Remembering Beatrice

Last November, when my husband and I were in the U.K., we had the pleasure of dining with Ronald Green, a professor of religion at Dartmouth who was teaching one of the 'Off-Campus' (Semester Abroad) programs in Scotland. In the course of conversation, I described what I do for a living, and he replied that his mother, now passed on, had been an avid rug hooker in her day. So I asked Ron to send me some information so that I might share her legacy with you. With the help of his sister, Bunny Lawrence, he sent along photos and information to me in short order. Little did I know what charming pictures of her rugs he would send! I share them, and a little bit about Beatrice Green with you now. Something tells me I would have enjoyed knowing her!

Beatrice Green was born in 1911 and died in 2002. She worked for much of her life as a medical secretary. She was of the generation of women back then who were rarely admitted to medical schools, although she always yearned to be a doctor. Her son believes that the care she brought to her crafts would also have made her a great surgeon. Bunny remembers her dyeing the wool and stripping it. She says, "She was so talented and wise, smart beyond her years".

Ten years after the death of her husband, she remarried and took the name of her second husband, Elar. She was an avid craftswoman, doing various forms of painting on wood and glass, and hooking and braiding rugs.

Beatrice and Ron, taken around 1999.



And some of her rugs--this one is my favorite.

The Partridge Lives!

Summer is here again, and with it the end of school activities and the general rushing around that accompanies life with teenagers. This past academic year, we had two exchange students, so keeping up with five teens plus a business and two part-time jobs means something has to give. For me that generally means communications, much to the unhappiness of my long distance relations and friends. But now things have slowed down, and I am working on getting caught up!

I can see I will not be a regular blogger. Ya think? As mentioned a YEAR ago, I will show you the partridge project from start to finish, and so I re-commence now. As you can see from the graphic below, I have ruminated on the design over time, and have changed it, much to my liking.



I have adjusted a few areas of foliage and fruit that I was not satisfied with, and I have moved closer to a final concept for the partridge. Today I am feeling relaxed, looking ahead to the three day weekend, so I think I may tinker with some colors and maybe dye the background. For that, I am thinking about something that will evoke the look of tree foliage as it looks when you stand beneath the tree and see the sunlight and shadows. To do that I'm going to try evenly dyeing the wool a pale warm green, then scrunching the wool in a net bag and doing a resist dye in a darker green, perhaps cooler. I will undoubtedly use colors from the primitive family of colors on my website.