yarnstorm

haberdashery revisited

When I wrote this post, this is the kind of place I was thinking of. Two huge walls of buttons. Shelf upon shelf upon shelf of ribbons. Another wall of lace. A section devoted to dressing-gown cords. Another to tassels. Jars of pom-poms graded by size. Needles, pins, threads, scissors, feathers, elastics, felt, doll's heads. And, yes, bra straps.

I found it all at The Haberdashery Shop in Ramsgate. As haberdasheries go, it's huge (although it's about to move to a new location) - in a section of an old department store with a listed frontage with fabulously evocative 1930s windows. It may not have been all period fixtures and fittings and mahogany, but what it lacked in tradition, it made up for in stock.

It was utterly mesmerising and bewildering, and I wandered up and down the aisles trying to work out what I came in for.

Was it blue or gold or pink or white buttons? Was it thin or thick ribbon? Velvet or or satin or cotton?  And did I really need some glass-headed pins? Or shoulder pads? And could I justify some bra straps?

It was a lovely quandary in which to find myself. In the end, though, I came away with just a very modest selection of ribbons and bows, but a huge and lasting impression of a wonderful haberdashery.

heppy quilting

Although I managed a creditable amount of hand-quilting during our time away on holiday, it wasn't enough to meet my self-imposed deadline. So desperate measures were called for when we returned; they came in the form of a boxed set of David Lean's films which have worked much as super-glue does and have kept me happily in one place for four super-long quilting evenings.

Actually, that should be 'heppily'. If there is one word which keeps me glued to my settee, screen and quilting, it's 'happy' - particularly in David Lean's films where it's almost always pronounced 'heppy'. As in, 'Are you heppy, darling?' to which the answer must be, 'Yes, darling. Very heppy.' Which makes me very heppy, too.

My film-fest has consisted of such gems as Hobson's Choice, The Passionate Friends, Madeleine, This Happy Breed (known in this house as This Heppy Breed) and Blithe Spirit with their casts of marvellous British actors (Rex Harrison, Charles Laughton, Ann Todd, Claude Rains, John Mills, Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson) with perfect diction whether they are (allegedly) in London, Salford or Glasgow.

The films are perfect for quilting for another reason: they don't move too quickly. Look down at your stitches for a nanosecond when watching a contemporary film and the chances are you'll miss a squillion frames and a large chunk of plot. The joy of David Lean's films is that they move at a graceful pace with the camera often lingering on a beautifully lit face or a delicately coloured interior. So you can look down as much as you like and be sure that Claude Rains' brooding, proud, tormented face will still be on-screen when you've done your stitch or stitches.

And these films have a lovely texture to them, especially the black & white ones with their intricate layering of light and dark and shadows. Perfect for quilting: texture for my hands and texture for my eyes - something that makes me verry, verry heppy. Darling.

another helping of cherry cake

I'm looking forward to what promises to be a lovely Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer event in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, organised by Mostly Books (New Bookshop of the Year 2008) on Saturday 23 August. It's to be held at The Broad Face, a pub renowned for its wonderful puddings and cakes. Just right. Please see the Mostly Books website for more details.

local discovery

 

We do like our holidays in Britain. We've been taking them for years (since we lived in Germany and Belgium, and England was 'abroad' to us), long before it became newly fashionable to enjoy holidays here.

And what a wonderful place it is for a holiday.There's nothing like poking around a new part or county for making excellent local discoveries. This is the joy of holidays close to home (as well as the fact that you can cram the car with everything from wellies to bikinis) - there's so much you overlook in daily life and it's only when you reduce your vision, go local and potter around, that you come across the real diversity, charm, and wealth of Britain in all its eccentric and colourful glory.

We spent the second half of our holiday in an amazing 1840s Gothic Revival house in Kent, in which the enormous ego of the architect could be be seen and almost felt in every room. Ramsgate may not be everybody's idea of a holiday destination, but it has to be said it's full of civic pride and happily close to plenty of interesting places.

These local Discovery apples were sitting proudly outside a traditional greengrocer's in the very traditional town of Sandwich (winding roads full of history, dahlias planted around the church, an art deco cinema, a ladies' linens shop unchanged since goodness-knows-when) and they reminded me how much I love little local discoveries of all types.

Like the cheerful lights along the seafront at Broadstairs, and the jaunty, friendly beach itself.

And Morelli's ice creams in the pink and peach ice cream parlour (all original fittings).

The Albion Bookshop in Broadstairs looks as though a bookslide is imminent; I feel seriously wobbly when I go upstairs to the gallery and have nightmare visions of being trapped under thousands of books when the whole lot suddenly comes away from the walls...

And then there's Margate.

Once home to the now eerily empty and ruined Dreamland and kiss-me-quick antics and a marvellous lido and this formerly smart 1930s shelter on top of a cliff (below). Still full of an amazing mix of Georgian, Victorian and Modern architecture, but looking sad and in dire need of the regeneration planned by English Heritage.

Then, when it rained (and it rained hard), we could make even more local discoveries in our rented home. We found out what it was like to live with Gothic ideas and decor (heavy-going),

and I fantasised about turning the long, elegant pentice, or covered walkway, which led to the front door, into a penthouse for tomatoes and geraniums.

We find there's a lot to be said for shrinking, rather than widening, our horizons when we travel.

florilegium

I like the idea of a floral florilegium. A florilegium - such a lovely word - is an anthology or garland or collection of choice literary extracts - but I feel it's the perfect term for the collection of choice flowers I saw in Suffolk.

The local hollyhocks come in a huge range of pinks and reds, deep burgundies and yellows, some as tall as the houses against which they grow, a kind of of feminine version of a beanstalk for a questing Jackie to climb.

