Cornflower

Viriditas

    "Highly respected as a composer and a theologian, as well as a medicinal herbalist, [the twelfth-century abbess Saint Hildegard of Bingen] developed her own philosophy based on the connection between the human spirit and the growth force of the earth which she called viriditas. Like the source of a river, viriditas is the font of energy on which all other life forms ultimately depend. The word combines the Latin for green and truth. Viriditas is the origin of goodness and health, in contrast to ariditas, or dryness, which Hildegard regarded as its life-defying opposite.

    The greening power of viriditas is both literal and symbolic. It refers to the flourishing of nature as well as the vibrancy of the human spirit. By placing 'greenness' at the heart of her thinking, Hildegard recognised that people can only thrive when the natural world thrives."

    Sue Stuart-Smith, The Well Gardened Mind.

(Pictured enjoying today's rain is Thalictrum delavayi or Chinese meadow rue.)

All praise and all miracle

    "It was a sunny day in early July when I came to the Ripton farm. I sat on the rock outside Frost's writing cabin and listened to the whir of the poplar leaves at the edge of the woods and the sweet song of a hermit thrush. The tall grasses at the base of the apple trees were rich with wildflowers - pale yellow foxgloves, clover, flax, Indian paintbrush, Queen Anne's lace, daisies and buttercups. A robin perched in the branches of a tree above a cluster of small green apples.

    It was more powerful than I had imagined, finding Frost's last orchard still thriving, the trees with fruit on them. Everything was so alive in that little spot and I was struck by the continuum of life, by how the birds used the orchard as they probably always had, by how the apples reappeared summer after summer. It was all praise and all miracle. Edward Thomas was right about a line of apples being the same as a line of poetry in another language. And while Frost was no longer there to tend his orchard, it persisted. And because he had thought about it as it was in that moment, with fruit on the trees and the trees in full maturity, it still contained him.

    The poet may die, but the poetry continues."

    From The Ghost Orchard by Helen Humphreys.

    The photograph was taken yesterday in the newly reopened Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh - it was so good to be back there.

With needle and thread

    Embroidery is occupying my hands and my attention at the moment, so I went to see Dovecot Studios' current exhibition May Morris: Art & Life and marvelled at the artistry, technical skill, and astonishing output of William Morris's daughter.

The show is about to close, but the book May Morris: Arts & Crafts Designer (ISBN: 978-0-500-48021-2) is an excellent substitute or accompaniment.

                                                   ~~~~~

    Nicki Franklin at The Stitchery - whose Spring Wreath design I finished the other day - has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund an expansion to her business. She reached her target amount in no time, but should you wish to you can pledge your support until 5th. April.

                                                   ~~~~~

    I can't mention embroidery without providing another link to Mary Addison whose work is always a delight.

A watched pot

    I've been taking part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend and have been surprised at how few birds I've seen when actually looking for them compared to those I spot on any day on a two-minute walk to the compost heap, say.

    An hour yesterday afternoon yielded six species, while on this morning's session there were two birds in total! No finches of any kind, no blackbirds, only one robin and no wren.

    At least the bird book I was given for Christmas has come into its own. I Like Birds: A Guide to Britain's Avian Wildlife by Stuart Cox was chosen specially as it contains charming illustrations, not real life pictures which can be unnerving to someone like me who has a fear of birds. I can turn its pages safely without encountering a scary close-up of a raptor or some other menacing creature. 

    The website will give you the idea.

(See also.)

Bake on!

    "In the following three years stories of [the impending connection to the electricity network] would find their way to the church gates: at the National Wholemeal Breadmaking Championships which were held in Tramore, and where the electrical sponsor's intention was to conclude once and for all the argument of the best method for baking bread, the billing being 'Pot Oven versus Electric Oven', a gale had blown up and twisted the back half of the tent towards the sea. Unwilling to surrender to nature, the adjudicators had urged Keep Baking! Keep Baking! But the rain made the electricity short out, the electric bakers stood idle, and the Pot Oven bake of Mrs. Fidelma Healy carried the prize home to Cork."

    From This is Happiness by Niall Williams.

                                                       ~~~~~

    Speaking of baking, I made this apple and cardamom cake yesterday - 20 cardamom pods seemed excessive so I used eight and that was fine.

Home sweet home

    You may have seen Kate Mears' book A Year Around Our House featured on the Persephone Post a few months ago*. If not, do visit Kate's website to see some of the beautiful watercolours she used for her portrait/history of her Somerset house - they are so full of warmth and light and gentle colour and speak to the comfortable atmosphere of what is clearly a much-loved, welcoming family home and a charming garden.

*March 11th. - 15th.

Wool and words

    "Women who spin, knit and weave are legend, from Homer's Penelope, unravelling and reweaving a shroud as she waits for Odysseus's return, to mythic Ariadne, saving Theseus in the Cretan labyrinth with her ball of yarn. In Greek mythology, the three Fates, the Moirai, hold the mother thread of life - Clotho spins it, her sister Lachesis measures it, and Atropos clips it short. In Norse mythology, the Norns, goddesses wielding shears and spindles, do likewise. Women with their spinning wheels have long been agents for change and enchantment.

    It's not only the tales we tell, but how we tell them. Wool has left its mark on our speech. When we want to recount a story, we spin a yarn. If we deceive, we pull the wool over people's eyes. For centuries, female spinsters (the masculine form is 'spinner') spun wool to earn their livelihood, and the word gradually became synonymous with 'unmarried woman', one not dependent on her husband for her keep. We weave narratives as we weave cloth, and our words for them are bound together: 'text' and 'textile' share the same Latin root, textere, to weave. Our terms for working wool and words intertwine."

