Cornflower

Miss Potter

    To mark the 150th. anniversary of the birth of Beatrix Potter, here is Delmar Banner's 1938 portrait of the naturalist, artist, writer, conservationist, and farmer, whose books are loved the world over.

    If you want to know more about her, I've recommended Linda Lear's excellent biography* before and do so again.

    There are a few Potter-posts about the blog: here, here, here, and here.

    

    *I see the new edition has a foreword by James Rebanks.

Multi-millionaires' shortbread

    Our super-baker Harriet is home from university for the summer and keeping us well supplied with sweet treats. Today's delights are chocolate, peanut, and salted caramel squares from Seasonal Baking by Fiona Cairns.

    A shortbread base is covered with a salted peanut-studded caramel and topped with ganache, then smooth peanut butter is used to pipe the decoration - the Cairns version uses autumn leaves but Harriet ensured a fair distribution of squares by putting everyone's initials on them instead.

    Truly scrumptious!

In the pink

    These socks were such fun to make. The pattern is Snowy Toes, and I used Eden Cottage Yarns Hayton 4ply (found at Gorgeous Yarns) in three shades of pink: Blossom (main colour), Wild Raspberry (the paler of the two deeper pinks), and Clematis. Full details here.

One to look out for

   

    An email today from Topping & Company alerted me to a book which many of us may find interesting, Warm Covers - A Scottish Textile Story by Janet Rae:

    "This beautiful, thoughtful exploration of Scotland’s rich engagement with textiles weaves together the personal stories of quilt-makers with the industrial, social and artistic history found in quilts.

Rae has written extensively about textiles and Scottish crafts and for eight years operated a small arts and crafts gallery in the Scottish Borders. In Warm Covers she has drawn extensively on visits to the Fife Folk Museum in Ceres and many photographs of their gorgeous quilts are reproduced in the book. Warm Covers is a treat for quilters and the curious alike!"

    Details of Janet Rae's forthcoming event at Topping's can be found here.

Glorious colour

    

    As we had a little bit of Kaffe Fassett yesterday, and a weather-related post on Cornflower Books today, here's an overlap in the form of what Kaffe, a Californian, thinks of our British weather: start at the 3.59 mark in this interview.

    In case, like me, you've never seen his late 1980s Channel 4 series Glorious Colour, here it is.

Soothing stitching

    After all the excitement of this afternoon's Wimbledon men's final* some calming needlework may be needed. I have too many canvases already on the go to think of buying another one, but if I were in the market I'd be very tempted by Kaffe Fassett's unusual and striking 'A Lady' in the Ehrman summer sale.

    In this video and this one, Kaffe talks about his use of colour and his organic approach to needlepoint design.

 

*Kudos to Andy Murray, and commiserations to Milos Raonic whose semi-final match against Roger Federer was supremely entertaining and a highlight of the tournament for me.

Fragrant Friday

    In the greenhouse the tomatoes are coming on, and the Marmande* shown above will be the first to be ready. As I pinch out side shoots and tie in new growth, so that unmistakable tomato leaf smell is released. If you want a perfume that recreates that fragrance - and makes it more complex - try La Feuille by Miller Harris.

 

*Grown from the seed of a supermarket tomato we ate. The plant sat on the kitchen windowsill for a couple of years during which it flowered but didn't fruit. I moved it out to the greenhouse a few weeks ago, repotted it, and waited to see what it would do - 'vigorous' is the best description now!

Over on Instagram I asked a question about the correct spelling of this variety. Daniel's Run Heirloom Tomatoes kindly answered me and said that the full name is Rouge de Marmande, and it dates from 1925, though I read that there is also a more recent introduction called 'Marmonde' which is what my Waitrose ones were labelled as. Whatever its origin, it's a good tomato.

A musical offering

   

    Doing a bit of fact-checking yesterday I came across the website All of Bach, a marvellous ongoing project by the Netherlands Bach Society. Every Friday they post a new video, a special recording of one of Bach's works with background information and interviews with the performers. Thus far there are well over 100 pieces up, searchable alphabetically, by BWV number, and genre, instrument or series. If you're a Bach lover, do take a look.

Looking up ...

... in Oxford.

    While viewing Magdalen's newest building at the weekend, I also snapped one of its quaint, older facilities: