{"id":34989,"date":"2018-02-05T06:30:58","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T17:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=34989"},"modified":"2018-01-25T22:19:19","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T09:19:19","slug":"what-im-reading-something-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2018\/02\/05\/what-im-reading-something-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"What I&#8217;m Reading: Something Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the holiday season, I\u2019ve embarked on a post series titled \u201cSomething Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue\u201d (and you can see the previous entries under Categories: <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/category\/what-im-reading\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">What I&#8217;m Reading<\/a> in the farther right-hand sidebar.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/02\/12\/sff-cover-art-love-more-favorites\/blue-lily-lily-blue_jkt\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-28128\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-28128 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blue-Lily-Lily-Blue_jkt-99x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"99\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blue-Lily-Lily-Blue_jkt-99x150.jpg 99w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blue-Lily-Lily-Blue_jkt-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Blue-Lily-Lily-Blue_jkt.jpg 576w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 99px) 100vw, 99px\" \/><\/a>Initially, though, I was a bit stumped by Something Blue, because I couldn&#8217;t find a book I hadn&#8217;t read previously, whether new or old, that had &#8220;blue&#8221; in the title.\u00a0 I could think of plenty of books that I <em>had<\/em> read and loved previously, which make quite a nice list in their own right:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>A Patch Of Blue<\/em> by Elizabeth Kata (first published as <i>Be Ready with Bells and Drums<\/i>, 1961)<\/li>\n<li><em>The Blue Sword<\/em> by Robin McKinley (1982)<\/li>\n<li><em>A Solitary Blue<\/em> by Cynthia Voight (1983)<\/li>\n<li><em>Army Blue<\/em> by Lucian K Truscott IV (1989)<\/li>\n<li><em>Blue At The Mizzen<\/em> by Patrick O&#8217;Brien (1999)<\/li>\n<li><em>The Blue Girl<\/em> by Charles De Lint (2004)<\/li>\n<li><em>Bitterblue<\/em> by Kirstin Cashore (2012)<\/li>\n<li><em>Blue Lily, Lily Blue<\/em> by Maggie Stiefvater (2014)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And there&#8217;s one or two more in there, I&#8217;m sure&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?attachment_id=34995\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-34995\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-34995 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Blue-White_Yeoward-218x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"218\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Blue-White_Yeoward-218x300.jpg 218w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Blue-White_Yeoward-109x150.jpg 109w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Blue-White_Yeoward.jpg 290w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 218px) 100vw, 218px\" \/><\/a>However, I did not have to continue thinking hard after all, because I was rescued by a Christmas present &#8212; UK designer William Yeoward&#8217;s <strong><em>Blue &amp; White<\/em><\/strong>, subtitled &#8220;<em>A Personal Journey Through Colour.<\/em>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As those\u00a0 who&#8217;ve read my Month Of Joy posting on <a href=\"http:\/\/skiffyandfanty.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Skiffy and Fanty<\/a> will know, I am a fan of colour in all its manifestations &#8212; and the colour blue is probably my most consistent favourite (although the &#8220;favourite&#8221; tag does tend to shift around.) So\u00a0<em>Blue &amp; White<\/em> was always going to be of interest and although it&#8217;s been some time since I read an interior design book from cover to cover, this one did repay the journey.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;personal journey&#8221; of the subtitle is very much the driving force of the book, but that is no less interesting than a wider purview since William Yeoward has spent 35 years in the industry, honing his craft &#8212; which has also, as perusal of the book makes clear, been very much an artistic path as well.<\/p>\n<p>The book focuses on homes and settings that Yeoward has either decorated outright or styled in some way, and I liked that it is not &#8220;just&#8221; pretty pictures: he also explains his design approach and how certain effects\u00a0 are achieved. One of the elements I found interesting was how he combined the basic blue and white schemes with other textures, for example, natural wood, to ensure the blue effect was not &#8220;cold&#8221; &#8212; always the risk with blue, from my observation, much as I love the colour.<\/p>\n<p>The other aspect of interest to me was how Yeoward&#8217;s schemes and focus were predominantly in what I consider the English style, which is very textured and very formal. Overall, it&#8217;s not a style I think works readily for the New Zealand climate and lifestyle, or its light, which is much harsher than in the UK. However, the value of the book is not so much in fittings and furnishings but in how colours work together and effects can be achieved. In that sense it&#8217;s a matter of applying the principles rather than slavishly adopting the &#8220;look.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Blue &amp; White<\/em> is a beautiful coffee table book and it&#8217;s also a resource, albeit at a high level. Anyone who is interested in art, interior design, or colour will almost certainly enjoy the read &#8212; if only to realise how much time and money people spend, not only on interior schemes but on elaborate table settings. With respect to the table settings I will confess that my own plebeian reflection was that it was a lot of time and effort to expend on something that would be all-for-nought as soon as the guests sat down, however striking as a first effect. I enjoyed the &#8220;window shopping&#8221; though, even if, like Georgie Girl, I had no intention of &#8220;stopping to buy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So there it is, not only Something Blue, something a little different for <em>&#8220;&#8230;on Anything, Really&#8221; <\/em>as well. But hey, it&#8217;s the new year and that&#8217;s the time for having fun and changing things up a little.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the holiday season, I\u2019ve embarked on a post series titled \u201cSomething Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue\u201d (and you can see the previous entries under Categories: What I&#8217;m Reading in the farther right-hand sidebar.) Initially, though, I was a bit stumped by Something Blue, because I couldn&#8217;t find a book I hadn&#8217;t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-im-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34989"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35001,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34989\/revisions\/35001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}