Cornflower

Black, white and grey

The caption to this picture reads, "There pass by this place many quite small craft, trimly rigged."

I went shopping with one of my not-so-small 'craft' today in order to rig her trimly in a few days' time. I accompanied my elder daughter, Alice, to buy an outfit for her to wear to A Special Occasion (of which more later). This retail therapy (and those are not words I would normally put side by side) involved a visit to Princes Street.

Once genteel, elegant, a street whose setting is without parallel, Edinburgh's main shopping thoroughfare is no longer "the most picturesque street in all our island", as was claimed in this 1930s advertisement for the long-departed and much missed R. W. Forsyth's

Gone are the 'Foreign & Colonial Outfitters'/'Suppliers of Ecclesiastical & Academic Robes', to be replaced by .....wait for it...: Topshop.

There we went today, looking like this, naturally,

only to be beset by crowds and loud music.

Despite unfavourable conditions, Alice found something in which  - as always - she looks lovely. Had we been able to revive ourselves afterwards by taking tea, we would have done so -

but Starbucks doesn't have quite the same appeal.

The photographs come from this fascinating book:

and to show again how times have changed, here's the spot where my son Will was meeting his chums this afternoon - not a hoodie in sight.....

Piece by piece

In her beautiful book "The Patchworks of Lucy Boston", Diana Boston describes how the writer of the famous 'Green Knowe' series created a unique collection of quilts and wall-hangings, each one entirely hand sewn. The picture above is a detail from The Keyboard Patchwork which, Diana writes, "must have required medieval patience...". With 154 blocks incorporating 1,386 octagons and squares, each one stitched with 20 stitches to the inch, this was no small feat for anyone, let alone a woman in her eighties, as Lucy was during her most productive period.

In the summer months Lucy made and tended a magical garden

at her home, The Manor, Hemingford Grey. In winter she wrote her books and stitched her patchworks, each discipline demanding talent, inspiration, perseverance and the ability to create something far greater than the sum of its parts, piece by tiny piece.

 

I visited an exhibition of patchwork and quilting this morning and was inspired to have a go myself. As with knitting, I am a beginner. I made a patchwork cushion years ago (glazed chintz, and not bad for a first effort, I suppose) but it sat in an empty house over the course of a winter and some mice chose to nest in it! Now I have salvaged my husband's worn-out shirts,

and with a bit of instruction gleaned from an aunt who is skilled in the art, I shall see what I can do.

Kenneth East, in "Lucy Boston Remembered", describes the standard to aspire to:

"Whatever she touched, whether it was literature, horticulture, topiary, needlework or simply everyday life, bore the imprint of her unerring sense of beauty and quality."

Plain Jane

I've been looking through Kaffe Fassett's "Pattern Library" and have been dazzled by his command of colour, tone and texture. He is the master of pattern, taking it to extremes at times, perhaps - or maybe he's just being deliberately provocative for effect.

His artist's eye allows him to 'get away with things' that mere mortals couldn't carry off.

I had the same thought earlier today when I met a friend who is a particularly tall, slim, elegant and striking woman. Along with her skinny jeans and white tunic, she was wearing marvellous embroidered velvet mules, beaded and decorated and exciting comment from complete strangers, and all this at ten o'clock in the morning. "She can do it", I thought. I can't.

It occurred to me that my home - and my wardrobe - are almost completely devoid of pattern; not of colour per se, as we've used quite strong colours in places, but walls, carpets, curtains are mostly plain.

An exception would be this tiled floor

which KF might like. Here it is again with optional dog 'accessory':

There are some subtle patterns such as this cornicing

 

and there are pictures, by established artists and up-and-coming ones!

But mostly we rely on 'the harmonious juxtaposition of the unadorned' with the odd piece of needlepoint for pattern

(including some designed by KF himself)

not to mention the endlessly interesting and varied quirks, foibles and individualities of the family members which are definitely part of 'life's rich tapestry'.

Baking day

Harriet got up at 6.30 the other morning to make these cakes before she went to school. She was entering a baking competition which was being run for charity, so she whizzed up a batch of Nigella's best in the food processor and carried them off carefully in an open tin as they were still warm. Her efforts have taken her through to the next round.

Finding our stock of cake decorating supplies sadly wanting, we have decided we must invest in something a little more exciting than standard supermarket colouring and the odd silver ball. I'm on the hunt.

