yarnstorm

gentle readers and gentle arts

'At the End of the Porch' (1918)  John Sharman

If Charlotte Bronte had written a blog she wouldn't have been shy about addressing her readers directly. After all, this is the writer who broke with convention in Jane Eyre and used the word 'reader' (as in 'Reader, I married him' - most marvellous of phrases) no fewer than thirty times.

I don't do this too often. But today, gentle readers, I make an exception. And the reason is to express, once again, my thanks for all your excellent comments and emails and suggestions. I was explaining only last night to Simon the academic meaning of the word 'discourse', and today it occurs to me that we have a distinct and meaningful discourse going on here. I am hugely appreciative of everyone who takes the time to use the comments box and checking the blog is always great fun.

So THANK YOU.

One such generous reader is Ingrid. Ingrid contacted me recently to ask if I would like some old women's magazines she was happy to give away. Would I indeed? She very kindly sent me some copies of The Needlewoman from the 1930s and they are totally wonderful. Packed with everything a gentlewoman could possibly want to make. From quilted, satin eiderdowns to thatched cottage embroidered place mats, from scuttle shape crocheted hats to delicately hand-stitched lingerie. It's Thrift to Fantasy come to life.

I wondered briefly if I'd been born in the wrong decade, but I don't really think so (hell, there was no Green & Black's Butterscotch chocolate in the 30s). But I did realise that it was about time I had a go at making a 30s style textile.

I am duty bound to confess now that I've been buying a few old embroidery transfers on eBay recently and, having read the copies of The Needlewoman which used to give away these transfers, I thought I should actually use one. So I ironed a very simple, classic design onto some linen and started to embroider last night.

I make absolutely no claim to being proficient in the gentle arts (I've already had a Snow White moment and had to get blood off the linen), but that's not the point. I've had my vintage tablecloths out to see what previous generations did and my respect and admiration for their ingenuity and expertise is growing apace. There will be slow and painful progress on my part, plus a plenty of revision of what I was taught at school in ghastly needlework lessons. All I need now is a beautiful porch like the one in the painting in which to be gentle.

a seasonal affair

Now that I've been writing this blog for more than a year, I do worry about repeating myself, particularly when it comes to seasonal pleasures. But I am unapologetic about my tulips. Despite the fact that I wrote about them last spring, I can't ignore them this spring. For I am truly besotted with tulips.

I get terribly excited when I see the stems coming up, and then again as the tightly furled flowers poke out of the graceful, curving leaves. My excitement is increased by the fact that different varieties can look the same until they flower and I have no idea what is planted where. Each November my tulip-planting slave, Simon, heroically digs large, deep trenches and puts in hundreds of bulbs. I come out to place at the end of each trench a brown bag of bulb treasure for him to hide. I then run back inside to the warmth, and forget to put in my neatly written labels.

So every morning and evening now we inspect our Dutch bulbfield style plantings to see what's happening and make pathetic guesses as to what is where. Eventually, I go back to my orders, look up the photos of varieties I bought, do a little matching and naming, and then make a critical assessment of what we have. Oh yes, I take my frivolous flowers seriously.

I buy bulbs every year from two specialists: Bloms Bulbs and Peter Nyssen. I keep magazine articles, photos, other more expensive catalogues which have pretty pictures but rip-off prices, and my previous orders. Each spring I try to visit a tulip collection and note down the ones I like. Then, when the new catalogues come out in June, I work out my order and choose a mix of old favourites and new varieties to try.

These two tulips are new to the garden this year. The orange one is 'Daydream', and is tall and sturdy with very large flowers. When it first began to open I wondered why I'd bought it, for it was a lemon yellow and nothing out of the ordinary. And then it changed to a soft apricot, and finally a vibrant tangerine. It's definitely on the list for next year.

The second is 'Shirley' with ivory flowers edged and lightly flecked with carmine. It's the kind of tulip in old, Dutch flower paintings which were often 'broken' (ie with two colours splashed like paint - but caused by a virus, whereas the modern broken tulips are bred that way). 'Shirley' is medium in height and flower size. The edges become darker over time, 

and when the flowers open you find a splodge of indigo at the base. A subtle and stunning tulip.

My other spring love affair this year is with Jelly Bean cushions, but I'm not so sure this will be an annual one.

The Jelly Bean Class of 2006.

juicy jelly bean cushion

Alice has put me to shame and forced a health-conscious post today. I bought her Cooking Up a Storm: The Teen Survival Cookbook by cool teenager cook Sam Stern. She read it last night and made a list immediately of all the ingredients she needs to make various recipes. And it included hummus, pitta, lettuce, grapefruit, strawberries, natural yogurt. Not a bad calorie in sight.

