yarnstorm

[pause]

One of the most fascinating aspects of Chekhov's plays are the pauses. I studied all his plays in Russian and every teacher I had made us stop and consider the nature of the pauses. In plays like The Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya, a short pause, a small period of quietness and non-happening, a spell of non-communication, indeed a temporary silence, are all as significant as what is said.

I am going to have a Chekhovian [pause] for a little while. I wish as many interpretations could be read into my pause as can be read into a [pause] in, say, The Cherry Orchard, but sadly that is not the case.

It's summer, I have three children off school, a pile of books to be read and a bag of fair isle knitting to be tackled. I'll be back after a [pause] of a couple of weeks.

summer reading

I love the concept of books for summer. I like the idea of reading outside your usual zone, or saving books you know you'll enjoy, or ticking off a book you've meant to read for years, or re-reading an absolute favourite. The only thing I dislike about the whole thing are the acres of guff in the newspaper supplements about what we should be reading. There is so much pleasure to be derived from putting together your own selection of summer books.

I always read a little differently in summer. I'm sure this is the legacy of having spent far too long studying literature at school and during eight years at university. Summer was a time for off reading list books, forbidden pleasures and even the occasional trashy novel. (I don't read the latter well as badly written or woodenly plotted books drive me mad and I tend to hurl them out of sight. The only exception was when someone told me I was an intellectual snob for dismissing Jeffrey Archer without having read his books. I read one and all my intellectual snobbery was confirmed.)

When I was studying Russian and French my big treat was to read something like Vanity Fair in the summer holidays; it made me feel I was an Eng Lit student manquee. When I did become an Eng Lit MA student I read Persephone books all summer long, because not only were they the perfect anitidote to Charles Dickens, they were also well written.

I've been considering this summer's reading. I'm still in a very committed Elizabeth Taylor phase. The lovely Bee, who is a wonderful email correspondent and Elizabeth Taylor devotee, has been a kind of solo reading group companion as I've been reading the novels. Bee also mentioned that her short stories were excellent, and I've since devoured three of the four ET collections. And I don't even like short stories much as a rule. Fortunately, there are still some ET novels to read this summer and I can't tell you just how wonderful a writer she is. Witty, gently subversive, realistic, beautifully observed, non-judgemental and very English.

Summer would not be summer without a good, thick, Persephone book. I re-read Dorothy Whipple novels happily and did so last summer, but this year I have the newly republished Alas, Poor Lady by Ruby Ferguson. This is my treat of the summer, and will be savoured as such.

Rafaella Barker writes evocatively about summer (Hens Dancing is my favourite) and I have her newest novel. I don't know if it's going to be a little more melancholy and less eccentric now that she's writing from a new perspective (post-divorce in real life), but normally she makes me laugh and I recognise much of my own children in the ones she invents.

Alicia (who also loves Rafaella B) writes persuasively about the books she loves. Very persuasively, indeed. So much so that I got hold of Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld which hasn't made it over here (yet) to see what made her write such fulsome praise. It's this summer's nod in the direction of better Anglo-American cultural understanding.

As is Patricia Highsmith (even though she sounds as English as they come). I heard a great Radio 4 programme which recommended her books. I've seen the film versions of The Talented Mr Ripley and Strangers on a Train (one of my favourite Hitchcock films), but want to find out what's in her prose & plots that makes the books so very filmable. Plus, I need a little malice and murder to even things out after all the other books.

What will you be reading this summer?

melting point

Even though I've been knitting with aran-weight yarn and sewing up quilt blocks, just the thought of writing a post today in this weather is too much.

So here is a Martin Parr-influenced photo-essay of the day. (For anyone who isn't familiar with Martin Parr's work, he takes amazing, hyper-real photos of the English at leisure, all in heightened, 1970s colours and feel. Take a look at the 'Flowers' & 'Think of England' sections of his portfolio.)

For the first time ever, the sempervivums look thirsty.

I took four children on a big wheel - the top was the coolest place we found all day with a gentle breeze blowing into the gondolas. We could see swans on the river next to people on lilos, and firemen putting out a dry grass fire. We had ice-creams afterwards, but couldn't eat them fast enough before they melted.

