Hand-Painted Textiles: A Practical Guide to the Art of Painting on Fabric by Sarah Campbell

I had been quilting for a few years when a friend and I took a class on surface design. We learned how to hand-dye fabrics and to use tools to make designs on fabric. Years later, I spent a year taking decorative painting classes, learning how to use a brush. I always wanted to return to surface design using paints. This book caught my eye.

Sarah Campbell has a long career as a commercial textile designer. Recently, she has turned to hand painting unique designs on to fabric. Learning the techniques she shares allows everyone to become a designer of unique textiles.

It is a technique with risks, Campbell warns, but is also liberating and fun.

Campbell explains the basics of pattern and color.

Campbell explains the tools needed, how to prepare the fabric, and how to use heat-set paints and inks. For applying paint, foam brushes are extremely useful for making a variety of designs, and she shows how to uses various brushes. Potatoes can be carved to press on designs. She also shows uses for masking tape, how to create and use stencils, ‘paint’ with bleach, and create traditional paste resist designs. She even embroiders the painted fabrics.

Campbell includes projects with step-by-step photographs for each of the various methods. The projects are quite varied, with something for every interest and need. There is even a chapter for piecing scraps.

Campbell’s impressive large scale designs are shown as upholstery and drapery. And she shows clothing she has made with her painted fabrics.

The designs span from the geometric to floral and representational.

This colorful book is a wonderful resource that will inspire you to new creative heights.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Hand-painted Textiles: A Practical Guide to the Art of Painting on Fabric
Sarah Campbell
Herbert Press/Bloomsbury USA
Pub Date April 23, 2023
ISBN: 9781789940626

from the publisher

This beautiful and inspirational book written by a doyenne of British textile design explores the art of painting and making patterns on cloth.

Fabrics bring colour and vibrance to our lives, adding inventiveness and charm to both our clothes and our domestic interiors.

In this book, lifelong textile designer Sarah Campbell takes you through her world of pattern and colour to uncover the joys of design from dots, stripes and checks to more surprising decorative solutions. Beautifully illustrated with Sarah’s colourful and internationally acclaimed work, her fabric designs show the comforting rhythm and universal language of pattern.

• Learn how to create your own unique designs using a range of tools and techniques including brushes and potato-cuts, stencils and simple ‘kitchen cupboard’ resists.
• Explore the delights of painting on different fabrics such as cotton, linen, silk and calico/muslin.
• Develop your understanding of scale, colour, tonality and the organisation of pattern ideas, alongside suggestions on how to use your finished fabrics.

Introduction
The Tools of My Trade

1. Making a Start with Making a Mark
2. Potatoes
3. Masking Tapes
4. Stencils
5. Freezer Paper Stencils
6. Stencils and Paste Resist
7. Silks
8. Pattern and Colour Placement
9. A Pattern to Match a Pattern
10. Painting with Bleach
11. Painting a T-shirt
12. Freehand Painting
13. Pieced and Patched
14. Painted Fabric as a Base for Decorative Stitching
15. In the Theatre of Pattern
    Conclusion
    Sources & Materials

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

As a college freshman in a required English Lit survey class I fell in love with 18th c literature and later took an advanced class in the early novel. I loved it all. Henry Fielding! Tobias Smollett! Lawrence Sterne! Grub Street hacks and Samuel Johnson! Consequently, when I began reading The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, I fell right into the world of Georgian London as experienced by Sancho. Paterson Joseph takes the scant historical records of a real person and richly imagines the life of an African in 18th c. London.

Born on a slave ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean on what is quaintly described as the middle passage. I now say a slave ship is neither in a passage nor does it navigate the middle of anywhere. It sails straight to the heart of hell.

from The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

Born aboard ship in 1729 to African parents who had been kidnapped by slavers, as a tot Charles Ignatius was sent to England to live with three unmarried sisters. They dress him finely and treat him like a pet, calling him Sancho (after Sancho Panza from Don Quixote) for his rotundness. Discovering that he has learned to read and write in secret, the sisters lock him in the cellar for punishment and call for the slave catcher. Sancho’s dear ally, the housemaid Tilly, rescues him. And so his pampered life ends, and he must live as he can, neither free nor slave, with the slave catcher hot on his trail.

Sancho’s adventures takes him into gritty bars and gambling dens–and to meet the Queen. He encounters all the age’s lights–Handel, Samuel Johnson, Lawrence Sterne (whose writing style Sancho “vowed to imitate”), famous actors, and artists including Thomas Gainsborough who painted his portrait.

And he falls in love.