This cushion was concieved as part of my Jelly Bean cushion cover series. But the Jelly Beans are nowhere to be found, not even in one of my many hiding places (I'm like Winnie the Pooh with his 'hunny' pots). So, for today, this is a Juicy Citrus cushion cover. Alice's satsumas match perfectly, and my food conscience is clear for once.

 

I used Rooster Almerino DK (50% baby alpaca/50% merino) in Cornish, which is an apt name for this beautiful, creamy colour. The jelly beans/satsumas are knitted in angora from Anny Blatt and Alchemy.

It's a Debbie Bliss pattern from Home and I adapted it at the back so that I can close it with buttons. There are also some stripes in the back which are knitted in Anny Blatt Cachemir' Anny.

The fabby buttons are from Tender Buttons in New York. A wicked extravagance, but the cushion's worth it.

It wasn't designed to go anywhere in particular, but it looks at home in my study.

But I really do need some more Jelly Beans. For photographic purposes, you understand.

compare & contrast

In the interests of an informed and rational debate about chocolate biscuits, Suse and I agreed a swap. I would send her some Marks & Spencer's Extremely Chocolatey Biscuits in return for a packet of iconic Australian Tim Tams. I confess to some nervousness, as her biscuits have their own history & web pages, while mine are unbranded upstarts.

A parcel duly arrived from Suse, full of Australian loveliness. I partcularly liked the dried eucalyptus leaves which made the amazing location of Suse's home seem so much closer. She also included an op shop find - a prettily embroidered cloth. Having just finished reading Thrift to Fantasy, this was a wonderful surprise which connected me more closely with antipodean domestic crafts.

And to make the connection even more contemporary, Suse sent me one of her handknitted cotton flannels. I felt instantly guilty that I don't give away more of my knitting, but this made me appreciate Suse's generosity even more keenly. Here is the flannel with the shadow of a tulip.

But what of the comparative biscuit tasting? Well, you can see the renowned Tim Tam on the left in the top photo, and the M&S heavyweight chocolate biscuit on the right. It turns out that they are two, quite different animals. The Tim Tam is more like our Penguin biscuit, with a light, crunchy biscuit and a soft filling, all covered in a layer of chocolate. The M&S one is thick chocolate and dense shortbread inside making it an altogether heavier, richer biscuit.

We all had a good munch and serious voting ensued. The result: if it's chocolatey indulgence you're after, the M&S biscuits win by a whisker. But it's no wonder the Australians win more gold medals than us; their arteries are clearly nowhere near as clogged as ours.

seven

 

Once upon a time I was a PhD student. I read the novels of Dickens interspersed with fairy tales. I read deeply serious literary criticism and journals. I worked in hushed, overheated libraries, ate too many sweets and used too many page markers. After a while, a little bird visited me and told me that maybe I just couldn't take this much longer. I needed fresh air, less print, more colour and I desperately wanted to read something short and frivolous.

But even though the little bird did me a huge favour, I still think about the themes I was planning to explore in Dickens' novels in what would have been my ground-breaking thesis (ha). I used to ponder the meaning of magic, significant numbers in fairy tales, such as seven. As in seven dwarfs, ravens, years, sisters, daughters, brooms, spells. I find myself counting things even now. So here are seven wonders of the last seven days.

1) Hot cross buns

I finally made some late and without the cross. (I see there is much debate on the cross issue on several food blogs.) They were excellent; Dan Lepard's recipe from Baking with Passion is just the best.

2) Pride and Prejudice

Even though I enjoy Jane Austen, a re-reading of P&P confirmed that I don't really possess eighteenth-century sensibilities. I was also shocked this time by the extent of Mr Bennet's dereliction of duty towards his daughters and the way that most of the Bennets are portrayed as unremittingly vulgar. I missed the whole BBC P&P thing because we were living abroad at the time, so my Mr Darcy is purely a figment of my imagination and not Colin Firth. So I can make him as forbidding or as gorgeous (or both) as I like.

3) Modernism

Addicted as I am to Penguin books, I seriously covet the 'Penguin Donkey' (designed in 1939) I saw at the Modernism exhibition at the V&A. I just think I'd need a whole herd of them. (Did you know that the collective noun for a donkey is a herd or a pace? I didn't, and 'pace' seems totally inapposite.)

