lots of research

Over the past week or two, I have been doing heaps of research for the next book. It’s so interesting. At the end of each day I realise that I have learnt so much! I’ve been doing lots of looking at images, identifying patterns across them – things that turn up regularly – and things that are more unusual.

I have been learning very obscure words from the language of the culture I am studying. When you learn a language generally, the sorts of words I need for studying the technical aspects of a style of embroidery are not usually among the first you might learn!

I have been investigating symbols which are used in motifs, and their names in the language of the culture.

I have been trying to understand what garments or items the embroidered pieces I’ve been looking at come from, trying to understand what they were used for. Some are immediately obvious, but others are not.

I have also been investigating likely materials and threads to use. It is very hard to find the “right” things that are universally available (because they are never universally available!)

There has been a lot of “Oh! That’s what that is!” as I have made discoveries and come to deeper understanding. And the worst thing is, that it all stays quite secret, for now. As you know, I don’t reveal what my next book is on until much later through the process. I’m nowhere near that point yet!

So all that is to say that I’m not ignoring you, but I can’t really say what I am doing, except in the vaguest of terms.

Thanks for all your feedback on the recent postings of my Norway research trip diary. I’ll look at putting the diaries from some of my other trips up over the next while. They will be a little different as those trips were also made into family holidays, whereas the Norway one was me travelling by myself for research purposes only.