The uses of theology

Ohh dearrr! 1.30 a.am. before I got to bed last night. I got stuck on 'God's eye'. It was 'finished', but I was really cross because God's eyeball has space round it - you can see the whit

Pages from the Holkham Bible

e/pink of his eye. Is God that kind of person? He is now. I spent ages thinking if I could rectify it, but 'for technical reasons' it is not possible, believe me. Thus at breakfast, the answer emerged in conversation. The pupil of the eye is supposed to be God's thought, him thinking up the idea of the up the idea of creation, which is why it is all whirly; I think I had in the back of my mind images from the Holkham Bible http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/holkham.html which has some gorgous rather abstract illustrations. It is so much illustration that some think it may have been a kind of pattern book for mediaeval wall painters and/or embroiderers. (Rotten pic, I'm sorry, just now in artificial light). Oh crikey, I've unwittingly used it again too. Read on, if you can...

God's eye (with Hagar's)

So God with his eyeball floating in space didn't matter so much, as we decided it could be like the earth spinning in space. All that time I studied theology, and now it shows its worth! And D assures me that he thinks this kind of use is not at all out of the ordinary too, i.e. finding ways to justify the accidental. Anyway, I stopped fretting about the thing, and moved on.

The pupil of Hagar's eye is in silver, as she seems to see God, so the reflection there would be pure light, perhaps???

Today's helpful household inspiration

Making a start

Jumped a bit - 'here's one I made earlier'.

So today I got to work on the equivalent piece for Sarah - her pocket, basically. I thought about tents, and domesticity, and onto carpets, and looked down from the landing for ideas, and then set about my work. Then tonight, I had one of those exegetical leaps! I'd already added the Pink Thing, which is.. well what IS it? Shall I leave it to you? Is it Sarah's ear, overhearing? or is it a foetus? After all, the OT is full of begetting, and there is Isaac to come. Then I thought - that's homage to Grayson Perry too, as he did a quilt featuring aborted foetuses, shown in the open book underneath. I saw the actual thing at the V & A last year; brilliant. Then, hell, things came thick and fast today. The tent flaps - well they ARE in colours that are a bit... anatomical, mmm? I won't go into it here, as you may be reading this before 9 pm. That was kind of accidental but you-know-how-the-mind-works on these things; homage to Tracey Emin too. I had been thinking of her tent as a bit of a womby place, and what with the Lord visiting her there and look what happens to her! And, hell, it went on... I saw a piece of cloth I'd made in 2008 in celebration of marmalade, and thought - flames - just what I need for baking Sarah's cakes over, so I slapped them in there. And then I thought - are you hanging on - hell, that flame is under that baby-thing - that's Isaac - and oh crikey, that's what nearly happens to him!!!

So it all got a bit too much for me, and I'm feeling all , well, excitable.

Out in the garden, I was sent to fetch in some plums. Honestly, why ask a bohemian to do that? 'Cos I just stood there and ATE THEM ALL. No, really, I tried to save one or two for t'owd man, and then I DID go and get a bucket of windfall apples. But it made me think, wasn't it NICE of Eve to hand over that apple to Adam? Wasn't she a KIND woman? Compared with me, very much.

I spent a little time sewing by hand, and as this is such a rare thing, I got t'owd man to photograph it for posterity. With my little dog Mimi. I didn't sit there long, as he brought me some beer, and two wasps got drunk and nearly drowned in there, and were fished out by embroidery scissors, which did them no good at all. If the half-bee is called Eric, what would half-pissed-wasps be called?

Anyway, the Sarah thing is just about done. I'll put a ribbon on to tie the tent flap back when it is on display. As usual, you might have to wait for tomorrow's gripping episode. But I managed not to put too much on it; I avoided words. But I did wonder, in view of her story in Genesis, whether Sarah might put one of those notices you can get on the front door of the tent: 'No Jehovah's' (sic).