Cornflower

Give & Bake

    Over on the books site today I've posted information about The Big Readcycle - donating books to Marie Curie - so it's appropriate that here we mention another fundraising initiative, this one cake-related.

    Leonard Cheshire Disability are asking for people to Give & Bake, that is gather together a few friends or colleagues, have them bake something delicious to bring along, then put on the kettle and make a donation to LCD while you enjoy all the treats.

    If you're a member of a book group or similar you could designate a meeting to Give & Bake and sweeten the book talk with a slice or two of cake, or brighten up the morning coffee break at work with some delicious morsels in aid of a good cause. Follow the link above for full details, and Michael Caines's carrot cake recipe.

Colours

    "Red is always an assault, an insult, a danger cry, shouting Revolution! Robbery! and paradoxically, 'Homage to the King'. It is the taunting flame out of the primal volcano. It is the easiest colour to see. Man saw it first. Orange is an open colour expressing prosperity and plenty, sunbaked universe, and laughter under the sun.

Yellow is the atmosphere of wisdom, reflection and calm. Green is quieter still, rest and content, the emerald ripple of wave and flow. Blue is the colour we love most, its suggestion is the lark's song, hope that soars into the stratosphere. Indigo is tragedy, like red it can stand almost alone, crying to Pluto's intense blackness, to death, and to Faith.

       This conjures violet, whose magic is perceived only by keen-eyed men, but it is known by song birds and honey bees. Its wish can only be used by the great colour masters, and it is a safe indication of their mastery. It has been caught best by the Eastern painters, seeing in psychic sunlight [...] for it calls to a colour beyond itself on the scale, a colour that our eyes cannot see, although we know that it is there by the power of its ultraviolet rays. Maybe we shall see this colour some day when we have trained our eyes more precisely. Some eyes even now, looking at a rainbow or prism, can see beyond the violet, a faint trace of fuchsia pink, the indication of the red, the first colour of the rainbow into which the colours flow in their completed cycle. For past the gap we cannot see, the violet flows back into red again. Look at the double rainbow in the stormy sky. Can your eyes see a hint of this unknown colour between the outer bright rainbow and its echo?"

    Winifred Nicholson, Liberation of Colour.

Down to earth

    Anya potatoes, grown in containers in the greenhouse. I have more planted outside in a raised bed, and I'm interested to see how they will compare in terms of size and yield when the time comes, but I'm pleased to have this lot to start us off.

Flower Power socks

    Another pair of these socks, but a rather different colour palette this time.

    Today's are made in Hedgehog Fibres Sock Yarn, 'Juicy' - guaranteed to put a spring in your step!

Ravilious at Dulwich

    In London last weekend, we combined a day at Lord's for the Ashes test with a visit to Dulwich Picture Gallery for the Eric Ravilious watercolours exhibition. I enjoyed both, but no prizes for guessing which was rather more my cup of tea.

    Go and see the Ravilious if you get the chance; the video above gives a flavour, and below are two of my top favourite paintings.

    The Greenhouse: Cyclamen and Tomatoes, 1935

    James Russell, in Ravilious in Pictures: Sussex and the Downs, says of this: "As yellow tomatoes ripen on the vine above, twin lines of cyclamen in orange pots draw us through one open doorway then another, until we are faced by the final, closed door, so pale and faint it seems to float just above the centre of the picture... This greenhouse pulls us into an intense interior world."

    Wet Afternoon, 1938 - my kind of weather.

    Pentreath & Hall (among others) are selling prints of this, and Little Toller have used it for the cover of Gilbert White's The Natural History of Selborne.

Evening light

    In the garden, yesterday.

Gardens ...

    ".... should be like lovely, well-shaped girls: all curves, secret corners, unexpected deviations, seductive surprises and then still more curves."

    H.E. Bates

    Quotation found here; peony from Waitrose.

    For more on Bates see this post.

Friday flowers - in a monastery garden

    Not a monastery as such, but modelled on the form. These are the gardens at The Cloisters in Manhattan, an 'outpost' of the Metropolitan Museum devoted to medieval art, inspired by and utilising elements of monastic cloisters, "evoking gardens that provided sustenance and spiritual refreshment within the medieval monastery".

    The Bonnefont garden is home to one of the most specialized plant collections in the world, its plant list founded on a 9th. century edict of Charlemagne's naming 89 species to be grown on his estates, supplemented by herbals, monastic records and archaeological evidence.

Plants are grouped according to their medieval use, "whether in cooking, medicine, art, industry, housekeeping, or magic. Most plants had multiple uses, and virtually all plants were believed to have medicinal value. Many herbs, trees, and flowers were used symbolically as well as practically."

    The Cloisters are a bit of a trek from central Manhattan but very much worth visiting.

Summery socks

    For these summery socks I used the Pin Striped Socks stitch pattern by Julia Swart along with Susan B. Anderson's How I Make My Socks 'template'.

    The wool is Luxury Sock (MCN) in 'Light Blue Speckles' from Maya at The Wool Barn.

A wall of wool

    Brooklyn Tweed at Purl Soho.

Looking up ...

... a long way up: the Chrysler Building, New York;

and looking down on Manhattan from the top of the Rockefeller Centre.