Taste

I was going to call this post Nasty, but rather in a nasty being a Nice Nasty sort of a way. Are you following me here? I hope so. I'm finding more and more that my tastes are evolving ever so slightly to embrace things that many a moon ago I might have said yeeurrghhkk to. Now I say loudly when I see these nasty things - yippee, yes please I like that. So I'm slowly using fabrics that just didn't do it for me and buying things that look right when they're taken away from nasty surroundings and plonked with the right things. Right to my mind of course as taste is an ever so personal thing isn't it.

Around our family holiday time, I've been trying to find a moment here and there to finish up some makes for the weekend at Little Vintage Lover Fair. I've stitched up a few more Happy Shopper Bags, knitted some Cosy Hangers and made a fair few felty anenomes. I've been choosing slightly differerent colours and prints to the ones I'm usually drawn to. I'm thinking this is a good thing as it keeps me interested in what I'm doing. To be sure other people's tastes will be changing just the same as mine do, I've just got to hope that we're in step with one another.

I've never been an avid follower of fashion. Jumping on bandwagons has always made me come over all funny so I bumble along in my own way with my taste and everyone elses colliding every now and then. There was a brief moment in the 1980's when I now wonder if my muddy flowered 1950's dress which I wore with black and white striped tights brothel creepers and pink eyeliner was maybe way off the taste scale. I do remember a boy at art college asking me if I had conjunctivitis. I just thought he was being mean, but looking back I can see what he meant. As we get older we just hope and pray that we're not mutton dressed as lamb and god forbid an embarassment to our children. At present my girls still want to borrow my stuff so I guess my taste is ok for them, or is it their taste is ok for me?

On to other matters of taste is the question of dogs. Now some prefer big old things and some small ones. We like all sorts to be honest. My favourites are scrufty haired dogs that look as naughty as can be. I was never particularly drawn to Pugs and then we got one - an Alfie Blue to be exact and I'm smitten as they are the bestest most loving and trustworthy dogs I've ever known. We did a lot of research as we didn't want anything that would eat our other animals or scare Miss Rosey as she was pretty scared of dogs before Alfie came home. When I read an ad that a home was needed for a seven month old black Pug who sucked his tongue I knew we'd found our boy. Mr B and Miss Rosey drove off to Lincolnshire to bring him home. Seven years later he is the most adored best boy of Mr B and can get away with blue murder. I'm the bad cop who tells him No, he's the nice cop who says whatever you want my black furry angel.

That's how he ends up on the table having a wander about and pretty much doing what he pleases until I tell the whole naughty lot of them off.  He is pretty handy at sevens though. Now if we had a Great Dane I bet they'd still let it sit on the table.

Now as I said, some things that are at first nasty can be changed to become nice nasty which is good. I bought this fabric at LVL in Heydon last year although I wasn't sure why or if I really liked it. A whole year has passed and then suddenly it became a bag with a bit of gree polka-dot and white trim and I like it a whole lot.

The other bag I made in curtain fabric that I felt neither here nor there about, but just knew I'd come round to liking one day. Tastes changing and all that stuff. Yet again with the right contrasting colours and it works for me.

Now I did say that my girls like my taste and I think they have good taste of their own too, so I generally trust their opinion. Sometimes it just has to be ignored when I feel an urgent need for something nasty. For a long old while now I've wanted some bright plastic flowers. When I spied these on our trip to the seaside for a whole £1 I had to have them. The girls just said "Why?". The only answer to that one is because they make me smile. I'm lucky that I have a man who shares my taste too. His taste does veer towards the slightly sinister and ever so kitsch when left on its own. Some things I feel drawn to he might say "it's ok" (meaning) "I don't like, but it's easier to not say so". Some things he likes and I don't, so I say nothing and just hide it in the garage. He knows what I'm up to, I'm not fooling anyone.

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures that should be to everyone's taste. We visited Wells-Next-the-Sea on the hottest hot day this week. It was pure bliss, we swam in a warm sea channel with soft sand under our feet and loved watching all the different dogs reactions to the sea (we end up giving them voices like Johnny Morris in Animal Magic and giggle to ourselves). On the walk back to town we played which beach hut would we like to own the most. There were so many more than these to choose from so it wasn't at all easy.

Finally, after marching across the beach, through the woods and along a never ending spit we reached the best taste ever. Ice cold drinks and lots of them. Sometimes that's the only kind of taste you need.

Happy Holidays to you all.