Meanwhile, Gareth decided to use some egg whites left over from mayonnaise-making to whip up a few chocolate meringues. All well and good, but he put them in to bake last night and promptly forgot about them, remembering only this morning. Nine hours in a very slow oven hasn't harmed them much, I'm told, as they were sampled at breakfast by one or two members of the family (who ate them alongside a healthier option).

I've donned the apron to make pizza - almost a weekly occurrence in this house. It never ceases to amaze and satisfy me that from an unpromising-looking amalgam of flour, yeast, salt, olive oil and water, you can get this

which, given a little time and some gentle warmth, turns into this

which, with the addition of these

becomes this

.

Talented

I've been visiting Philacraft recently and I am awed and inspired by Cristina's talents. Looking at Yarnstorm, I wonder at how Jane creates such beautiful things amid the hustle and bustle of a busy family life, and writes with such a keen sense of observation on what she does. Neelia knits all manner of gorgeous garments while studying and teaching music and delighting her readers with her sense of humour, and Jo's needles are never still despite the demands and deadlines of a journalistic career. As for Lynne, she knits socks, makes quilts and reads about a dozen books a day on which she writes with a depth of understanding and appreciation - not to mention a light and witty touch - which puts her down as a 'pro', and she's a community nurse to boot.

How do they find the time and the energy? Where did they acquire all their skills? Is there some kind of Hogwarts School for creative types where you learn how to expand the day beyond twenty four hours and make all manner of beautiful things?

I am left feeling decidedly inadequate! "Must do better" would be teacher's comment on my puny efforts.

So, ladies, please accept a well-earned round of applause, and thank you for inspiring me to try harder.

The minutes and the hours

I had to call myself sharply to heel this morning and sit down and get on with writing up minutes for Mindroom. My involvement with this excellent charity came about by chance. I knew nothing at all about learning difficulties but could dredge up a little legal knowledge and manage to shape our sometimes rambling discussions into a reasonably comprehensive summary of what is covered at board meetings, so I was asked to get involved.

Mindroom was set up about five years ago by Swedish journalist, Sophie Dow, who has used the power of her formidable will and seemingly limitless energy to try to reach all those affected by learning difficulties. She has staged two huge conferences and smaller masterclasses, all attended by delegates from many countries, at which the world experts in the field come and share their knowledge with parents, teachers, doctors and other health professionals.

The charity's future aims are ambitious, with plans to open a diagnostic centre and then a school, but Sophie's vision is very clear. She has used her experience as the mother of a severely affected child (her daughter Annie has DAMP - deficit in attention, motor control and perception) to try to improve life for all parents and children who are caught up in this net, and she knows just how she will go about achieving that.

Although I sometimes feel like a child trying to put off doing homework when I have to get on with my own small part of Mindroom business, I am, really,very glad to be involved.

So, having written up the minutes and clicked the 'send' button, I could now go and read a little light novel or move my knitting on a few rows. Instead I shall be sitting with pen poised over notebook, trying to remember how to read for the purposes of study. Susan Hill is generously giving of her time and expertise to bring the joys (if that's the right word) of Virginia Woolf to the masses - or will it be as caviar to the general, I wonder? She is running a series of tutorials on her website (look in the blog) for anyone interested in developing an appreciation of Woolf's work, so having read English at university for a year before defecting to the Law Faculty, and still having - I hope - a brain capable of absorbing new information, I thought I'd give it a go.

There is much talk among Susan's 'students' of passing notes at the back of the class and sitting under the eagle eye of 'Miss'. I never saw the point of getting into trouble when I was at school, which probably marks me out as a prig right from the start, but I shall try to do my homework properly and hand it in on time, and if I can't I'll blame my lack of concentration on the demands of home/husband/children/dogs/hamster......oh, and Mindroom.

Here we go a-mushrooming

Yesterday we set out on a "Fungi Foray" led by the eminent mycologist, Professor Roy Watling. Leaving the city at 8.00 am, we were taken to a secret location

where, suitably briefed, we went off into the woods to find and gather wild mushrooms. Professor Watling explained that picking fungi is actually beneficial to colonies as it results in the production of more fruiting bodies, so is in no way detrimental to the ecosystem as is, say, the picking of wild flowers.

