Mother’s Day 2022

There’s not so much to be positive about at the moment, but we can at least take a moment to think about and celebrate our mothers.

My mother in her late twenties.

I have much to thank my mother for not least her interest in the visual arts. She was in the audience for one of my early forays into the world of fashion when she attended a catwalk show in London where some of my work was presented. And, she did see my daughter the evening she went off to her Prom in a painted silk chiffon dress I’d made.

Painted silk chiffon for Prom dresses. My niece in the lilac and my daughter in the peach.

However, sadly she never knew I launched a business with an online boutique.

Example of my work. Professional studio, lighting and model.

Of course, for those of you lucky enough to still have your mothers in your lives there are plenty of gifts of all types and kinds these days. There are edible, wearable, watchable, doable, learnable and give-aid-able gifts on offer.

Naturally, in the ‘wearable’ option there are my hand painted silk scarves!

Mother’s Day and remembering mothers

My mother is no longer with us, but, she still lives on in my memory. Of course, she was not always a mother and she had some fun times despite growing up during the war years. She was an entertaining storyteller and liked to reminisce. I remember her vivid retelling of how when she was a teenager she and a friend secretly went to a call for extras for a film and she was picked. Unfortunately, my grandfather was absolutely furious when he found out and would not allow her to take up the offer. When she was older she enjoyed amateur dramatics and particularly loved dancing. Naturally, as a teenager she liked to dress like the Hollywood stars of the day and people often remarked she reminded them of Rita Hayworth.

This will be the eighth Mother’s Day when I’ve not been planning a special lunch for her and it only seems like yesterday I was painting a silk scarf for her in her favourite colours. If she was still here today I think she’d like one of these scarves with plenty of old gold, mustard and a hint of chartreuse.

She used to joke she was a blonde in a brunette’s body. She was a spirited, golden girl with amber coloured eyes and one shade or another of blonde hair. Much missed.

Mother’s Day – 26 March 2017

 

As we approach Mother’s Day (here in the UK) I have been lucky once again to be selected by UK Handmade to have a couple of my scarves featured in their Spring Showcase.

As you may already know I take all my own product and publicity photos. I have been photographing my own work for four years now, but try as I might I still can’t get my head round photographing in advance, in preparation for the next season. I always marvel at the wintery Christmas television adverts that were most likely shot in high summer.

The best I can manage is to create the feel of a season. For spring this year I initially had a go at working with yellow, but in the end I have chosen pink for the main colour. I’m going all out with spring pink. In fact I have even rearranged my shop homepage to start with all the pink and mostly pink scarves. Who doesn’t love a little double pink cherry blossom?

Agnes Ashe

Remember Hand Washing?

In the UK, Mother’s Day usually falls on a Sunday in March. This year I notice it is quite late, March 30th, as Easter is late too. When I was a child my sister and I were expected to help out with the chores on Mother’s Day. As we got older we’d either bake a cake or a nice pudding for my mother – she had a very sweet tooth. We didn’t have a dishwasher, so my sister and I were used to washing and drying up. If, we had baked we were expected to leave the kitchen as clean as we’d found it particularly on Mother’s Day.

My mother was not into kitchen gadgetry, like dishwashers, but she did have a large front-loading washing machine. Despite this I still remember her meticulously washing any special, delicate clothing by hand. I remember explaining the ‘wool’ cycle on the machine, but she told me that she found hand washing beautiful garments quite therapeutic and not a chore. It is not how we think today, but I did notice when cold rinsing by hand a batch of scarves that the colours of the submerged silk were worth capturing in a photo.

Hand Washing
Cold rinsing silk scarves.