The novel is written by an elderly Sancho, suffering from gouty hands and knees, sharing his story with his youngest son through excerpts from his journal. A long section of the novel consists of letters written between him and his love interest Anne, who traveled to Barbados to care for an ailing aunt. The section is a nod to the epistolary style of early 18th c novels, including Samuel Richardson’s Pamela.

Those letters bring to light the horrors of British slavery on the Caribbean plantations. Anne observes first-hand the heartless overseer left in charge by the uninvolved plantation owners, and the total subjugation and powerlessness of the slaves. Anne fears for her virtue until she is able to return to England after five years.

Newly married, Sancho grabs what work he can, filling in as a valet, playing his harpsicord music, and running errands, until he purchases a shop. As a landowner, he stands up for his right to vote for an abolitionist candidate.

I found the novel vastly entertaining while offering insight into the 18th c black experience.

Thanks to Henry Holt who send an ARC through LibraryThing.

The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho
by Paterson Joseph
Henry Holt and Co.
Pub Date April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781250880376

from the publisher

It’s finally time for Charles Ignatius Sancho to tell his story, one that begins on a slave ship in the Atlantic and ends at the very center of London life. . . . A lush and immersive tale of adventure, artistry, romance, and freedom set in eighteenth-century England and based on a true story

It’s 1746 and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man. Charles Ignatius Sancho must dodge slave catchers and worse, and his main ally—a kindly duke who taught him to write—is dying. Sancho is desperate and utterly alone. So how does the same Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the king, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain, and lead the fight to end slavery? Through every moment of this rich, exuberant tale, Sancho forges ahead to see how much he can achieve in one short life: “I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more.”

about the author

Paterson Joseph is an award-winning actor who has been fascinated by Sancho for many years. He wrote and starred in the play Sancho: An Act of Remembrance in 2018, which was staged in the UK as well as the US. A veteran of the stage, TV, and film, Paterson has appeared on The Mosquito Coast, an Apple TV+ original series; Doctor Who; Noughts + Crosses; and other BBC programs. The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho is his first novel.

Silver Alert by Lee Smith

Lee Smith is a magician! Silver Alert had me smiling and laughing and left me happy. Her characters are wonderful and loveable. And yet, their lives are filled with hardship: sexual abuse, facing death, watching a loved in decline.

Octogenarian Herbert Atlas has been told his days are numbered. His first, beloved wife dead, and his second beloved wife Susan has dementia. One day a pretty girl with a snaggle tooth rings the doorbell. She was hired by Susan’s daughter to give her a pedicure. “If you can get her to sit still,” Herb tells her. Susan is having a very bad day, angry and violent.

The girl has a way with Susan, calming her right down. She is hired as a part time day nurse, working her magic on Susan. Dee Dee is a life-saver. She has given a fake name and she is hiding a troubled past. Her mother was an addict, and after her death the man who took ‘care of’ Dee Dee was anything but fatherly. She escaped into a worse life. Now, she has left that life and has big dreams. Like seeing Disneyland. And she met a nice boy who she hopes loves her.

Susan and Herb’s family makes an intervention; it was time for Herb and Susan to move out of their Florida mansion into care facilities. But first, Herb and Dee Dee take a little ride that turns into a Silver Alert–a missing senior–that takes Herb down Memory Lane and opens a new world to Dee Dee.

The story is told through chapters alternating between Herb and Dee Dee, allowing us to learn their histories.

Absolutely delightful! Hopeful and bright, a reminder to live life your way.

I received a free ARC from the publisher through LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.

I previously read the author’s memoir Dimestore and three of her many novels.

Silver Alert
by Lee Smith
Algonquin Books
Pub Date April 18, 2023
ISBN:9781643752419 (ISBN10: 1643752413)

from the publisher

A driving force in literature, the one and only Lee Smith returns with a road trip novel, a story full of hope and humor about not going away quietly—at any age.

Aging Herb’s charmed life with his dear wife, Susan, in their Key West house is coming undone. Susan now needs constant care, and Herb is in denial about his own ailing health. The one bright spot is the arrival of an endlessly optimistic manicurist calling herself Renee. She sings to Susan during manicures, gets her to paint, and brings her a sense of contentment.

But then Herb and Susan’s adult children arrive to stage an intervention on their stubborn, independent father, and as a consequence, Renee’s gig with Susan—and her grand plans for her own life—start to unravel as well. So much had seemed as if it could change for Renee, who is not the happy, uncomplicated young girl she pretends to be. She is actually named Dee Dee, and she’s fleeing a dark past.

