Cornflower

The Queen's Commission

    Officer Cadet Howlett prior to his Commissioning Parade, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Saturday 27th. September, 2014.

    Note the boots and belt buckle: many hours of polishing were involved.

    The culmination of the parade is a slow march up the steps of Old College.

As the cadets pass through the great doors, so their rank changes to that of Second Lieutenant and they now hold the Queen's Commission.

    The Academy Adjutant and his mount follow them in:

    On then to drinks, lunch, and fond farewells to fellow platoon members.

    It was a very fine occasion, and of course a proud day for us parents, grandparents and siblings.

Friday fruit

    In Melrose the other day we visited Priorwood Garden, known especially for its orchard. Look at those pears on that fine old south-facing wall; note also the 'door' on the right (below) which is at first floor level and opens onto nothing but a drop to the ground - might it once have had a forestair?)

    The orchard is home to many old varieties of apple,

and a mulberry (see below).

If you crave mulberry jam, Mortimer & Bennett will send you some, and very good it is.

    The garden stands beside the ruins of Melrose Abbey

and is thought to have been the site of the monks' kitchen garden.

Bargain of the day

    If you're thinking of making the hot water bottle cover from Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Knitting, Tangled Yarn have 30% off their Debbie Bliss yarns today, which means the Cashmerino Aran - one of the yarns Jane specifies in the pattern, and which I've used for two of my covers so far - is £3.25 a ball rather than £4.75. You'll need 4 balls per cover.

Modus operandi

    "The next time I pass the huts down on the river, Mac himself is sitting outside with a board across his knees. He has a jug before him stuck with a few sticks and he is using a tin paintbox like a child's. I stand and watch him. He's drawn the outlines first in pencil and now he's using the tip of his brush, spreading colour, filling the dry wood of the twigs from inside. I squat down beside him. He has a stem of larkspur, must have picked it from the Millside garden, and he squashes the brush into the powder, stirs and flattens it until the pink is mixed, and then he lets it spread out inside the pencilled lines so that the edges catch it like a dam. He uses blue, the crushed blue of canvas, and yellow and red for spots and creases that I don't see are there, overlapping each other and ballooning into buds, so that they seem to be growing right there before us, the stalks silvery, the leaves grey."

    From Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud.

    Larkspur, Walberswick, August 1914, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

R.I.P. Debo

   

    Sad news today that the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire has died.

    I almost met her once, and have always found her tremendously entertaining, both in person and on the page (see this post, this one, and this - in case the programme it mentions is ever shown again; and of course, this).

Inky shawl

    This picture shows the yarn*'s true colour better, but the skein has now been knitted up into a Textured Shawl ('recipe' by Orlane), perfect for the cooler days.

   Full project details here.

*Juno Fibre Arts Alice (70% baby alpaca, 20% silk, 10% cashmere), 'Ink Blot'.

Looking up ... in Melrose

    Melrose Post Office, snapped on Saturday, and here it is on opening day in 1901.

    There's lots more 'looking up' in the archive.

Mystery object

    Two years ago we found this mystery object in the garden, and now we've found another of the same, but with a ring hooked over one of the open ends.

    Can anyone tell us what it is? There were some good suggestions last time but no definitive answer; maybe someone seeing this post will know - I do hope so!

Lit. knit

     Another perfect marriage of books and yarn, this time two skeins of Skein merino/cashmere fingering (Wintertide and Gingko, bought at Loop),

and that wonderful book again!

Beaux art

     A visit to the American Impressionism exhibition currently on at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is recommended if you are drawn to Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent, for example, and Monet, Degas, Berthe Morisot and others whose work influenced them.

    Lady Agnew is there (and do listen to the curator, Frances Fowle's brief podcast - no. 12 - or watch her video on that work), and alongside her is the painting shown here: Sita and Sarita by Cecilia Beaux, "a stunning exercise in flamboyant technique," of which you can read more here.

Rich as a fig broken open ...

    "... soft as a ripened peach, flecked as an apricot, coral as a pomegranate, bloomy as a bunch of grapes."

    Vita Sackville-West on her favourite varieties of old-fashioned rose, as quoted by Sarah Raven in Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst: The Creation of a Garden.

    This article explains the pruning and training techniques used at Sissinghurst and lists some of the varieties Vita loved.

Just walk ...

    ... it's so good for you!

    Doesn't that make interesting and - for those of us who already put in the minutes and the miles - reassuring reading?

Lit. knit

    Another 'Literary Hottie' from Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Knitting, this one teamed with a very good Mary Stewart (re. which see this post), and made with Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in navy from What Ewe Need, and shell buttons from Wool & Buttons.

    Here it is with its fellows,

and there's a fourth example underway.

Needle & thread

   

    Alex Monroe has just launched his Autumn/Winter collection The Haberdashery which includes this charming "Twine & Needle 'For Mending Things' " necklace.

    On the subject of needlework, The Great Tapestry of Scotland ends its run at the Scottish Parliament building this Saturday, 13th. September, but will be on display at New Lanark from 20th. October to 22nd. November, and plans for a permanent home for the work continue to take shape.

    You can now buy a Great Tapestry of Scotland Calendar for 2015 (though with so many panels to choose from it's no surprise that our one isn't there), and a tea towel!

    Scroll down through the archived posts for more pictures of the Tapestry's panels.

Fox in sock(s)

    Reynard Sock (there's only one so far) by Kirsten Kapur in The Uncommon Thread Lush Twist, colourway 'Coven'.

By the way, I must apologise for the quality of these photographs; try as I might I couldn't get a decent picture, but they give the general idea.