 

4) Apricot Beauty tulips

I haven't grown these before because they seemed so pastelly and out of place in my colour scheme. But I have admired them from afar for ages, so this year we planted some. And they are lovely in their peachy lipstick colour which happens to be exactly what we have in the bathroom.

They are elegant, ladylike and very tasteful. Makes a change.

5) North by Northwest

I choose the films I quilt to very carefully. And North by Northwest is so good, I wanted to go straight back to the beginning and watch it again. My fingers didn't even get tired, so engrossed was I with the amazing visuals and the superb train scenes. I've watched it before, but this time I was seeing it. One of the scenes I'd never noticed before was the one below - just look at the way Hitchcock splits the screen and does all sorts of clever things with mirror reflections and inversions. And the details like Cary Grant's character being Roger O. Thornhill where the 'O' stands 'for nothing'. Clever.

   

6) A surprise

It turns out Simon reads the comments here more than I'd realised. Marianne mentioned a Willimas-Sonoma sandcastle shape cake tin, and Simon tracked down a UK supplier but it was out of stock. Instead he bought me a sunflower tin, and I was delighted. As I hugged him in front of the decorator, the latter remarked that his wife would kill him if he bought her a cake tin as a surprise.

I was shocked that not everyone would think this a work of art...

7) Space

It is indeed a wonder when the children finally go back to school.

floreal

It is now Floreal, the eighth month of the French revolutionary calendar, the month of flowers which runs from around 20 April to 20 May. And my garden has timed its annual eruption perfectly. Although we've already had hellebores and crocuses, it's only now that I'm noticing the huge changes that are taking place. We have quince and plum blossom, camellias and primulas, maple and beech buds. But mostly we have daffodils and tulips. It's looking wonderful.

I brought in some 'Woodstock' hyacinths today. These are the only ones I plant and I love their deep, beetroot colour and great fragrance. I think hyacinths look spectacular in bowls, but somehow forget to plant them most years. I bought the tablecloth below as a pretty substitute; it makes me think of Jan Struther's Mrs Miniver who would no doubt have done her bulb bowls every year.

The tulip 'Ivory Floradale' comes up every year with its huge, ostrich egg type flowers. It's a pale, creamy yellow when closed,

and this is what happens after a couple of hours on a warm windowsill.

There are some flowers I can't cut, like the snakeshead fritillary (fritillaria meleagris), as they belong in the garden only. You need to get down on your hands and knees to appreciate its amazing chequered, patchwork effect.

And these 'Zurel' tulips are in an old, stone trough and it would ruin the picturesque, massed raspberry ripple effect if I cut any.

I reckon we should reinstate Floreal on the calendar.

the face that launched a (few) thousand socks

 

'Mrs F.D. Roosevelt' by Walter Cotton (1933)

Gravitas has eluded me thus far. I realise that it is now probably too late for me, but I have long been fascinated by the way in which other people manage to acquire it. I remember being shocked by the way some of my university friends suddenly metamorphosed into full-blown, dour and sensible adults on graduation, and renounced their silly student ways for ever.

I am also fascinated by Eleanor Roosevelt. This is such an un-English interest that I have never been able to find a good biography of her because the Blanche Wiesen Cook one wasn't published here. I picked up a copy of Volume One when I was in New York recently, but unfortunately this doesn't cover the time she launched the WWII knitting effort in 1941 at a Knit for Defense tea at the Waldorf-Astoria. There are very few incredibly famous women who could have done this with good humour and dignity, and without being patronising or holier-than-thou. But it seems that ER was the perfect, sincere 'First Knitter of the Land'.

What strikes me forcefully when looking at photos of ER is her genuine smile. It's broad, toothy and unabashed. She's no Helen of Troy, but she could clearly generate a lot more goodwill that way than by being pinched and controlled around the mouth. This is what lights up the the portrait above and is, seemingly, what endeared her to so many.

ER had true presence and poise, but in her photos she lacks gravitas. It's the smile that gives it away. She looks like she's not afraid to display her pleasure or to laugh. Many women I know seem to think there's something uncontrolled or undignified about laughing at their age. Maybe it creases their make-up. Unencumbered as I am, I laugh a great deal and I have the lines to prove it. I feel ER is a kindred spirit; life should be full of socks and guffaws.

bag lady

I love bags because I have never completely mastered the art of travelling light. I've improved since my schooldays (vast, cavernous, canvas bag into which I could put my head and shoulders and still not find my chemistry book), my office days (plastic carrier bags declaring rebellious, anti-briefcase tendencies), my business travel days (oversize suitcase crammed with smart clothes I never wore because all you want to do in Moscow is keep warm) and my young mother days (I never found the right bag for all the stuff required for three children under three to go anywhere so had numerous bags hanging off the back of the pram which toppled frequently). I'm pleased to say that these days I'm more reticule than receptacle, but still not quite back pocket and a hanky.

