Have you seen the size of those?

I am a very lucky lady, I have just spent an excellent weekend in London.  It is a great city. 
Ya ya ya.


Having been at home in the UK for a whole two weeks (!) I had to get myself on a train somewhere as my feet were beginning to itch.  I have slept in the same bed, except on my birthday where I slept in the fancy dress box ..... for over 10 nights!  So, I found a bunch of juicy excuses to pack a bag without feeling guilty and hopped on the train from Manchester to the BIG SMOKE.


The first excuse was to get a fix at the V&A,  my personal place of worship.  
Is this the best museum in the world or is this the best museum in the world?  


I called one of my best friends, a fantastically talented ceramicist, SOPHIE WOODROW to see if she fancied hopping on a bus to meet me for some eclectic INSPIRATION, chats, coffee and V&A magic.


Picture this, one slightly eccentric blond ceramicist and one silver booted and flat capped embroidery artist pootling around oohing and aghhing, wooing and cooing over the atmospheric delights of these awe inspiring galleries and of course popping in and out of the totally sumptuous cafe for some serious V&A visitor watching.  It's right up there in the people watching charts of best places to gaze at interesting folks with interesting hair cuts, interesting facial hair and their arty farty clobber.  
Brilliant.  A changing and excellent live exhibition of Victoria and Albert fans every day.  
The cafe is a gallery in itself.


And...OH MY GOD. 


Have you or have you not seen the size of the meringues in the V&A?  
Never mind post neolithic marble columns from Outer Mongolia!  
Go straight from security-check to the cafe.... to see these meringues.  
They are totally fantastic.  


I am ashamed to admit that I am not worthy of writing about these crispy white dreamy mountains of sugary glory as I didn't actually purchase one. I just held up the queue next to the till until S brought me back to life... and I found myself having one of those mindless moments of brainless blandness, ordering the most boring thing in the world.  
A cheese sandwich.  Do you ever do that? I do it all the time.  
It's amazing my inability to cope with choice.  
I mean really, a cheese sandwich.


We dragged ourselves away from the meringues and the joy of watching people who had braved them and wandered around the new ceramics floor at the top.  Have you seen that? It is earth shatteringly impressive and overwhelming.  So of course, once our eyes had exploded and we couldnt walk any further for information overload, we ended up finishing our tour back in the cafe for a good old chat about the opposite sex over glasses of Rose. Delightful.


The weekend continued with frivolity and friends and then today, fantastically ended back in the V&A!  I met with a lovely new client who has just commissioned me to make a bespoke embroidery based on trees and dreams and flowers and pagodas and butterflies and clouds and gardens and birds .... MAYBE...?  (I have couriered the challenge to simmer in my sub conscious for a wee while.)  We visited the Imperial Robes exhibition which is stunning, (go see it!) to share ideas and get to know each other better.  I love meeting people through my work.


A small exhibition but huge in its content.... I mean WOW.  


The embroidery is unbelievable and makes me feel like a fraud.  It is stunning and it is impossible to fathom the time and the skill that has created these masterpieces.  But what I left with was colour vibrations..... humming through my mind... delicious ..... pistachio, duck egg blue, pink, coral, gold, indigo blacks or something like that, burnt reds .... a bop bap baloobaaaaaa, sublimely shiny and lustrous and inexplicably created by small patient dedicated human hands... inspired by the Gods.


Bonkers.  


And of course, I also managed to squeeze in a romantic moment, staring at the superhuman Meringues. The thought of attempting to eat one in public was too much so I quietly left, got the train home and planed my week trying to find a new studio.  
I have some exciting work to do and the clock is ticking.


Wish me luck.




Lou the Foo in a Sugary Tutu.