I sat on the shore of Lake Ontario in the welcome sunshine today for this sketch. There was lots of gardening and studio work to be done at home, plus the finishing touches on my Kenya talk, but I loved settling into the calm and relative isolation of the shoreline, a calm interrupted only by birdsong and a flashing glimpse of one lone fox emerging for seconds in the green undergrowth. Wish I could have sketched him! Nonetheless, it was a perfect holiday afternoon.
Otherwise I have been working on a couple of small silver pebble shoulder bags, a little bigger than the one in this post. Below is a glimpse of them in process as well as the two pieces of Kenyan wax cotton for the lining. These bags have a large pocket on the outside which has a magnetic closure and a leather phone pocket on the inside. The shoulder straps are on the sewing table now.
And I am coming to the end of Americanah, a big riveting yet uncomfortable novel and the the best I have read this year. We follow the two main characters from Nigeria to the US and/or Britain and along with their journeys come unsettling questions about race, gender and so many of the easy assumptions we rest on. I’m betting this book will win the Bailey Prize this year. There is a full review here from New York Magazine.
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