yarnstorm

ophelia plum & friend

Ophelia Plum and Jane Eyre have been my companions and soulmates this week. By coincidence I finished both yesterday. Maybe they have each been instrumental in holding up completion of the other.

Jane Eyre. Well, I read the book very differently this time. I was surprised by Jane's steely sense of self and her determination to preserve that self at all costs. I didn't remember her being so determinedly manipulative with her masters and men. And I read the scenes with her and Rochester as the most intense romantic fantasies; they have changed my perception of Charlotte Bronte dramatically.

Meanwhile, Ophelia Plum has been rescued from herself and is now a quilt measuring 170cmx170cm or 67"x67". I took the name from a birth announcement in The Times because it matched the main, Amy Butler fabric (below)which was the inspiration for the colour choices. Ophelia for the pale aqua and Plum for the deep, rich purple.

I matched this with some more Amy Butler fabrics from the same range, a few simple Kaffe Fassett designs, and a couple of dotty ones from the Quilt Room in Dorking.

The quilt is loosely based on the Square Clamshell Quilt in Kaffe Fassett's V&A Quilts. I'm not great with triangles (those angles try my patience - ha, ha) so I liked the idea of 'cheating' a little by turning square blocks and cutting them to make triangles.

I changed the size of the pieces so that they were 5-by-5 blocks of 3" squares, and gave myself a real headache when piecing them all. The quilt ended up as a square rather than a rectangle, and there are some glaring mistakes due to the fact that I didn't plan every block carefully and then couldn't face re-making the wrong ones. I took the exceutive decision to complete imperfectly rather than try to make it perfect and give up in the process.

So Ophelia Plum is an experimental quilt in that I discovered the limits to my skills and patience. But I like the fact that it taught me some valuable lessons and I still love the unusual colour combination. The quilt is machine-pieced and hand-quilted, and I think this one is mine.

 

Ophelia Plum looks great in natural light next to deep colours like the green of this box hedge (above), and when the light changes it is like a stained glass window with different jewel-like colours picking up the sunshine (below). 

Or it could be an Arabian Night magic carpet to carry me away to my own Mr Rochester.

whispering daffodils

 

I caught these two 'Tete-a-Tete' miniature daffodils having a tete-a-tete this morning.

a-quilting & a-musing

   

Like the Tailor of Gloucester in Beatrix Potter's tale, all my spare time is taken up with needle and thread, scissors and thimble, spectacles and newspapers. I'm not making a brilliantly embroidered waistcoat like the one he makes, just trying to get the Ophelia Plum quilt out of the way.

      

I love the possibility for reflection afforded by hand-quilting. Your hands are occupied in the repetitive, small stitches while your brain wanders far and wide. The simplicity of the tools required made me think of the Beatrix Potter illustration which must have made a lasting impression on me, despite the fact that I never enjoyed her books as a child. I was terrified of Mr McGregor when he chased Peter Rabbit and I never progressed any further. I'm not than keen on the anthropomorphism in her stories (or anybody else's - Watership Down was my first & last bunny story after Peter R) and even though we were given a complete set of Beatrix Potter tales when Thomas and Alice were born, I never once managed to read a whole story to them. And I won't even get started on the archaic and morally freighted language.

No, I've been thinking about the Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Phoebe and I went to see their show at the weekend and were totally delighted by the sight of men in tights and tutus, dancing on pointe and performing some of the great set-pieces in the manner of nineteenth-century Russian ballerinas. It was incredible.

I wrote my MA dissertation on 'Fat Fairies' - buxom women with wings and pink tights who appeared in the extravaganzas of the mid nineteenth century - so for me these were men as fat fairies and performing beautifully. They are technically amazing, their costumes are the epitome of femininity, and you find yourself forgetting they are men (even though the hairy chests are there) and, instead, simply revel in the exuberance and fun of it all.

     

I've never seen Phoebe (our resident Margot Fonteyn) enjoy a ballet as much as this. What the Trocks bring is a sense of individual style and experimentation, which contrasts with the regimented perfection of the Royal Ballet. What they may not have in terms of expertise, they make up for with sheer vitality, visible enjoyment and physicality. And the most wicked false eyelashes I have ever seen.

shameless publicity

It turns out there was a macro setting on my camera all along. This shot of my favourite chocolate biscuit (showing its best profile) is my first close-up. The discovery of the setting was timely as I wanted to convey to all interested consumers the extent to which the ratio of chocolate to biscuit works in favour of the chocolate.