A couple of hours of peaceful rambling among mixed coniferous and deciduous woodland produced a fine collection

which, after a delicious and convivial picnic lunch eaten in gloriously warm sunshine, were then positively identified by the professor.

We discarded the poisonous ones and kept our prize specimens: the ceps or porcini, also known as penny buns. Some of these we used for a wonderfully aromatic pasta sauce for supper last night,

while the rest are drying for use later.

Naturally, Professor Watling stressed a cautious approach to fungi gathering, telling us never to pick from roadsides due to the concentration of heavy metals in the fruiting bodies, and suggesting we limit ourselves to learning to identify only one or two well known edible varieties and ignoring all the rest, so as to avoid potentially fatal consequences. Common sense, of course, but worth repeating.

Mushroom picking must feature in many works of fiction, but the scene I remember particularly is from Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" where the depiction in that setting of 'a moment' passing is particularly poignant.

Free books!

Thankyou to Emma at Snowbooks who is very generously giving away copies of Virginia Woolf's "The London Scene" - and you don't even have to pay the postage. I asked for one yesterday and it arrived this morning, so how's that for service?

Looking through Snowbooks' catalogue, I've got my eye on this

and this

Thanks again, Emma.

A rolling stone gathers moss

No, the stone isn't rolling - it's a nicely heavy, stationary pebble which doubles as a paperweight and a book end, and the moss is simple, regular, satisfying moss stitch. Both are tactile.

The stone was engraved by Jane Raven and the crispness of her letter cutting is particularly fine. Likewise the stitch definition on the sage green moss stitch scarf which I cast on yesterday afternoon while waiting for Harriet to come out of school and made strides with last night while watching "Dragons' Den".

Just as the circumstances in which I read a book are forever associated for me with that book, so it appears my knitting is absorbing sights and sounds.

Much of the chunky rib scarf in deep purple Maya yarn was accomplished while Roger Federer was winning this year's Wimbledon men's singles title, and the sweater would have been finished much earlier if I hadn't kept stopping to look at this view:

And more green and purple

Following on from yesterday's post, I noticed how well this Wandering Sailor plant (Tradescantia zebrina*) illustrates the green/purple combination :

The upper side of the leaf is variegated, (and the green is quite silvery) while the under side is a rich, reddish purple which glows when sunlight comes through it.

An eighteenth century illustration of a passion flower uses the same tones :

Close to where the Wandering Sailor sits in our kitchen are three green pieces, almost identical to one another in colouring but found at opposite ends of the earth.

The pale aqua glaze is quite uncommon, so the maker of the jug told me. He is Michael Tannock and he works in a pottery tucked away in Glenfalloch Gardens near Dunedin on New Zealand's Otago Peninsula. The two bowls originate much closer to home, being made by Kate Carruthers at Starfish Ceramics on the Isle of Mull. All three are very much 'of their place', I think, which surely is how something as 'earthy' as a clay pot should be.

The larger of the two bowls usually contains oyster shells which we picked up on the beach by the jetty on the Isle of Ulva, off the west coast of Mull.

If you look closely you can see iridescent green and purple in the nacre.

From something pale and subtle and redolent of west coast light and clear water, to something further up the spectrum and sweetly intense -

this is Colinette Point 5 in Velvet Bilberry, and if felting won't destroy its character, I shall use it to make another bag ....

(*Read Philippa Gregory's masterly accounts of the lives of John Tradescant and his son in "Earthly Joys" and "Virgin Earth".)

Green and purple

"The soul never thinks without a picture", Aristotle

I found those words on the Amabis website, (which is also the source of our gorgeously green kitchen tiles)

- so here's a little still life

I wish I could say I grew these myself, but I didn't. This is my vegetable delivery from David of TWS Organic, and with the weather up here becoming blustery and rain setting in, I thought I'd use them to make a venison casserole. The potatoes were baked and the red cabbage

simmered with apple and a little redcurrant jelly. (Yes, it matches my apron.)

The venison was cooked very slowly with some good red wine and beef stock, leeks, onions, carrots, garlic and herbs

and the savoury smell was enough to make us feel glad we were inside.

And the result?

In full restaurant mode, Alice opted for soup, Will made a 'venison sandwich' carefully leaving every scrap of vegetable matter on his plate, and Harriet had pitta bread and houmous. At least Gareth and I enjoyed it......