So I was never going to be able to deny myself one of Alicia's wonderful little bags. This one is called Riviera and I bought it knowing that it could carry me through the English 'season' (Ascot, Henley, Wimbledon, back garden) with poise and style. After all, every girl needs a bag for her lipsticks and nail varnishes.

I've told Alicia that I've already been posing a la Grace Kelly with this bag, and may have re-pack it with everything I could possibly need for when Cary Grant comes to sweep me off my feet (ie a toothbrush, train ticket and ten pence for the phone call to say I'm never coming home).

 

But the sad truth is that I am still an unreconstructed bag lady. I don't actually wear any make-up, ever. I don't own any. (I had to raid Alice & Phoebe's collections for the fantasy photo.) In real life, I can see Alicia's bag being perfect for transporting sock knitting. It's the ideal size and shape, it looks lovely inside and out, and nobody need ever know that I'm not really Grace Kelly.

Until I get on the bus and start twiddling my dpns. (And, you never know, this could have been Grace Kelly if she hadn't become a princess.)

   

(The delightful painting is 'The Felixstowe to Ipswich Coach' by Russell Sidney Reeve c. 1939)

fairy buns

   

We don't have cupcakes here, we have fairy buns. I've loved this name since the time I was little and had to kneel on a kitchen chair to help cream the butter and sugar. I never questioned why we called these little iced sponge cakes 'fairy' buns, but I did wonder just how big the fairies were who ate them. (To be honest, I never believed in fairies, but scepticism never stopped anyone enjoying fairy culture.)

 

These days my buns are more burlesque-fairy than Tolkien-faerie. They are the buxom, brash, baking equivalent of Angela Carter's Fevvers, rather than pale, elfin, Shakespearean Peaseblossoms and Cobwebs. Maybe it's something to do with the fact that I'm tall and have large feet; not your average size fairy. And perhaps I was deprived of pink tutus and glittery fairy wings as a child.

I bought these sugar roses a while ago from the Hummingbird Bakery where they do make cupcakes. Phoebe (who has been wholly immersed in fairydom since she was tiny) chose to make a gorgeous lilac icing and gold cases to contrast with the white, pink and cerise roses. My goodness, this girl has taste. It must be a gift from the fairies.

easter folly

This is the third Easter weekend we have stayed in a folly let by the Landmark Trust. First there was a pink castle on a hill in Wales, then there was Sussex tower with its own, filled moat. This year we chose an Elizabethan six-storey tower on the banks of a Suffolk estuary.

Each floor of Freston Tower is tiny and there is an incredibly steep and narrow spiral staircase connecting all the floors. It wasn't the greatest place to be with a boy with stitches in his knee, but he coped manfully with the 88 steps, belting up and down with Alice and Phoebe and throwing Barbies with supermarket bag parachutes off the top.

The tower can look pretty Gothic in certain lights, bringing to mind trysts between Cathy and Heathcliff, or perhaps a madwoman chained to the turrets.

But in fact, it's set in classic, English woodland with pheasant and partridge all around, and it has a much more benign aspect in fairer weather. The windows have been restored to present a typically glittering Elizabethan effect when they catch the sun. (Allegedly. We just had to imagine this.)

 

In the tradition of follies, no-one is quite sure why Freston Tower was built, so there has been plenty of whimsical conjecture as to its purpose. I liked the explanation given by the Rev R Cobbold in his novel Freston Tower (1850) that it was built by a nobleman for his talented, industrious daughter and each floor was dedicated to a different occupation.

So, from 7-8 am she would use the ground floor for charitable work, then after breakfast she would work on her tapestry from 9-10. The second floor was for music from 10-noon, the third for music from 12-1, the fourth for literature from 1-2 and the fifth for astronomy in the evening.

Thus, she would have Kelly Holmes-style thighs from her daily work-outs of walking up & down the stairs, a culitvated mind and no overeating problems (unless a kindly servant brought in a few sweetmeats and a glass of mead from time to time).

I decided that if I were Lady Jane, I'd use the tower quite differently. The ground floor would be for stash storage, the first for machine embroidery, the second for quilting, the third for tea and Radio 4, the fourth for knitting, and the fifth for reading & chocolate. I achieved the last one easily as the Easter bunny made an early appearance and the Landmark Trust always provides a great selection of books.