Cornflower

Good things

    This morning I got the nicest email from a reader; it would have touched me at any time but was particularly meaningful today as all is not well in my wider family and a cheering message is especially welcome just now.

    It made me think that, even more than usual, we must focus on the positive, the bright, the good, and take pleasure in small things. If you're a regular visitor here you'll know that for me these are often flowers and gardens, food, music, making things, and of course, books, so I've written briefly about the nicest book of the year over on the other site, and thought I'd share some more lovely books on this one.

    I'm just coming to the final pages of Vita Sackville-West's Sissinghurst: The Creation of a Garden by Sarah Raven. As I'm sure you will know, Sarah is the current chatelaine of Sissinghurst, being married to Vita's grandson Adam Nicolson, and as a gardener and gardening writer in her own right she is well-placed to edit this collection of Vita's writings which presents both practical advice and personal vision and preference. I've come away from it with a long list of plants I want to grow, but it's been a most pleasing read for Vita's style alone.

    With a new garden to stock, I was delighted to receive some more useful books for Christmas, and the following will, I know, give me much to enjoy over the coming weeks:

The RHS Companion to Scented Plants by Stephen Lacey features over 1,000 fragrant plants from herbs to annuals, shrubs, bulbs, trees and more - another one from which to make a lengthy shopping list.

One Writer's Garden: Eudora Welty's Home Place by Susan Haltom and Jane Roy Brown - the "story of an iconic American writer and her relationship with her garden".

Back on home turf, The Writer's Garden: How Gardens Inspired our Best-loved Authors by Jackie Bennett: "Great things happen in gardens - in real life as well as in fiction. When Jane Austen, Agatha Christie and Charles Dickens wanted inspiration for the characters or settings in their books, they looked first to their gardens and landscapes. [The book] goes inside the lives of 20 influential authors to discover the roles that gardens played. From Sir Walter Scott's fairytale Scottish castle to Rupert Brooke's riverside retreat in Cambridge, from Virginia Woolf's rural Sussex idyll [see also] to Beatrix Potter's windswept hill-top farm in the Lake District, each garden provides new insights into the writer's work, life, solace and inspiration."

    This book also includes Lamb House in Rye, home to Henry James and E.F. Benson, (as also to Rumer Godden), and featured in the current television adaptation of Benson's wonderful Mapp & Lucia books.

    Whether this year is ending happily for you or in less than ideal circumstances, I wish you much joy in good things in the future.

Fox sox

    Reynard Socks by Kirsten Kapur, a very straightforward knit once you get beyond the cuff, the intricacies of which are more fiddly than difficult but which make establishing a rhythm quite hard.

Click to enlarge

    Black yarn on black needles may not have been a wise choice for these, but The Uncommon Thread Lush Twist ('Coven') has produced a lovely fabric, and my KnitPro Karbonz were ideal for all the twisted stitches, tiny cables, and the bobbles which make the foxes' eyes.

    If you like a gentle challenge, I'd recommend the pattern.

    I've moved on to something a little more colourful!

Happy Christmas!

    Madonna and Child with Angel, Eric Gill, 1916.

Christmas hearts

    If you're in the mood for knitting some Christmas decorations - there's still time! - try these little hearts made from oddments of yarn, stuffed with fibre and scented with pine essential oil.

    The pattern I used is here, and my notes - as they are a little fiddly to begin with - are here.

In the bleak midwinter

    We are at the turn of the year as 11.03 tonight is the solstice, so those of us in the northern hemisphere have the cheering prospect of lengthening days ahead.

    We'll be needing our warming fires for a while yet, though, so here's a nice passage - and a good tip - for you from Max Adams's book The Wisdom of Trees: A Miscellany:

    "The log fire is a simple pleasure that taps into our deep ancestral sensibilities like its polar twin, the fear of darkness and the great wildwood. Its seductive, dangerous display is like that of a wild beast, drawing us to it then repelling us with mortal fear. Fire gives one the feeling of belonging to a crowd, and yet at the same time there is a sense of being utterly alone, absorbed in one's most intimate, private thoughts. The fire is the focus of story and song, of shared and individual memory, of collective knowledge. It stores the memories of whole cultures in its shifting, sensuous flames ...

