Cornflower

The scarf of scarves

    My Jade Starmore Leo Scarf (click there for a proper idea of "the scarf of scarves", as it's called in the pattern notes) has grown a bit today for the first time in ages - it has been sadly neglected while I made other things which demanded less in the way of concentration. Here it is inside out (I risked dropping stitches by turning it the right way) with four and a half repeats of the pattern done.

    The instructions say to knit the scarf in two pieces* and graft them together - this way the lion motifs, etc. are the right way up as you wear it, but I have a question for Fair Isle knitters with more experience than I have: could I not, when I get to that midway point, simply knit the remaining rows in reverse order and thus save having to do the second cast on and the grafting? Surely that would work?

*Piece 1 comprises 6 repeats of the 54 row pattern; piece 2 calls for 5 repeats and then rows 1-36. What I'm suggesting is that when I reach 'the turning point', i.e. the end of piece 1, I continue by knitting rows 36-1, then 54-1 x 5. If there's a flaw in my scheme, please shout!

Spring cleaning, cornflower style

    I've been spring cleaning today, and this is very much a work-in-progress, but there is now a lot less dust in corners and behind things than there was, and what's more I've got rid of some books!

    Having had enough of hoovering and cobweb removal for one day,  I've started going through a stack of Country Living magazines to pull out the articles I want to keep and I'm finding things I hadn't noticed first time round. For instance I've discovered you can get such a thing as cornflower shampoo (in a similar vein, I love Liz Earle's Eyebright eye lotion which contains cornflowers), and that the healing powers of the cornflower are ascribed to the tannin and potassium it contains, and it has astringent, anti-inflammatory and soothing properties. Should you be so minded you can make your own cornflower tonic by adding four teaspoons of fresh, finely chopped flowers or two teaspoons of dried ones to 250 ml of boiling water. Leave to infuse for 15 minutes with the bowl covered to retain the volatile oils. Strain and cool; refrigerate and use as required, but "avoid the eye area when applying a product that has been home-prepared as it will not contain any preservatives and may become contaminated by everyday use" - that recipe (and caution) are from Feeding Your Skin by Carla Oates.

    Now, a hot bath beckons ...

Peploe

    Go, if you can, to the S.J. Peploe exhibition, on at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (the former Dean Gallery) until the 23rd. of June. This is the second in their Scottish Colourist series - we had F.C.B. Cadell last year - and it gives a clear impression of the artist's range, preoccupations and changing style.

    Vexingly, of my fourteen favourite works, very few are available to buy in humble postcard form, and it's also disappointing how inaccurate the colours can be when reproduced, even on the gallery's own site, but for what it's worth my highlights were:

The Coffee Pot, c.1905

Pink roses in blue and white vase, black background, c.1906

Mrs. Peploe, c.1907

The White Dress, c.1908 - I can't find this online, but it's wonderfully vivid and ethereal at the same time.

Spring, Comrie, c.1902 (the real thing is truly springlike and fresh).

Barra, c.1903

Tulips - The Blue Jug, c.1919 (above)

Boy reading, early 1920s

Willy Peploe, c.1930

Tulips and fruit, c.1919 (below)

Green Sea, Iona, c.1920

Morar, 1923

White Lilies, mid-1920s

Still Life with Plaster Cast, c.1931

    The video which accompanies the exhibition and places the artist in context includes footage of Guy Peploe, the painter's grandson, himself an art dealer and author of a book on his grandfather's work, and art historian Elizabeth Cumming on Peploe's interest in exploring the intellectual possibilities of the still life.

Gash gold-vermilion

    Tulips from the supermarket; colours after Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Good lines - the fragrant house

   

 

    "The house shone about itself proudly.

    China bowls and glass vases held small collections of flowers from the garden: hyacinths, lily of the valley and narcissi. The smell of them, miraculous, with wax furniture polish and blue wood-smoke, went all through the rooms and in the air of the halls and stairs, too. A person might walk from a cool corridor full of the scent of lit fires into a bedroom to find the smell of damp flowers from a pot of wild violets and hot starch from the fresh sheets and flat-creased pillow cases."

From The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones.

    The passage describes the house on the last day of April; in my garden, early in that month but with everything so late this year, the best I can do are these Spring Snowflakes - pretty and slightly scented.

Books and cakes - 58

    'Books and cakes' should perhaps be renamed 'books and bakes' as we haven't had a cake as such since November, and this month is no different. Richard Mabey's Nature Cure, the Cornflower Book Group's March book (our thoughts on it are here), has yielded some bread, though, and a good loaf at that.
   
    Mabey describes his experiments with bread-making: "In what began as a feeble hypochondriacal gesture, I began trying to make non-wheat loaves. Some were a disaster. Buckwheat dought, even with yeast, was like mud to knead. Without yeast, it baked to the scent and consistency of an old fungus. I dabbled with millet and maize, with pure oat loaves, and with mixtures of all three. Breads of strange colours and unaccustomed textures materialised. But none had the stoneground chunkiness of wheat-bread. It was when I turned to adding nut flours that things happened. I began with re-constituted chestnuts, then almonds and hazelnuts, ground up in a blender. Then I struck gold with a mixture of ground pecans and wheat flour. Somehow the oil from the nuts had coated the outside of the loaf, and generated a crust like a fragrant biscuit. It is now my speciality bread, made on feast-days."

    He gives no recipe for the pecan bread so I made up my own:

200g. pecans, toasted in a dry pan and then ground (in batches) quite finely

100g. white spelt flour

200g. stoneground strong malted blend flour

1 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. easy blend yeast

200 ml. warm water

    Combine dry ingredients then add water and mix to a smooth dough. Knead for about 5 minutes. Return to the bowl, cover with a damp cloth and leave in warm place to rise (an hour or so). Knock back and leave, again covered with a damp cloth, for 20-30 minutes. Then bake in a very hot oven for 25-30 minutes. Note: the oil in the nuts means there is no need to oil the bowl for the rising or the tray for baking, and no additional oil of any kind is required in the dough itself.

    Four of us ate the whole loaf at lunch with soup and cheese.