Sleightholm Folk Art

Good morning friends,

I hope that you are doing well today, and ready to settle in for one of my favorite types of posts here on my blog- Tasha Tuesday! I knew I had written quite a few, and for quite a long time, but I hadn’t realized that my first post was in December 2011- that’s 12 years ago! Over a decade! My love for Tasha runs deep and well into the past. I know for many of you, it’s the same. It’s one of the things that makes us all such kindred spirits! And a love that continues to introduce me to friends around the country and the world.

One such friend is Arianne, who raises sheep, angora rabbits and a host of other adorable animals at her farm in the Ozarks. She is also a very accomplished knitter, spinner, basket maker and creator. We met several years ago when she came to one of my studio open houses, and we’ve met up a few times in the ensuing years for fieldtrip adventures. She’s also the owner of my ‘french girls” mama! Our French Angoras came from a litter of one of her beautiful does.

A few weeks ago we did a seed exchange from our gardens, and in the package she sent was this beautiful handsewn pocket! She got the pattern out of the book “Tasha Tudor’s Old Fashioned Gifts” by Tasha Tudor and Linda Allen and it is just beautiful!

A ‘pocket’ like this is a very old fashioned accessory that women would wear, particularly in the 18th century. It was something between a modern pocket and a purse, sometimes worn under a skirt or over it, and filled with things a woman would want on her person and kept safe and close.

My daughter was kind enough to model the pocket made for Arianne in our garden by the big Phantom Hydrangea. You can tell it’s large enough to keep many things in it! An old fashioned girl might keep her coin purse, some stitching, a sewing roll, a comb, a sweet missive or jewelry in her pocket. A pocket was a treasure trove!

How fitting it is to have received a gift made from this book about gifts from a talented friend….because Tasha wrote and illustrated this book with her own friend. Linda Allen was a young woman who lived and worked with Tasha in the 1970s, and was mentioned in a 1977 article about Tasha in The Brattleboro Reformer. According to the article, “In a corner Linda Allen spins wool, making some yarn from the corgis fur. Miss Allen, a talented young artist and friend of (Tasha’s daughter) Efner, explains she came to help make some slipcovers a year ago and just stayed on. “I’ve adopted her,” Mrs. Tudor says with a laugh.”

I think many of us who have a love for Tasha and her art would dream of being adopted by her, and spending cozy days working with her in Corgi Cottage. I had no idea that she (or anyone!) spun yarn from corgi fur. But I do know that she taught Linda to paint very well in a style that strongly mimicked her own. There are illustrations in some of her books that we think of as pure Tasha- which were in fact painted by Linda. An image that immediately comes to mind is a St. Lucia included in a Christmas pop up book.

I’m afraid I dont know much about what became of Linda after her collaborations with Tasha, but she obviously had some strong artistic and creative skills and would be a kindred spirit for us.

I am so pleased with my pretty pocket and am so honored to have been given such a beautiful handmade gift. Thank you so much, Arianne!

As we go through these summer months, and hopefully into the following seasons, I plan to post more Tasha Tuesdays. Do you have any topics to suggest? Isn’t it funny, I’ve been writing for so long, yet still come back to them. Tasha is endlessly fascinating and her art continually inspiring.

I hope you come and visit again soon!
Take Joy,

H