And Herb can’t just let go of all that he has ever had. So, he suggests one last joy ride in his Porsche. And the two take off north out of Key West, soon setting off a Silver Alert. As the unlikely friendship between Herb and Dee Dee deepens, we see how as one life is closing down, another opens up.

In this buoyant novel, the masterful Smith asks: What do we deserve? And how do we make it our own? Sometimes, you just have to seize the wheel.

Fans of Smith’s many books in her storied, bestselling career won’t want to miss her newest novel. And readers of novels like Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes will adore Silver Alert.

The Windsors at War: The King, His Brother, and a Family Divided by Alexander Larman

Exhaustively researched, with a narrative that kept me turning pages, The Windsors at War continues the story begun in The Crown in Crisis about the abdication of King Edward VIII so he marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. His younger, unprepared, brother became King George VI. But what does a country do with an ex-king? Especially if he is too forthright with his opinions?

This installment continues the story with the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. The man who used to be king, the Duke of Windsor. was way too cozy with some very iffy Germans, and even met the Fuhrer himself, and he was vehemently against war with Germany. Was he a fascist sympathizer? It wasn’t uncommon, we learn. The new king’s personal secretaries had fascist sympathies. Even FDR’s ambassador to Britain, Joe Kennedy, Sr., thought it was the logical next step from democracy based on Hitler’s turning the Germany economy around.

I have been accused of harshness towards Edward…My only regret is that I have been too generous towards him.

from the Introduction to The Windsors at War by Alexander Larman

Larman displays a well-deserved snarkiness about the Duke of Windsor. As king, he never cared for the officious duties of kingship, but he sure did enjoy the lifestyle. After his abdication, he expected to still get the royal treatment by family and friends. He was insistent that Wallis be given the title of HRH and be received at court. Instead, he was exiled from his homeland and lived in Europe, where he and his wife got chummy with a rich Nazi sympathizer. Hitler envisioned conquering Britain and his spies were grooming the Duke in take over, even plotting an abduction if he tried to leave Europe. The king got the Duke out of the country by making him governor of the Bahamas, where he and Wallis felt isolated, lonely, and resentful. Also, there was all that heat, and black people.

Meanwhile, the new king had to hit the ground running, tasked with the seemingly impossible: protecting England, keeping up morale under the Blitz, convincing isolationist America to get involved, with his self-involved brother constantly making demands. The king and his wife visited the bombed villages, winning the hearts of the people. He even won over Winston Churchill, who had been his brother’s supporter, but now knew that the ‘right man’ was on the throne.

The major players’ story lines are mesmerizing, but the bit players’ lives are just as fascinating. Like the king’s younger brother, the scandalous and well-beloved Duke of of Kent, and the king’s personal secretaries with their fascist leanings. We see the teenaged Princess Elizabeth making her first appearances, her first speech–and Larman ends the book with a teaser of her coming role in the divided family.

It is an account of treachery, and of cynicism. It is a tale of decent people doing thoughtless and inconsiderate, even dangerous things when faced with an intolerable amount of pressure, and of their getting it wrong as often as they succeeded.[…]But it is also a story of heroism and honour, of principles maintained against near-impossible odds.

from Introduction, The Windsors at War by Alexander Larman

I can’t wait for the next book in the series.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. #SMPinfluencer

The Windsors at War: The King, His Brother, and a Family Divided
by Alexander Larman
Pub Date April 18, 2023
St. Martin’s Press
ISBN: 978125028458

from the publisher

The next volume in Alexander Larman’s biographical chronicle of the Windsor family, as they go to war with Adolf Hitler—and each other.

At the beginning of 1937, the British monarchy was in a state of turmoil. The previous king, Edward VIII, had abdicated the throne, leaving his unprepared and terrified brother Bertie to become George VI, surrounded by a gaggle of courtiers and politicians who barely thought him up to the job. Meanwhile, as the now-Duke of Windsor awaited the decree that would allow him to marry his mistress Wallis Simpson, he took an increased interest in the expansionist plans of Adolf Hitler. He may even have gone so far as to betray his country in the process. And as double agents and Nazi spies thronged the corridors of Buckingham Palace, the only man the King could trust was his Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. But they faced a formidable, even unbeatable, adversary: his own brother.

The Windsors at War tells the never-before-told story of World War Two in Britain and America with a fresh focus on the royal family, their conflicted relationships, and the events that rocked the international press. How did this squabbling, dysfunctional family manage to put their differences aside and unite to help win the greatest conflict of their lifetimes? Alexander Larman, author of The Crown in Crisis, now chronicles the Windsor family at war with Germany—and each other.