Monday 4th March

This morning I discovered that some of my daffodils were actually wallflowers - exactly the same colour, but of course very different once you take a proper look. I went out in my socks, treading on the driest bits of the drive to inspect them at closer quarters. 

This morning was spent in transcribing a Very Very simple piano version of 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind' from a youtube 'easypiano' tutorial for a friend. 

There are three hymns that used to fill me with dread when they appeared on the list, back in the day when I regularly played the organ at church;

Jerusalem- which luckily only ever happened at weddings which were a terrifying time anyway,

O Jesus I have Promised - there are three fairly common tunes, all of them full of traps and difficulties as far as I am concerned. I threw the congregation into confusion one time by discovering a suggested alternative, well known but never sung to these words. I could sense the congregation feeling their way through the unfamiliar combination of words and music, and becoming more relaxed by the third verse!

Dear Lord and Father - it's a lovely hymn, one of my favourites, but for some reason I've always found it tricky to play well. 

It would help a lot if I was a 'proper' organist who had learned to use the pedals...

I was awake for a while in the middle of the night last night, and while away some time thinking over youtube tutorials on Kantha quilts and Kawadis. I can't write Kawadi quilts; because both words mean quilt - a bit like the River Avon, which I think means River River.

I'm not following an authentic Kawadi process, as used by the Siddi women of that remote region in India, but something derived from what I've read and seen to construct the current book cover. 

All very mysterious... I've cut a number of roughly rectangular patches of different dimensions which are then sewn around the outer edges of the foundation fabric using a long running stitch. There are my patches, with the longest thread from 'the tangle' which I'm using to stitch with and the book cover, folded up with the right side inside. 

It makes for pleasant 'slow stitching'.