    Esther Rutter, This Golden Fleece.

Tussie-mussie

" February 26, 1950

    A dear near neighbour brought me a tussie-mussie this week. The dictionary defines tuzzy-muzzy, or tussie-mussie, as a bunch or posy of flowers, a nosegay, and then dis-obligingly adds that the word is obsolete. I refuse to regard it as obsolete. It is a charming word; I have always used it and shall continue to use it, whatever the great Oxford Dictionary may say [...]"

    Vita Sackville-West, In Your Garden

                                                    ~~~~~

    The Mount Vernon Ribbons and Cornflower mug, a gift from Cheryl, graces tables more stylish than mine (see at 3.38)!

Charming

    You'll know the book and perhaps the postcards, you may also have seen the exhibition, now here's the musical version - one of the 'spell songs' from The Lost Words by Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane.

Stitching rules, OK

    "'Now, some rules,' Miss Pesel continued. 'Never use a sharp needle as it will fray the canvas; only a blunt one. Don't leave knots, they will come undone or make a bump; tie one, stitch over it, then cut the knot. Make your stitches close - you are covering every bit of the canvas, so that it is entirely filled in and none of the canvas weave shows. Any gaps between stitches will make the cushion or kneeler weak and it will not last. These cushions and kneelers will be used every day - sometimes two or three times a day - for at least a hundred years, we hope. That is many thousands of times they will be sat on or knelt on. They must be robust to withstand such use for that long.

    'Finally, don't forget the back of the canvas. You want the reverse to look almost as neat as the front. You will make mistakes that you can correct back there, and no one will be the wiser. But if it's a dismal tangle at the back, it can affect the front; for instance, you may catch loose threads with your needle and pull them through. A neat back means you've worked a neat front.'

    Violet recalled the back of her childhood sampler, tangled with wool, the front a field of irregular crosses, her mother's despair.

    'Think of your work rather like the services at the Cathedral,' Louisa Pesel added. 'You always see an orderly show of pageantry out in the presbytery or the choir, with the processions and the prayers and hymns and the sermon all beautifully choreographed, mostly thanks to the vergers who run it all, and keep things tidy and organised in the offices away from the public eye as well, so that the public show is smooth and seamless."

    Tracy Chevalier, A Single Thread - over on Cornflower Books today.

A journey through Britain's knitted history

    Out in September, This Golden Fleece by Esther Rutter is "a history of Britain's long love affair with wool, told through a year of knitting garments from around the British Isles."

    Granta Books' catalogue arrived this morning, and of course that book leapt out at me. Here's the blurb:

    "Over the course of a year, Esther Rutter - who grew up on a sheep farm in Suffolk, and learned to spin and knit as a child - travels the length of the British Isles to tell the story of wool's long history here, and its influence on our landscape and culture.

    She unearths fascinating histories of communities whose lives were shaped by wool, from the mill workers of the Border counties to the stocking knitters of Wales, and the fishing villages of Britain's coast from Shetland to the Channel Islands. Along the way, she explores wool's rich culture by knitting and crafting culturally significant garments from our history, reminding us of the value of craft and our intimate relationship with wool."

    And an extract from the text:

    "Inside a paper bag were four balls of wool - white, dove grey, charcoal, peaty black. Banded with paper round the middle, this was Shetland Heritage Yarn from Jamieson & Smith. Printed on the band was a line of tiny symbols: a shepherd's crook, a hand dipped in water, and iron crossed through, and - my favourite - three tiny Shetland sheep with horns and curling fleeces, staring down the crook. Three renegades from Britain's north-east edge, their horns a proud trumpet and a warning.

    I took a sniff. A strong outdoor smell, oiled and fusty, caught my nostrils. It was an unmistakably sheepy funk. Woolly fibres waved and snaked away from the yarn's central strand, black flecked with white, cream specks on brown. My four yarns, fading dark to light, yielded to the pressure in my palm then bounced back, comfortable in their shape. My fingers prickled with the urge to knit them up. What would I make from these strong skeins?"

Compassion

    I'm reading War Doctor by David Nott, his account of life as a surgeon on the front line, operating in conditions of extreme danger, at great personal risk and amidst dreadful suffering.

    I listened, a few days ago, to his Desert Island Discs and then found him, coincidentally, in the pages of Penny Junor's book All the Queen's Corgis. Recounted there - and of course, in his own memoir - is the story he tells on the radio about his meeting with the Queen and how she helped him; that part of the broadcast begins at 27.02.

Castaway

   

 

    James Rebanks was a refreshing castaway on this week's Desert Island Discs.

    Good news from his Instagram page: he's on the home straight of his second book; his first one, The Shepherd's Life, is superb.

A gaelic blessing

    One more passage from Esther de Waal*, and this is for you if like me you have children heading back to the world of work or university after being with you at Christmas.

    It appears in a section in the book on coming of age and is "a blessing that a mother in the Hebrides would give to a son or daughter leaving home".  As one of my children went south today - with the dogs at the door to say goodbye - these lines are very much in my mind:

    Be the great God between thy two shoulders

    To protect thee in thy going and in thy coming.

 

*See here and here.

A marvellous portmanteau

   

    Just a quick note to say that Blackwell's sale has begun (online) and it includes Alexandra Harris's brilliant Romantic Moderns at less than half price.

    There's a post on the book here and reading that again prompts me to revisit the book and further explore the rich cultural world it describes.