jane brocket

pick 'n' mix

Now that Woolworth's Pick 'n' Mix is no more*, I have to go elsewhere to satisfy my cravings for impossible but enjoyable choice-making. Once again, I've found it in yarn shade-cards.

I am both paralysed and galvanised by beautifully designed shade-cards and some are definitely more seductive that others. I only have to glance at the choice, the colours, the possibility, the infinite variety on offer, to feel full of happiness and hope for a great knitting future. Of course, there is only one common sense answer to which yarn(s) to buy, and that is to buy the whole lot. If only.

Kristin Nicholas sent me a copy of the Nashua Handknits Color Book which is one of the most creative printed shade cards I've seen. The yarns are presented in different ways: as mouth-watering fluffy balls of mohair, as tiny, elfin swatches and, as the page for Kristin's yarn Julia shows above, as neatly wrapped tags. Kristin also included a postcard of her yarn wound into little egg-size balls in an egg-box. Ah, who needs to knit when you can just play all day with these yarns?  

I've been knitting little trial pieces with Kristin's yarn which is soft and gorgeous (as befits a yarn made with 50% wool, 25% alpaca, 25% mohair) and comes in a lovely range of warm, natural colours (with names such as 'Coleus' and Lady's Mantle'), and I had enormous difficulty making a choice for a bigger project. Heck, there must be something simpler than a Technicolor Dreamcoat that requires approx. 39 colours?

* I know that some other shops (and cinemas) have installed Pick 'n' Mix sections since Woolies disappeared, but they simply don't have the same feeling of potential, nor do they have the space for lots of lingering and long, drawn-out picking and mixing. Plus, the sweets in them are too gummy and samey - you need lots of variety and plenty of dreadful chocolates to make a Pick 'n' Mix memorable.

PS If you know of any other lovely/creative/tempting yarn shade cards, I'd love to hear about them.

bulbs at breakfast

One of the children asked me last week  what the phrase  'artistic licence' means. I explained, and pointed out that I sometimes use it on the blog. I might even have used a little yesterday. After all, I was only thinking about what I could do. Just as I didn't want to wear an enormous wedding dress (but, given the frock-horror I did wear, you'd never have guessed), I don't actually want a huge new bottom and wardrobe. But I do think it's amusing to imagine myself as an older version of the young Monica Geller in Friends, and those chocolates are good.

However, the reality is that I am gardening to balance the knitting. It was bulbs at breakfast (or shortly afterwards) today. I think I may even have woken up in the night panicking about getting my bulbs in the ground before it gets too cold (or is that another touch of artistic licence?). Anyway, I decided over toast and Marmite that all the hyacinths and at least a few dozen daffodils had to be in pots before my next cup of tea and the start of work.

It was cold and bright and perfect bulb-planting weather. I even potted up some white amaryllis hoping that it's about time to do so, but being too mucky and wellie-booted to come into the house to check when I did them last year.

Never mind, I'm happy to take some artistic licence with planting times, too. 

the bottom line

 

When I was in my twenties and travelling all over Europe for work, staying in very smart hotels and eating in extremely good restaurants, I put on quite a lot of weight. This gain was further increased by the fact that I'd recently met Simon and found someone who enjoyed eating and drinking all the same things I did. Together we grew up and out. Even though I knew I had to do something about it, there was some satisfaction in knowing that my fat was either very expensive fat, or fat that had been gained with pleasure. Eventually it all came off in the run-up to our wedding, and even more was lost when I had Tom and Alice.

I've been thinking about the possibility of my bottom burgeoning once again through enjoyable eating. Now that the quilting book is on its way to the printers (I saw the cover in real life yesterday - it's stunning) I am all set to do the knitting book properly ie not flitting about doing little bits here and there as I have been doing, but honest-to-goodness, bottom-glued-to-the-settee knitting. And it is the prospect of having my bottom comfortably but firmly on a cushion for months on end that is making me consider my options. Should I

 a) throw caution and calorie-counters to the wind, invest in some stretchy tracksuit bottoms and spend the next eight months eating chocolates and cakes and biscuits, watching boxed sets of Cary Grant and James Stewart films interspersed with a chilling film noir or a cheesy musical, getting up only to make more tea or get another ball of yarn (or, even better, asking a child to do so) and produce some happy, cosy, soft and squishy knitting?

or,

b) keep a blackboard and calculator in the room where I am knitting so that  can chalk up every single calorie ingested and calculate how much horrid punishment I need to work it all off later, invest in a pair of very tight jeans that will shame me into controlling my intake while hoping fervently that they have the same effect as pregnancy, be thoroughly miserable for months and produce some thoroughly miserable, hard, thin knitting?

Ha, no contest. I've already bought the Rose and Violet Cremes.

boots at breakfast

Forget Amazon Japan. Who needs to sit at a screen when it's gloriously warm and sunny at breakfast time? Instead, I pulled on Simon's big gardening boots and spent two happy hours tidying up the garden,

enjoying the soft, low sun, the pale blue sky and the fiery colours of our Japanese maple.