    [An iron basket] is the worst way to burn wood, which combusts most efficiently with an overdraught (unlike coal, which requires the underdraught provided by a grate). Wood should be burnt on the ground, not in the air, and anyone with a modern clean-burning woodstove will find that it burns less wood and produces more heat if the grate is kept full of wood ash and the bottom vent is shut once it was going....

    Different species of wood burn differently. Softwoods like pine or spruce burn quite hot but not for long; birch burns very hot and bright but can spit; apple smells the best of any wood; beech and oak burn longest and hottest. And ash, as is commonly known, is one of the few woods (another is holly) whose fat reserves, stored over winter as oleaceous oils, allow it to be burned green; that is to say, as soon as it is cut."

A date for your diary

    My thanks to Rose for notice of an event to be held at Southwark Cathedral on 13th. February: choral evensong to commemorate the marriage of James I of Scotland and Lady Joan Beaufort which took place at Southwark in 1424.

    The service is in aid of the restoration of the cathedral's bells which you can read about here and hear here, and for more on James and his queen, see this post.

    The image of the royal couple comes from Forman's Armorial, a collection of 267 coats of arms and plates of kings and queens of Scotland compiled (c.1562) by Sir Robert Forman of Luthrie, Lord Lyon King of Arms; (that is an ancient Scottish office, held in recent years by a former tutor of mine, known in this house as 'The Lyon King'!).

Good things come in small packages

    The other day I ordered a dinky little project bag and some stitchmarkers from Jibbyroo Sews on Etsy. They arrived today, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, tied with festive ribbon, and accompanied by an extra lobster claw marker (see above) and a couple of Teapig tea 'temples'.

    I'm delighted with my purchases, and most appreciative of the thought and care that Francesca and Michelle, the ladies behind the label, have put into the package.

    My thanks to them, and no doubt I'll be a returning customer.

Star of Bethlehem

    You may have seen this post featuring Salisbury Cathedral's beautiful font; now here is the font illuminated by Bruce Munro to stunning effect. As you'll learn from the video, the pulses of light are Morse code for the story of the journey of the Magi as told in Matthew 2:1-12.

A little tipple

    Did you know that giving paperwhite narcissi a little alcohol with their water will keep them from being leggy and requiring support? I've only just read about this but I thought I'd pass it on in case I'm not the only one to whom it is news.

    The picture is from my archive as this year's plants are yet to flower, but according to Woottens of Wenhaston from whom I recently bought the variety Ziva for the house, they have strong stems which require no staking, so perhaps they can remain teetotal. I'm tempted to experiment, though, and give half the pots a tipple and half just Adam's ale and see what happens - has anyone tried it?

For tiny feet

    These are Cutest Booties by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, supposedly newborn size but they look rather large to me (and I made them smaller than specified).

    They took 19g. of Posh Yarn 'Daisy' (80% merino/20% bamboo), and 3g. of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino for the i-cord.

Stitching and writing

   I must just point you in the direction of Celia Rees's post on The History Girls blog about her novel Witch Child and the recreation of a scene from it in the Christmas displays currently on at The American Museum in Bath - do take a look.

    You'll see from that post that another book to be represented in the displays is Tracy Chevalier's most recent novel The Last Runaway; if you'd like to know more about it (it's excellent), there's a post on it here, and over here is the piece Tracy wrote for us on learning patchwork and quilting as part of her research for the book.

    Some more links:

    Celia Rees

    Tracy Chevalier

    Tracy at last year's Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Lit. knit: South Riding

    Note to yarn dyers: name a colourway after a book, and some of us may not be able to resist ...

    This is a skein of aran weight Bluefaced Leicester *(55%) and Baby Alpaca (45%) called South Riding. It should be just the thing for a simple pair of mittens, and I love the colours; the book is pretty good, too, as you'll see here.

    The yarn comes from Great Woolly Owl where you'll find quite a few other literary favourites (some of which have also found their way to my house).

 

* Should you come upon a Bluefaced Leicester in the field, you will recognise it thus: "It should have a head like a solicitor"! That's according to a breeder quoted in Philip Walling's most interesting Counting Sheep: A Celebration of the Pastoral Heritage of Britain