Redcurrants look wonderful in the bright light,

and it's just the weather for a red fruit salad. I love the way the light makes the fruit look unreal.

I can manage a few minutes on the machine at a time as I'm determined to get the quilt top off the floor soon...

And I feel I really ought to be reading some languid literature at the moment. I bought these Virginia Woolf novels to prick my conscience. She is on my guilt list of books I ought to have read, but never have. (I have listened to both Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse on tape, but still feel my eyes should tackle the prose.)

Finally, for a great laugh when it's cool enough to sit in front of a computer for longer than five minutes, let me point you in the direction of one of the best sites I have discovered in ages. Emma left a comment asking if I'd come across pimp that snack. It is FANTASTIC. Alice, Phoebe and I spent far too long looking at it and our favourites are the giant custard cream and the giant Oreo (see 'Projects').

But it will have to be a lot cooler before we attempt to pimp a snack. As we no doubt will some day, because Phoebe has suggested making a Billionaires' version of Millionaires' Shortbread

party rings

I am not a home-baked biscuit snob. I do love the ease with which you can open a packet of cheap biscuits, make a pretty still-life and keep the family happy.

I don't eat many biscuits, but that doesn't stop me buying them with enjoyment. It's a while since we last ate Fox's Party Rings and yet I still had a pleasant surprise when Phoebe put them out on a plate. Such lovely colours, such pretty swirls, such a pleasing arrangement.

But there are a couple of caveats. They taste like sawdust - even the icing - and are built to last in the biscuit tin. Furthermore, today we were missing the pale peachy orange variation. Do I write & complain? 'Dear Sir, I was most disappointed to discover that my latest purchase of your delicious Party Rings did not contain my favourite colourway...'. I once wrote to a yoghurt manufacturer to let them know there weren't sufficient cherries in my Black Cherry Yoghurt to justify its title. They sent me a postal order to buy more yogurts which I probably spent on Miners' lip gloss. I was fourteen at the time, and I think I may have grown out of this sort of thing.

But I did find a nice picture of a peach Party Ring on the wonderful nice cup of tea and a sit down site. This has been going for a while and there's also the book of the site which is very funny, and actually very informative about all your favourite brands of biscuits. It's also terribly British.

I do love a nice cup of tea and a sit down myself, but would rather have an Extremely Chocolately Biscuit, even if it doesn't co-ordinate so well with my yarns.

tea and oranges

When I was seventeen I spent a summer as an au pair by the beach in the South of France. I looked after two shockingly behaved children of two shockingly behaved parents. But I soaked up the sun, language, garlic and freedom, and came home almost fluent in French and about a stone heavier.

The parents were hardly ever in the house in the evenings and as I wasn't bothered about French television, I played records all night long. The parents owned a few which I grew to enjoy, and one of them was the classic Leonard Cohen album. It's a good thing it was a happy summer, as that droning could have been damaging... but I adored this terrible nasal whine, the sparse sounds, the amazing lyrics. And I played 'Suzanne' ad nauseam, often lifting the record player needle and replacing it so I could hear him sing 'tea and oranges' over and over again. I still play LC when I'm feeling happy and he transports me to a summer of topless sunbathing, Moliere, Racine and Corneille (all on the rooftop sun terrace).

So an orange tea cosy was always on the cards. I bought the Anny Blatt yarn in Paris with the project in mind. I used the same pattern I used for the Battenberg cosy (in the archives) which is in the Rowan Classic Home magazine. I thought the garter stitch resembled slightly pitted orange peel and I added Gutermann pearl beads to enhance the effect.

Then I needed leaves (which could also be tea leaves...?) and I used some old DK wool knitted double and the basic garter stitch leaf pattern in Nicky Epstein's Knitted Flowers. I didn't count how many I was making as I knitted at my Mum's house this weekend with nieces and nephews all around, so ended up with quite a generous amount of foliage. I do think these 1930s style tea cosies need to be a little less than subtle, anyway.

Of course, an orange tea cosy requires an orange cake. Nigel Slater's Marmalade Cake in his Kitchen Diaries is just right for afternoon tea, and we added a little colour to the icing so that it wasn't out-oranged by the tea cosy.

