Patchwork - a talk about Jane Austen

 I had a great time at the talk at North Books on Thursday afternoon.

They run a stitching bookclub, so most of the regulars had brought along their knitting projects - this was an extra event, with the author and artist of the book Patchwork, Kate Evans. This is a graphic novelisation of Jane Austen's life, and the title comes from the fact that she actually did help to make a patchwork quilt.  

There are digressions about the fabrics used - muslin  and chintz from India, linen from Ireland, cotton woven in Lancashire and grown by slaves in the United States. 

Some of the pictures are created on a sewing machine - Kate made panels of patchwork and machine embroidery which have become a frieze something like thirty five feet long!  Far too big to display at North Books, but she is doing a talk at a big country house later in the year, and there will be room to display it there.

At the back of the book are the footnotes - quotations from the novels and notes about what is happening in the text.  She was insistent that the book reflected the academic research she had done for it.  She had a short and heart-felt rant about how comics/graphic novels are overlooked by reviewers in the UK, and considered to be for children (if they're not about superheroes).  So an adult book, written as a graphic novel, is difficult to place - people don't generally go into a comic shop to look for a biography of Jane Austen, and ordinary bookshops find them difficult to place, too. 

She also had a bit to say about Beau Brummel, and the beginning of modern men's fashion.  Before Beau Brummel, who was a good friend of the Prince Regent, and therefore very influential in fashionable circles, clothing for the wealthy was all about displaying your wealth through your clothing - so fine silks, embroidered waistcoats, and so on.  Beau Brummel was all about the tailoring - still fine fabrics, but not in bright colours, and with little or no embroidery - and in tying the perfect cravat.  

She also had quite a bit to say about how women's work is devalued.  Women at every level of society did sewing, all the time.  All clothing was hand sewn, as well as curtains, sheets, and everything else made of fabric round the home.  There are many quotations from Jane Austen's novels about the women having their workbaskets with them (even Lydia thought about trimming a bonnet!) and several characters are shown to be idle and worthless because they don't do any sewing - this would have been very apparent to the contemporary readers of the books, though not so much to us now, where dress making is no longer a common skill (and so manufacturers can palm off just about any old rubbish on us in the name of fast fashion!).

So, I had a wonderful time, and I bought the book and had it signed - Kate asked each person she signed for to turn to a random page in the book, and she would write a quotation from that page.  Mine was "What is the line between imagination and reality?"  which I am delighted with!