Saturday 22 June 2013

Butcher, Baker, Needlework Collector

My day has been surreal. It has included an episode that could easily have featured on the Jeremy Kyle Show or Eastenders but that is not a subject for this blog and I am really trying to forget about it, difficult as that is.

OK onto the equally strange encounter that bears some relation to this blog, although it may not seems so at first. Oncev a year J hosts a wine evening and we (I) prepare a meal related to the evenings theme. We try to source the finest ingredients in our locale and for many of those The Covered Market, Oxford is the place to go. There is more than one excellent butcher in the Market and we have no preference of one over another. Today, for no particular reason we went into one I don't recall patronising before. Whilst waiting to be served I was idlely looking at some leaflets on the counter. One in particular caught my attention, while out of the corner of my eye something else was registering. The leaflet was advertising the Michael and Elizabeth Feller books. I thought that an unusual subect for a butcher to sponser but the thing in the corner of my eye that was trying to attract my attention was the name of the butcher "M Feller and Daughter". M FELLER and daughter!!

When it came to my turn to be served, instead of placing my order, I pointed to the flyer and said "are you related?". "Ah!", he said, pointing to someone behind me, "that's the man you need to speak to."

For the next 30 minutes my attention was devided between ordering the ingredients I needed the evening meal and discussing the Michael and Elizabeth Feller Collection, their forthcoming exhibition at the a Ashmolean Museum, the related class which is fully booked within 24 hours of opening, the Threads of Silk and Gold Exhibition, and other embroidery related stuff.

When we left I said to J "do you think that was Michael Feller?". J said that was the impression he had been given. This evening I can't decide whether the butcher M Feller and Michael Feller, Needlework Collector, are related or one in the same person. Or whether I dreamt the whole encounter as an antidote to the vile episode that occured an hour earlier.

Happy Stitching

5 comments:

Rachel said...

That was a longer-than-usual visit to the butcher!

Moonsilk Stitches said...

Close encounters of the needlework kind.

Grace said...

Is there now a revised date for the Feller Exhibition? Must g and check the Ashmolean website.

MeganH said...

Surely only Michael himself would know about the exhibitions, class etc - a non-embroidery (male) relative would only know a few details.
How strange. Blood and guts and antique samplers.

N E E D L E P R I N T said...

You certainly did meet Micheal Feller - I was talking to him today and he was delighted to meet you. I hope you enjoy the exhibition and that you are aware of the books of his collection.
Kindest regards,
Jacqueline Holdsworth
Needleprint Books