I'm in Love!

I am the product of a deprived childhood. When my siblings and I were young, my parents, thinking what terrible things could happen to their four precious girls, would forbid us from leaving the house save to go to school. Playtime was almost strictly always indoors. So we learned to entertain ourselves, for example making paper dolls for which we fabricated elaborate lives, complete with Spartan-tsinelas automobiles and Safeguard-box furniture. Come Christmas, we'd be making all sorts of gifts for relatives. The most famous were old neckties we stuffed to make soft-toy snakes. Unfortunately, a cousin with no imagination only got scared upon opening his present, and proceeded to very loudly cry.

Now a grownup I have predictably enough transformed into one of those girls who like making things with their hands. I make jewelry, I sew, I can even knit and crochet, all that corny stuff, you know. When Nicky, Mirren, and I were exploring Arles last week, we happened upon a little market devoted to craftsmen of all things woven and knit. There were sculptural dresses, artsy wraps, impressive coats that wouldn't look out of place in an art gallery. Mirren tried on one of the funky hats:

While Nicky was snapping pictures, I got to talking to a lady who told me that the hat was made through a technique called feutre de laine, which in English would be felting, I think. Someone was offering a course, but 180 kilometers away from Aigues Mortes. Through the magic of Google, I found an artisan closer to home here, and a few days later I was attending one of Madame Pouget-Gavriloff's workshops. She gave me balls of quite uninteresting wool, had me work at them with soap and warm water, and, an hour later, I had made myself this cute little bag:

As they say back in Manila these days, Ahlavet! So, sometime in the near future I'll be making a second blog where I'll be posting pictures of all my new felted creations, to save those bored by all this the spectacle of me waxing ecstatic over wool. To those interested, watch for more bags, some jewelry, a few scarves, and maybe even my own hat.