I'm off to phone Suzanne to see if she still wants to be fed tea and oranges that come all the way from China...

P.S. Before you even think about saying it, members of my lovely family have deliberately mistaken it for a pumpkin/tomato/carrot/pineapple. They don't know the words to 'Suzanne', either.

Philistines.

boys and girls come out to play

I learned to read with the infamous 'Janet and John' books. Mummy and Janet stay indoors and wash the dishes, make beds, cook the dinners. Meanwhile, Daddy and John are having a high old time outside washing cars, fishing, and doing all kinds of alpha-male activities (all the while wearing ties and hand-knitted sweaters). I remember my Mum gently pointing out the iniquities of this nuclear family idyll, and so my feminism was stoked early on by these vignettes of a clean, ordered, male/female divide.

I've never particularly wanted to get out and wash cars (or go fishing), but that's not the point; it was the assumptions and brainwashing that bothered me.

And yet, and yet. I have been watching Thomas, Alice and Phoebe at play and see that, at times, they come frighteningly close to the gender stereotypes. It's just the parents, maybe a reaction to Janet &  John, who don't conform.

Thomas decided he wanted a goaol. So he rummaged around a stack of rubbish to find suitable parts. And he has built his goal from old shelf-supports, curtain battens and bamboo canes. He carefully and neatly wove string up and down, back and forth, to create the net, and tethered the whole lot with tent pegs. He then marked out the goal area with duct tape (the tape of the season - there is always one, be it sellotape, double-sided tape, masking tape, medical support tape...).

Of course, I'm most impressed with his weaving, but I have to say the whole thing looks great. Thomas (who is now becoming 'Tom' in preparation for his senior school) stands and admires his handiwork but won't let anyone shoot a goal. I realise it's intended more as an art installation in the garden.

Meanwhile, my Janets have been busy in the kitchen. But, and this is where the stereotypes are turned on their head, Simon was on hand to help. When I came back from Whitstable (cleaning cars, fishing...) Phoebe and Alice had made this to show me.

Simon has been looking at the amazing baking tins available from various websites, and this castle is his latest purchase. Phoebe made the cake and jointly they decorated it as a princess' sea-side castle (she's in there, in the middle) with sea, sand and sugar rocks.

So what can you do? Apart, perhaps, from making Thomas read The Female Eunuch, and giving Alice and Phoebe a chamois leather?

                       ***

And just to illustrate the usefulness of duct tape, when you have been kicking a ball around near the red-hot pokers:

 

ripple effect

I know it was only a small stone dropped into a small pond, but I can't tell you how grateful I am to you all for creating a definite ripple effect. I have read every comment with interest and care, and have been bowled over by your messages of support. More importantly, however, I am immensely pleased to see that so many people share my belief in the value of sustaining our creative, energetic and positive blogging community.

the times they are a changin'

I've been writing this blog for nearly eighteen months now. And what a hunkydory time it has been.

I was contacted recently by someone who was writing an article on blogging for a stitching magazine, and I extolled the virtues of craft blogs, the wonderful circles of like-minded people they incorporate, their sense of interest, enthusiasm, creativity and, above all, support.

I feel now I may have been a little dewy-eyed. For I have noticed a change over the last month or two in the dynamics of blogging and commenting. I'm not naive, I know changes happen all the time, that adpating to the new is the only way to survive. But it saddens me to see this hint of negative change.

When I was fresh-faced blogger, I was surprised by the nature of the comments I not only read on other blogs, but also received myself. Positive, good-humoured, polite, funny, clever, reflective, encouraging, witty and generous.

But now I see, creeping into the comments sections of many fellow bloggers and my own in-box, a disturbing type of comment. Recently I've read personal, critical, unpleasant, negative, nit-picking comments and it bothers me.

When you write a blog you expose yourself, your vision, your ideas and your thoughts. Of course it's up to the individual just how much you share, but you can't write a blog without some degree of exposure. These blogs are utterly free to read, a significant bonus in an increasingly commercial world and no-one coerces anyone else into reading a blog. And yet still some readers feel they have the right to ask for more, to criticise the content, to act as a 'friend' and defend one blogger on another's blog.

