Cornflower

Old Year's Day

    I learned today that in Iceland the 31st of December is called Gamlársdagur or Old Year's Day, so to bid farewell to 2015 here's an auto-generated collage of recent pictures.

    Thank you for visiting Cornflower throughout the year, for all your comments, links, and helpful suggestions, and above all for being such a pleasant community. All the best to you!

Kitchen comforts

    "The floor was well-worn red brick, and on the wide hearth burnt a fire of logs, between two attractive chimney-corners tucked away in the wall, well out of any suspicion of draught. A couple of high-backed settles, facing each other on either side of the fire, gave further sitting accommodation for the sociably disposed. In the middle of the room stood a long table of plain boards placed on trestles, with benches down each side. At one end of it, where an arm-chair stood pushed back, were spread the remains of Badger's plain but ample supper. Rows of spotless plates winked from the shelves of the dresser at the far end of the room, and from the rafters overhead hung hams, bundles of dried herbs, nets of onions and baskets of eggs. It seemed a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory, where weary harvesters could line up in scores along the table and keep their Harvest Home with mirth and song, or where two or three friends of simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and talk in comfort and contentment. The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over everything without distinction."

    That passage from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (the illustration, by Robert Ingpen, comes from this edition, by the way) is quoted by Humphrey Carpenter in Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature; he goes on:

    "The Kitchen, described in these terms, is as universal a symbol as the River. Whereas the River is the expression of the adult Arcadia, with its challenges and its rules and its excitements, the Kitchen suggests another kind of Golden Age.

    Its appeal is multiple. It hints at the mead-halls of such poems as Beowulf ... To Grahame's generation it must also have had William Morris-like hints of an earlier, pre-industrial, and therefore ideal society where distinctions of class seemed unimportant when food was being dealt out, and men of all ranks sat together in the lord's hall or by the yeoman farmer's hearthside. And, more sharply for Edwardian readers than for those of the present day, there is a suggestion too of a return to childhood. Many of Grahame's generation spent much of their early life being cared for by domestic servants, and so as small children lingered often in the kitchen, watching the pots and the joints of meat cooking on the great ranges or spits."

    There are other excerpts from the book here and here, an interview with Robert Ingpen here, and if the above appeals, this post might, too.

Seasonal socks

    Just a little later than planned, this wool has become these socks.

Had I paid attention to 'colour management' I could have made them match, but they are none the worse for being slightly out of step, I think.

    This was the first time I've used self-patterning yarn and it was a lot of fun.

    All the details are here.

Happy Christmas!

    Wishing you joy.

Wreathed

    If you've followed this blog for a long time you'll have seen quite a few of these -

the front door wreath made from whatever the garden will yield.

    It seems fitting that at this turning point of the year we gather greenery and look forward, so decking our door are sprigs of pine, ivy, rosemary, bay, lavender, box, periwinkle, pyracantha, and one or two rosebuds.

    Here's to light, and growth, and longer days!

Stopping by Woods - 3

    Another image inspired by Robert Frost's poem, this time a watercolour by Janet Johnson whose website is well worth a visit, particularly for lovers of snow and mountains.

    Do please also read Rebecca's comment on the initial Stopping by Woods post.

Take heart

    Another Christmas heart (last year's - and details - are here).

Stopping by Woods - 2

    Following on from yesterday's post, here's Stopping by Woods by Angela Harding.

    You can find it as a card, and as a tea towel here and here.

    (Next year I must get Angela's Advent calendar.)

Stopping by Woods

    A new engraving by Angie Lewin, Stopping by Woods is inspired by Robert Frost's poem:

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year. 

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,  

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

 

    For a short video on Angie Lewin's printmaking, click here.

Friday foliage

    As we're a long way from having our own Christmas tree and associated greenery up, here's some festive foliage from Oxford last weekend.

    Above is the entrance to The Old Parsonage;

when darkness falls the topiary on the terrace is illuminated.

    In more traditional style, here's the tree in the quad beside Magdalen College Chapel welcoming the congregation for the joyous Carols by Candlelight.

This is Illyria, lady

    Having recently discovered Illyria Pottery via Instagram, I made a point of visiting the physical shop when I was in Oxford at the weekend and I'm so glad I did.