Now, despite being heartily fed up with the M&S adverts that have been running for far too long (the 'this is not just a chocolate biscuit...' thing is simply begging to be parodied), several people have asked for more information about these treats. So I am putting all scruples about blog advertising aside for today and today only, to say that these really are not just chocolate biscuits. They are the best pick-me-up/reward/treat/elevenses ever invented. I won't even make claims for them to be the ultimate knitting biscuit, because they aren't - too messy and requiring a great deal of tea drinking to counteract the richness. They also demand complete focus on the palate, so the best accompaniment is a little easy crossword solving and a mug of tea.

They also make a short-lived but attractive arrangement on the plate,

but have distinctly unappealing pacakaging which gives no clues to the biscuity perfection contained within. (NB Fox's make a similar, slightly cheaper biscuit in much more exciting wrapping. Do not be deceived; it does not hold a candle to the M&S version and has a good deal less chocolate.)

My Russian teacher once told me I was a 'sybarite' after I'd written an essay in Russian about the luxury house with Hockney-style swimming pool I would one day own (mmm, how naive was I to think that professional Russian-speakers and spies would ever be paid that well?). I didn't know what a sybarite was when I was seventeen, but I do now. My Russian teacher had great prescience.

                             ***

On Sunday I went to a lovely little 'do' at Loop for the new book by Kay and Ann. Although it was an unusually quiet Sunday morning because the clocks had just changed, there was a shop full of knitters keen to hear Kay speak and join in with knitting log cabin squares. Apple juice and cupcakes contributed to a great atmosphere.

The book is excellent. It's not actually available in the UK yet but Susan (owner of Loop) had ordered in some copies from the States and I do hope it sold well on Sunday. Great writing, anecdotes, ideas, inspirations and lovely visuals (as below). It promotes a laudable message of enjoyment and creativity rather than slavish pattern following, and I think Kay and Ann have achieved their objective of writing a different type of knitting book.

OK, I'm now going back to the usual editorial writing. That is, unless someone needs to employ a copywriter or publicist.

jelly bean cushion iii

Jelly Bean Cushion III has been claimed by Phoebe, even though it's Alice who has the matching lime green bedroom. Unfortunately, it's really difficult to capture the shades of green (they come out looking more blue-grey than in reality) and the purple background looks more blueberry than plum in the photos.

It's the Debbie Bliss cushion pattern in Home, but with buttons on the back so that I can take the pad out when I want to wash the cover. I don't change the actual spot shape, but I do my own colour combinations. I do a simplified version of intarsia; I carry the main colour behind the spots, but have separate lengths of yarn for each spot.

It's knitted in Blue Sky Alpacas 100% alpaca, the skeins of which are always shorter than I expect and I always run out. This is why the bottom of the back is knitted in Rowan DK Cashmerino. Not my first choice colour, but I'm determined to reduce the number of odd balls I have. The spots are knitted in three shades of angora from Anny Blatt and Alchemy.The buttons are from an eBay job lot and, I think, are quite old and very Art Deco.

The inspiration, as ever, are the vibrant shades in the jelly bean jar. I have to admit that these are probably no longer fit for human consumption, having been handled and mixed up with fluffy yarns more times than can be healthy for sweets.

I also like the way they make a kind of argyll pattern on the cushion. Perhaps I should glue a few on.

(I've also just noticed that it matches the colours of the blog perfectly.)

weekend treats

Sunday's treat: absolutely, amazingly delicious passion fruit meringue tarts from Ottolenghi. I barely had time to transfer these plus the fruit tarts and lemon and mascarpone tarts to a plate and, abracadabra, they were gone. It's laughable that I want to photograph them, apparently.

Friday's treat: I made the scone recipe in Dough by Richard Bertinet which provided enough to cater for a well-attended WI meeting. Even we were overfaced by the surfeit of scones and the hens feasted well. They were great, but next time I divide by two.

