Collection

Having long been obsessed with blackwork embroidery, many of the images here leave me drooling or fantasizing or just a little inspired, I'm not sure which.  It's not a case of coveting, but certainly of admiring!  Madame Isis always has such excellent images in her posts, and the work in these is beautiful.

Why *does* Lord Falkland's memorial have a duck and a pair of boobies on it?  Some symbols we know.  Some, we have to ask about ...

And a second link at the Rags of Time, with a highly useful piece of wisdom I think Clovis might have appreciated.  Some days, it's easy to appreciate thoughts like this one ...

Celia Rees reflects on an interesting question - "But is it true?"  Having written historical fiction of my own, in the first person, it could be the POV which leads people to ask this question, as she observes.  In my case, "it's true" - to an extent.  This is why I compiled an author's note to sort out as clearly as I can those characters I created and those who are historical, and have an extremely high-level look at some of the timelines I chose to use in The Ax and the Vase, which conform to wisdom other than the common.  The degree to which I felt it was important to stick to the mingled history and legend of Clovis' life is the degree to which I felt it was vital to tell his story - and the degree to which I diverged ... or embroidered ... is the degree to which I felt the right to tell it myself.  I was both a steward and a writer of this story, simultaneously carrying a vessel and filling it.

Sometimes, I really can't wait to finally present it, too.  Thank goodness, this week is the Conference.