    Katie has lots of lovely things for sale, but having to allow for the constraints of flying home, I contented myself with buying just three small ones:

an Oxford Blue-speckled mug that feels just right in the hand, a tiny jug for pouring cream on porridge, say, and a soap dish for our favourite pine tar soap (we'd already stocked up in Objects of Use). The Christmas star was free - a generous gesture to customers on Small Business Saturday.

    If you can't get to Illyria in person, you can always shop online, but if you are in the area do stop by - the welcome is warm, and the wares very tempting.

Catch it while you can

    I referred to Emma Tennant in passing the other day, but as I was in London for two hours on Friday I used some of the time to see her exhibition, Plants with Provenance, at The Fine Art Society. It's on until the 10th., so you haven't long to catch it, but you can download the catalogue from the website and enjoy her botanical watercolours via the screen, if not in the flesh.

    One thing I particularly liked - though it's not as apparent from the virtual images - was the papers she uses: "an off-white Nepalese paper and naturally uneven Japanese papers (some flecked with gold) that are made from the bark of Broussonetia papyrifera, the bark fibres of which give the paper an interesting texture. Both papers are absorbent, unlike conventional watercolour paper, which means that great depth of colour can be achieved when paint is applied with a wet brush. This technique can cause the paper to wrinkle."

Corrective shopping

 

    "Do you have any tendencies when it comes to selecting fabrics? Are there any colours you find yourself buying all the time, even though your stash is overflowing with them? Do you gravitate to striped fabrics, or tiny checks, or florals? Do you seem to always have more solids than prints in your stash?

    It's very helpful to know what your preferences are, so you can do a little 'corrective shopping' once in a while. Since my tendency is to load up on bright, saturated colours and prints, every few months I go on a fabric-shopping trip where I only allow myself to buy subtle prints and neutrals. That way, my stash stays more balanced, and I can build more effective palettes for my EPP projects."

    That's Diane Gilleland writing in All Points Patchwork - English Paper Piecing Beyond the Hexagon for Quilts and Small Projects, but the 'corrective shopping' idea could equally well be applied to wool-buying: creative justification for a few acquisitions, don't you think?

Another one for the wool-gatherers

    As a supplement to this post and this one, here's another source of wool for you, and 'source' is the right word because this 100% Poll Dorset DK comes from the Isle Yarns family flocks on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.

    The picture here captures the colour pretty well for it is the most lovely moss green (though I have my eye on the lavender and grey too); the wool is destined to be a hat for Mr. C.

                                ~~~~~

    Following on from yesterday's post, I drew 'painting' from the Advent hat today so I spent 20 minutes with my watercolours* - something I would not have done otherwise - and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

*Emma Tennant needn't worry.

Creative Advent

    Advent calendars containing chocolate seem commonplace these days compared to the exotic versions going around. You can get ones which hold beauty products from Liberty, tea from Harrods, candles from Diptyque, colognes and creams from Jo Malone, and even ... wool!

    I know lots of knitters are making sock yarn blankets and similar and are going to use their advent mini skeins - whether from a calendar or other purposely acquired set - to knit a square a day from now until the 24th. The idea of it - a small, different, daily act of making - appealed to me, but I thought I'd  approach it in a slightly different way. I haven't bought anything new, instead I've nominated a range of projects, some neglected, some long-term, some yet to be begun; each day I'll draw one at random*, and work on it for a short while. This could be 20 minutes on some embroidery or needlepoint (canvases-in-progress, but ones which tend not to see the light of day for long periods), a little bit of sewing, a Granny square, or something that's not textile-related at all.

    Where the crochet is concerned, I have several Madelinetosh Unicorn Tails which I bought for the purpose a few months ago, so they will feature on six or seven days, but as I've assigned each colour a number they will be used when that number comes up. Today's was Mandala (as you see above), and the square has been finished, washed and blocked.

    I'm keen to see not only which project is drawn from the hat each day, but what I'll manage to accomplish in terms of diversification in my 24 'creative breaks' by the time Christmas arrives. It should be fun.

 

*I've put corresponding pieces of paper into a hat.