                            ***

To answer a couple of questions about my quilt. I don't use a hoop for hand-quilting, I just work in long, simple rows across the quilt as it lies on my lap. And this is the batting I prefer:

Thank you so much for your wonderful comments about the quilt. In fact, I do believe you are quite an incredible group of people. You are fantastically generous in what you say, and I love the fact that there is a real sense of sharing and dialogue when I post about non-mainstream stuff like obsessive drawing and knitting, or yarn themes in Stanley Spencer's paintings, or even my beloved food & textiles passion.  Your comments are hugely entertaining, informative, encouraging and, so often, empathetic. Thank you for each and every one.

knitting recipe

I didn't know until recently that knitting patterns used to be known as knitting 'recipes'. What a quaint expression, and it fits my current thinking perfectly.

I started the back of a jelly bean cushion for a completed front, but it's become its own entity. The colours took off in an unexpected direction, ie a phenomenally bright one, and so now I'll have to make a front to match this back, and a new back for the less bright front. If you catch my drift.

The oranges are startlingly juicy and work really well together. My recipe is three parts angora (Anny Blatt, Alchemy and an Italian brand) to one part Rowan Cashsoft DK for the stripes, and equal amounts of cream Rowan Cashsoft DK for the background. It will be a jelly bean cushion on the front as well as on the back.

I am amazed that there were six different types of orange jelly beans in the big tub of JellyBelly beans. And I didn't eat one of them. But the Extremely Chocolatey Biscuit (best ever bought biscuit - from Marks & Spencer) I'd just eaten may have had something to do with my apparent self-control.

                                    ***

Thomas and Phoebe break up today for three and a half weeks. Alice breaks up at the end of next week. It feels as though they have only just had half-term, so I checked the calendar, and I was right. They have. To make myself feel even more overwhelmed, I counted up the number of weeks the three of them are off school. A total of twenty weeks a year, no less (exacerbated by the fact that two are at one school and one at another - to be further exacerbated in September when Thomas goes to his senior school which I know has slightly different dates again.) And there was me thinking that as they got older, my life would open up into one vast creative time and space. I suppose it has, in many ways; it's just that I have company for much of it.

PS I wouldn't have it any other way. Just the other day I was thinking in the opposite direction and had to stop myself because I felt like crying at the thought of Thomas and Alice potentially leaving home in five years.

dorothy in kansas

 

Dorothy has arrived back in Kansas. After a prolonged hiatus due to being unable to face hand-stitching rows and rows of quilt lines, I made myself complete the 'Dorothy in Kansas' quilt. I can't for the life of me remember why I thought it would be a good idea to stitch not one but two parallel lines down the middle of each strip. It does look great, but I'm not sure one wouldn't have been fine.

   

The quilt measures 72"x75"/184cmx192cm and is inspired by the 'Wallpaper Quilt' in Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Road (without the border). It's very simply 3" wide (when finished) strips joined together to make longer pieces. I cut very long strips and then cut them again randomly (much deep breathing needed before doing this), so that I ended up with piles of strips of varying lengths. I then laid out the fabrics piece by piece, row by row, until I was happy with them, making sure there were no matching seams - it's built up like an uneven brick wall. My chief quilting apprentice, Thomas, helped me to balance the colours and spot where things didn't work. He then designed his own 'Hamster Quilt' out of the remnants (see post of December 20). He wants this one in his room; it does look great in there.

It's a mix of Kaffe Fasset, Amy Butler and Rowan fabrics plus a few from my cupboard. The initial colour plan was based on duck-egg blue and a buttery yellow; not my usual sort of palette, but I loved the softness of these shades. As the idea took hold, I added some lilacs and purples, some sandy tones and a brighter yellow, a dove-grey and a touch of dusky pink. I've said before that it reminds me of the open blue skies and the fields of gold wheat that I imagine to be in Kansas. Dorothy comes into it because of the backing fabric which is incredibly, well, Dorothy. I would love a full skirt made out of this, sadly discontinued, pattern - plus a pair of purple sequinned shoes, I think.

I do like the way the quilts are photographed outdoors in Quilt Road. Despite not being in the depths of rural Yorkshire, mine did look quite at home thrown over a hedge in the sunshine.

fluff balls and brownies

Turn to page three hundred and twenty five. Does your heart sink when you hear these words? Does it bring back memories of English Lit lessons when you couldn't remember where you'd last read to, maybe even which novel/play/poem/stanza/chapter/act this was, all mixed with the dread of being asked to read aloud?