Then there were some stunning no-holds-barred dahlias, like this 'Duet' which lifts my spirits every time I look at it. I've put it outside the kitchen door at home so it can make me laugh with its huge floppy head and utterly wonderful petal design.

It stands next to the 'Akita' dahlia which is more restrained colourwise, but is even madder in terms of spiky, complex construction.

Then there's this pretty specimen which looked amazing against the blue exterior of our rented house.

In fact, the one thing I noticed about so many of this summer's Suffolk flowers was how beautiful they looked against the different shades of blue paint. Although there are yellow and white and 'Suffolk pink' houses, I came to realise just how wonderfully well blue in particular works as a backdrop for a garden. 

Then, just as I was developing this theory, I came across these tall, deep red and pink and white acanthus spikes in front of a deep red and pink and white house. The whole ensemble could not have planned better. Maybe I need to make a little more effort to match my house to my flowers?

And I found myself inspired by all this floriferousness when I went to Quilters Haven and was drawn to these abundantly floral fabrics which will be going into a quilt I have planned. In fact, it may just be a florilegium quilt.

To paraphrase Aristotle, it's not so much swallows as flowers that for me a summer make. Which means it's a good summer.

plus ca change...

...plus c'est la meme chose. Which is, of course, the beauty of having a holiday in the same place year after year.

Since our last visit, Tom may have grown six inches, Phoebe may have started at senior school, Alice may have a new hair colour while Simon may have lost some of his, and I may have become a published author, but our experience of Aldeburgh remains essentially the same. And this year we had glorious sunshine and warmth for the whole week - quite something for a family who usually manages to travel to the rain.

So there were swims in the North Sea before breakfast - from the baker's which never changes, 

and plenty of lying on the shingle reading and contemplating the strange view of the town.

And a visit to quaint and eccentric Thorpeness to go boating on the Meare.

Dahlias were bought once again and stored in the sink of our rented house,

and toe nails were painted to match the beautiful geranium from The Walled Garden (a new discovery and one of the loveliest nurseries I've ever I've encountered) where the getting-towards -the-end-of-the-season prices of plants meant they simply had to be taken to a good home.

There would be something very wrong if there were no hollyhocks in Suffolk - but as usual there were some incredible specimens growing all over the town.

And there were colour moments on the beach,

and highly successful crabbing in Walberswick (our party - below- caught dozens) which hosts the annual British Open Crabbing Championship. I kid you not.

And, as ever, a fine quantity of books from the bookshops, ice cream from the ice cream shop, wine from the wine shop. And sleep and space and rest and quilting.

I'd hate Aldeburgh to change. In fact, I think it should be preserved just as it is, like the little insects in the pieces of amber which were once found on its beach.

(It's no coincidence that some of the photos in this post are similar to those in this post and this post.)

booking ahead

In the course of the next twelve months I'm going to be making a pile of quilts. A big pile of quilts. Because I have been commissioned to write a book on quilts and quilting. Just the thought of working with wonderful fabrics like this makes me very excited, although I know there will be times when I wish for Rumpelstiltskin-style speed and skills when turning my piles of fabric into a pile of quilts.

I can't answer any questions about publication date or contents or any other aspect of the book, but this news does explain why there has been a lack of quilting posts recently (I'm saving all my quilting thoughts and projects for the book).

And now I'm taking two of the quilts to the seaside to hand-quilt. I booked ahead, and we're off on holiday with a carful of children, books, bats, balls, bikes, needles and thread.

at home

Our version of 'at home' is very different to the posh At Home version of entertaining. I have always been intrigued by the fact that some people send out extremely expensive invitations on thick card with gilt edging to announce the fact that they will be 'at home'. I now know that 'At Home' entertaining is in fact far removed from a simple domestic gathering round a table with wine and fishfingers and chips and children running around (which is exactly what I used to imagine it was and therefore couldn't understand why the letterpress invitations were necessary).

We have been 'at home' for a while now, but there haven't been any upmarket parties in that time. Although one day Phoebe and I decided to dress some plain straw hats with fresh flowers and foliage to create millinery that made us look as if we were about to host some wild garden party (at home, of course).

Phoebe's was more extravagant and My Fair Lady-ish than mine. She believes there's simply no point in trying to keep these things restrained.

She's also been harvesting her fantastic mix of salad leaves recently (sadly none would stay on her hat) while I've been cooking tomatoes which look like snooker balls (photo by Phoebe),

and picking my roses like something out of an E M Delafield novel (in which the heroine always sends out At Home invitations).

So there we are. The Brockets 'At Home'.

pools and reflections

This is the right way up. When I came back from a walk with Simon around a lovely garden, I saw that my eyes and camera had been drawn to pools of blues and whites, above and below and around. This is a pool of blues and whites reflected in a literal pool or pond.

In fact, I was surprised to see so much blue in the photos. It's a not a colour we are seeing much of in the sky at the moment, and I think I must have subconsciouly wanted to capture some to bring home, as if to convince myself that it really is summertime.

I love hydrangeas (they remind me of many happy summers in Brittany) and much prefer the blues to the pinks. These look as though someone's painted them with watercolour paint then left them out in the rain to let it wash off.

The topsy-turviness of a tree-filled sky and clouds to walk on below has a certain appeal.   

And I wonder why isn't there a 'hydrangea blue' in the paint-box? It would be lovely to create little pools of soft, watery blues and play with them on thick white paper. Especially when it's a mostly grey July.

delistcious

 

I had great fun choosing my top 10 favourite food moments in children's literature for the Guardian blog. (The list includes Paddington Bear's buns and cocoa elevenses - with the buns as above, I like to imagine.)