The lights of home

Although I've lived in Scotland for many years, I was born and brought up in the Isle of Man. I have a tremendous affection for the place I call home, despite my family's being Scottish and my having no Manx heritage as such.

Margaret Elphinstone is a Scot who has chosen to write about the Island, or more accurately, about Ellan Bride, a tiny fictitious island off the south west coast of the Calf of Man,

which is itself a very small island off the coast of Man. This 'Russian doll' effect has produced a wonderfully focused novel of considerable intensity and great skill.

Set in 1831, "Light" describes the impact on the island's only family of the coming of 'progress' in the form of the new breed of Stevenson-built lighthouse. With the arrival of surveyors on Ellan Bride, change becomes inevitable, but with it comes opportunity for this tiny closed community of exiles.

The sense of place in the book is acute, and the writing is distinguished by a clarity of tone and a measured pace. Margaret Elphinstone deals very subtly with the interplay of light and darkness throughout the story, and her research has clearly been meticulous, capturing a very Manx spirit and rooting the book in folklore and myth while handling many technical details with ease and drawing her characters with a sure hand.

If all the Isle of Man means to you is motorbikes and kippers, take a look at this book and I promise you you'll be enlightened.

Bag lady

There is much talk of felting on other blogs just now (e.g. have a look here and here) so it appears that for once I am up with the trend rather than being 'at the coo's tail'.

My first foray into felting was converting a sweater into a bag; in this case a perfect angora specimen, a snip at £3.99 in a charity shop, became an embroidered shoulder bag. The process was simple and fun, and I like and use the result.

 

(I'm happy to pass on the instructions should anyone want to know how it was done.)

I've just finished making a bag from scratch and - hooray - it has turned out just like the picture in the pattern book!!

It's the felted bag from the Debbie Bliss book "Home" and is the perfect bucket shape. Being 'fashioned' from alpaca silk means it is very soft and has a lovely sheen but it's quite a sturdy little thing.

It has made this novice knitter feel unjustifiably proud of herself.

Further reading

The black shape on the left is Mollie who is clearly exhausted at the thought.... This is the 'to do' pile: nothing by way of  'duty', just pure pleasure (I hope), but oh, how my reading rate has plummeted of late! This lot will take me until Christmas if I don't speed up a bit, and there are another ninety two waiting on the Amazon wishlist, so something must be done.

Earlier in the year, before kntting looped me in and encroached on my reading time, I was fairly scampering through the titles, chuckling along to Alexander McCall Smith, being scared by Susan Hill, getting my first taste of Edith Wharton and sitting squarely and happily on the doorstep of the domestic novel with Dorothy Whipple, Marghanita Laski, Helen Ashton and others.

But now the baskets of yarn are overflowing and the book piles grow ever higher.

I keep a list of everything I've read: no comments, interestingly (tellingly?), just title, author, date, but looking back on it reminds me of where I was and what else I was doing when I read a particular book. In bed with a bad bout of flu I had Jonathan Guinness and Sally Beauman for company; on the long flight to Australia it was David Attenborough, and curled up on a quiet post-Christmas couch, Matthew Parris transported me to Spain.

When a book is truly engrossing then it's never far from my side and it will be popped in my bag for a few spare minutes on the school run, 'rationed' as I do the housework (e.g. iron three shirts/read a chapter), or picked up while I wait for the kettle to boil. If, as with one or two duff choices lately, it is scarcely holding my attention, then it will drag and take a while to finish, and I'll lose momentum and focus but I will get to the end.

Why not give it up as a bad job - the poor ones, I mean? Not sure. There is probably a stack of psychology theses on reading habits, but for now I shan't worry about what mine reveal. I have a cup of coffee, a Fudges chocolate-dipped stem ginger biscuit and a couple of good books to get on with.

 

Flowers are ....

I cut this photograph out of a magazine ages ago, and I wish I owned the piece - or at least knew who made it, as I omitted the reference. It is a glass vase engraved with the words "Flowers are the earth's laughter";

I love that line, and the way the letters have been cut:

"For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ"

that comes from a piece of choral music - Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart;

so, to bring some laughter and poetry into the day (should they be lacking), here are some more flowers:

birthday lilies

helenium Lemon Queen

Kaffe Fassett lily

gentians (to remind us of our Swiss mountain holiday)

birthday roses

lavender

and more lavender

Floreat!