming that I was driving without insurance.

I know I can forget to do some domestic tasks, but arranging insurance is not one of them. What had me incandescent with rage was the insistence by the police that their database could not be wrong and that I must be wrong. This was even after we phoned our neighbour who went in to our house to get the insurance documents, and quoted the policy number and renewal date over the phone to the police. Also despite my asking how i would have been able to renew my car tax online if I did not valid insurance, as the whole system is designed around this.

Despite the evident fact of existing insurance, I was then told I was driving at my own risk and the police would have been" fully entitled" ( their words) to arrest me and impound our car.

Today, I had a call from the PC who acknowledged that the database was indeed wrong, and " there is an inconsistency between the National Insurance Database and the copy that the police use".

Very, very worrying. If this can happen with car insurance, what else is wrong, and where else is the citizen assumed to be lying rather than there being a fault in the system?

But, don't be afraid, join Liberty and get campaigning.