Well, you can relax because this is p325 of The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. You don't have to do anything except consider the most amazing brownie recipe. A little comparing and contrasting with previous brownie recipes, maybe, but you certainly won't have to discuss his metaphors and similes, prose and punctuation.

These are seriously chocolatey confections. Eye-swivellingly so. In fact, one small square could keep you on a chocolate-high all day. So do revise your Nigel Slater books in time for the next lesson. There will be a test on best-ever brownie recipes.

                                 ***

I decided a while ago that my modest collection of angora yarns is too good to hide away. It's grown since the NY visit and the latest additions make it even more likely that my hands will be plunged into the depths of the angora basket whenever I go near it for a quick fix of fluffiness. I keep seeing new jelly bean cushion combinations; maybe these will be my Andy Warhol-style creation, repeated endlessy in different colours until I can stand it no more.

collections

 

I watched Amelie for the first time this weekend. I missed it when it on general release and finally bought it as a cheap DVD. It is worth every penny and more. It is one of the most visually arresting films I've ever seen, and I actually found it really difficult to knit while watching, as every scene demands total visual concentration. The colours are almost cartoonish and hyper-real, and the sets are unbelievably detailed and fabulous. The director makes a fruit & veg stall a work of art and the railways stations of Paris never looked so lovely.

It's also very funny, and the strange characters are endearing rather than disturbing. Everyone has manic or obsessive tendencies and many are collectors. Of proverbs, discarded photos, endives, copies of a Renoir painting. These quirky details accumulate and build up to make quite beautiful, if apparently meaningless, collections.

It made me think about my own collecting tendencies, especially as I'd just read Alicia's delightful post of March 15 about a group of button collectors. I always wanted to be a great amasser of objects, and as a child I had trolls and a few books but not a great deal more. In fact, I've never fulfilled my collecting ambitions, mainly because I am terrified of feeling compelled to spend any spare cash on growing a collection purely for the sake of owning objects, and partly because I run out of steam quite quickly and my magpie instincts are distracted by some new whim. Also, I am loath to keep special things locked away, and much prefer to be able to use any small collections I do have.

Last year I bought a number of tablecloths featuring crinoline ladies. Completely unfashionable and yet totally seductive. I scoured market town flea-markets when on holiday, friends found others, and the rest I bought on eBay. I had a strict budget and I only wanted hand-embroidered, natural fabrics. Before long, I had a great little collection of beautifully embroidered items which didn't cost a fortune.

The crinoline lady is a 1930s icon. She was everywhere; on textiles, tea-pots and tea-cosies, book & magazine covers. I know it's all highly stylised and ridiculously escapist, but I am fascinated by the fact that so many women bought transfers of this design and sat and embroidered a lady who is really only good for picking flowers and looking pretty during their breaks from the mangle and cleaning the lino kitchen floor.

Transfers also came free with women's magazines, and once I'd started looking, I found several pieces with the same design (one or two designs seem to have been incredibly popular). The ones in the photos are all the same, basic outline (my favourite design), but done by different embroiderers. They are all expertly sewn, but each maker has interpreted the lines, stitches and colours quite differently.

The top two are from the same cloth. They are done by someone who clearly wasn't afraid of bold colour combinations and setting thickly embroidered sections next to simple lines. You can just see in the second photo that the lady is unfinished. I bought the cloth knowing it was not completed, because I had never seen anything as unusual and modern as this.

This lady is on a textured cotton background and in a very different, restricted palette. All four ladies in the corners are the same. The cloth is much smaller than the others, so the embroiderer chose wisely when leaving much of the design open.

The one below has very different stitching (look at the hollyhocks), and I love the sash on her dress.

And, finally, this cloth is much more traditional in the choice of colours. This lady is far more shy & retiring and the lines are less flowing and elegant; I like to think the bolder crinoline ladies above somehow reflect their makers who appear to have been more Scarlett O'Hara than Melanie Hamilton.

Crinoline lady embroidery was despised by 'art' embroiderers as dull and lifeless and a waste of good skills. But these dainty designs remind you just how few people can embroider beautifully these days. Like all frivolous collections, they really are worth preserving.