When I compose a post, I do so with no particular reader in mind. It's my blog, it's my life, I write to please myself. But more and more I am aware of a growing self-consciousness about what I'm doing. I really don't care if people think I use too many e-numbers/bully my husband/have a neatness problem (that one just makes me laugh like a drain), but I really don't understand their need to say so either on my blog or on another blog.

Now I am passionate about freedom of speech, and I am concerned about how it can be used in blogs and blogging. We all know that freedom of speech can be used to create or to destroy. If misapplied, freedom of speech becomes a freedom to undermine, to critcise, to make simplistic, vacuous and judgmental comments which deaden the energy and life of creative blogs.

If used in a thoughtful, constructive, positive manner, freedom of speech on blogs can contribute enormously to, and sustain, the fluidity of creativity, the exchange of ideas, the liveliness which keeps crafty blogs alive and ever-changing.

If the support and friendship of craft blogs (I have been told that political blogs are breeding grounds for resentment and argument and I have seen that literary blogs are places to posture and pose) are eroded by readers who haven't anything better to say than negative, mean, often anonymous, email-less snipes, then the blog writers will soon start to cover up, edit, blanket their blogs with inoffensive blandness and stop showing their wonderful output and, more importantly, their wonderful selves.

I know that I am sticking my neck out by writing this post. But it's dawning on me that unless the craft-blogging community keeps its special character and tenor, it will feel like we are back in the playground, when we thought we were in a grown-up virtual bar/cafe/knitting group. And I never, ever want to go back to school.

cherry ripe

One of the pleasures of living in Germany and Belgium was the availability of great cherries. I could find all types of fresh, locally grown cherries in season, and my absolute favourites were the sour cooking varieties. Nothing is as good as a freshly baked cherry frangipane/crumble/pie made with truly acid fruit.

Here, we seem to prefer the sweet but tasteless, huge, 'black gobstopper' types (as Nigel Slater calls them), so I was excited to find a tray of tiny morello cherries in a greengrocer's in Whitstable at the weekend. It's the first time in eight years I've had fresh sour cherries to play with. (Kent was famous for its cherries until they became costly and difficult to grow - but it looks like fruit farmers are going back to the older varieties again.)

Thomas helped me pit them. The boy who uses the steam iron as a pretend weapon was happy to see bright red juice squirt everywhere until he and the kitchen looked like something out of Pulp Fiction. I must admit I like the spattered effect on the cream coloured bowl.

There wasn't much flesh left after the stones were removed, but there was enough to make a great cherry clafoutis (eggy, milky, French pudding whose blandness is offset by the tart cherries) which everyone ate warm directly from the baking dish.

As a result, the old 'Cherry Ripe' song, complete with rolled 'r's, keeps popping into my head. When I was at junior school we had old-fashioned class singing lessons and learned a huge number of dated but classic songs, folk songs and rounds. It makes me sound like some kind of throwback to a pre-war generation and I am sure I would have been quite at home as a cherry picker in 1930s Kent.

button flowers

Button Flowers

The second piece was started in the cool seaside breeze and finished today in the stifling heat of the garden. Squints are us, here.

I wanted to make a simple flower picture using buttons for flowers. Sara had very kindly sent me these excellent brass buttons with flower patterns a couple of weeks ago, and I'd been looking meaningfully at them ever since. I used some mother-of-pearl flower shaped buttons as well, and sewed running stitch stems on the silk background.

There are seed stitches in different coloured silks all over the surface, which has come out a little more bumpy than I planned. Phoebe thought the vase dull so I added a touch of spangle with rhinestones and hope these draw the eye away from the unplanned relief of the piece. As if.

It's quite large (10"x15.5"/25cmx39cm) and was lovely to stitch, but it's not my favourite thing ever.

                           ***

Poor Alice is still trailing to school while the other two flop about at home. I can't believe that she has to wear a black blazer in this heat (it's 34 C today). I have a leetle, teensy-weensy problem with the whole school uniform thing anyway and this simply confirms my belief that the English are mad in the midday sun. Children deserve to be treated with dignity and making them melt in the heat does nothing to engender good feelings towards those in authority. I bet the teachers aren't coming to school in black jackets...