I cut down all the sadly dying and decaying sunflowers, keeping a few heads for seeds for the hamster and to illustrate the Fibonacci sequence to Alice and Phoebe (I think the hamster was the more impressed). I even found a couple of flowers still hanging on and doing their best to impress.

I love the garden when everything is just going over, tipping into dark colours and skeletal forms, but still with a few splashes of brilliant colour from nasturtiums and dahlias. I took photos of the remains of the red cabbages, looking eerily like fossils or something you'd find on a beach.

I waved dried-out stems of hollyhocks covered with seed pods over parts of the garden like a magic wand, hoping that a few will germinate next spring. But as hollyhocks are notoriously fickle, I also collected plenty to try again with later.

And Phoebe and I performed our annual ritual of picking and opening the reamaining runner bean pods, and being amazed at their beautiful colours and markings.

There are days when I see nothing in the garden. And there are days, like today, when I see it all. Just as well, as much of it it will be gone for ever so soon.

browsing at breakfast

I sat down with my tea and toast this morning to have a quick look at Rosa's blog (one of the original craft blogs and still as true as ever to its creator's style, interests and passion for Portuguese history and heritage). Before I knew what had happened, two hours had passed, no children had emerged, I was still in my pyjamas, had drunk several cups of tea, and had a basket full of books at Amazon Japan. Oh, the joys of uninterrupted browsing, searching and discovering. And all because this book was out of stock with Rosa.

It's so long since I've had a good look at Amazon Japan and YesAsia, carefully noted ISBN numbers, gone back and forth between sites to see if I can look inside any of the books with beguiling covers whose contents can only be guessed at wildly, that I was quite carried away. (I also looked at Pomadour24's shop but the search function isn't too good which is a shame because I've bought from her before and she has a great selection of books and takes the trouble to show some of the content photos.) 

Then the house woke up, and I had to leave my dream of owning every beautiful Japanese craft book ever published and sort out real life. The million yen question is, what will happen at breakfast tomorrow when I go back to the basket?

positively the last...

...cake photo for a while. Until I change my mind, that is.

Simon bought this cake tin for Phoebe for her birthday so she had to put it to immediate use. Being something of a perfectionist (see post below), she wasn't happy with the first version which was far too small in her opinion. 

She also felt it was a mistake to use chocolate fudge icing for reasons that were visually clear but don't need to be explained (even though it tasted great). So she made a second cake and decorated it with jelly bean candles and wickedly pink icing, and all was well.

And the happy outcome is that we won't be needing much cake for a while.

celebration time

[looking up to the roof of our house]

Because we now have two sixteen year olds and a fourteen year old (something I keep saying aloud to myself because I still cannot believe I had three babies in 32 months all those years ago).

Because we have come through the grimness of Simon losing his job completely unexpectedly at the end of July, and now he has a new one.

Because the sun has shone for, oooh, at least four days in a row and I love the colours of autumn in the afternoon sun.

Because my lovely sister and her lovely family have just been to stay and we all had a great time together.

Because little cousins are incredibly delightful with big cousins.

And because big cousins look soBIG next to little cousins but are also so funny with them.

Because I have just met a deadline.

Because I feel I have some breathing space after needing oxygen for quite a while (only metaphorically speaking, of course).

Because I am now properly ready to tackle the next major project (the knitting book) and enjoy it.

Because we discovered The Thick Of It last night for the first time and watched, horrified and appalled and vastly entertained.

Because children getting older means I'm getting older and it's not all bad, despite the total rubbish you read in the papers about the necessity to look/behave/dress younger than you are and spend your whole life buffing up your body, considering ridiculous treatments, denying the state of your upper arms and pretending you aren't ageing. Nonsense. Much better to get on with life instead and celebrate freedom from ageism. Unless you are 16 or 14 in which case you don't even know what I'm talking about...

attention to detail

This is my brilliant assistant, who helps me with recipes and baking for books, getting a cake ready to be photographed. And I wonder why my tweezers are covered in sticky icing.

She doesn't always feel the need to pick off wrongly placed sprinkles but it's a measure of her commitment to earning money that, on this occasion, she did. (And she made the whole thing.)

Of course it's Phoebe.

final flourish

As the clocks go back I need all the brightness and sunshine I can get to lighten up my day. This amazing dahlia (about 6" in diameter) is shining outside my study window. I half expect it to go on like a lamp when it gets dark far too early tonight.

pyjama time

In a radio interview this week, I was asked to describe our household at the beginning of half-term, and the phrase 'pyjama time' popped into my mind. As in 'we enjoy plenty of pyjama time during school holidays', as in 'I don't see any reason to organise my children's break with a timetable crammed with improving and stimulating activities', as in 'I believe (and always have, even when they were little) that allowing them to get well and truly bored is the best way to get them reading, making, observing, inventing or simply thinking'. 

So we are getting out the quilts and knitted blankets, looking for our cosiest pyjamas and most comfortable clothes, hunting for our favourite warm socks, and buying in the Ovaltine, books and magazines because we are going to be busy doing very little at all.