yarnstorm

settling down

Life is settling down again. October was an unsettled month; the publication of a book can do that to your life, I suppose. It was exciting, distracting and thought-provoking but I'm glad I can feel some familiar rhythms and patterns coming back. And, nothing daunted, I am getting on with writing the next book.

I'm picking up some threads, too. The crochet flowers are blooming at a modest rate, and I only have to tip all the squares out of my bag to brighten my day and mood. It works with the yarn, too, and I love to see all the bright colours strewn around on the carpet.

The Kim Hargreaves scarf is progressing and the simple lace pattern is very compatible with listening to the radio or watching black-and-white films - most recently Waterloo Road (1944) with Stewart Granger as a London bounder (complete with drama school-style Cockney accent). I had to drop my knitting a few times to concentrate on the amazing period scenes of a sooty, grimy, war-time Waterloo Station - quite a contrast to the gleaming St Pancras International which I visited this week - so beautifully renovated and restored, with a glass roof like an ice sculpture.

It's also good to be reading again. Ted Hughes' letters. Dickens' Hard Times. Dorothy Whipple's short stories. The two lovely Susan Cropper books on crochet and on knitting which sidetrack me into planning all kinds of projects (where, oh where, can I find wide lucite/plastic/polyester bag handles?).

And I know life is more settled because I'm watching the hyacinths grow on the kitchen windowsill.

light relief

I am enjoying a little light relief after the last two days, and it's a joy to be at home, ignoring the amazing amount of scattered objects which refuse to jump back to their rightful places when I ask them in my best Mary Poppins voice.

Yesterday, I did three regional BBC interviews, the highlight of which was talking to the very warm, astute and professional Charlie Crocker who, to her great credit, had actually read my book. The lowlight was being asked on a very different station what my husband thought about it all, and having to listen while the interviewer and a journalist from an eminent Sunday newspaper discussed whether my chosen way of life was 'legitimate'. For a moment I thought they were going to suggest making the gentle arts illegal... I have one more interview to go - with the formidably articulate and intelligent Vanessa Feltz on Saturday.

So I am enjoying the respite. It's been so busy that I completely forgot to plant our daffodil bulbs in September, but I'm not too, too late, and I was relieved to see that they haven't actaully started sprouting yet. When I got the bags out of the boxes today, I was reminded of the lovely, unassuming names that daffs and narcissi have, such as Cheerfulness, Ice Follies, Lemon Drops, Silver Chimes and Tete-a-Tete. Nothing stagey, nothing dramatic, just quietly reliable.

When I was outside, I noticed that the virginia creeper is looking startlingly colourful and I also discovered a few little red chillis on the plants I'd abandoned to the slugs and elements when I realised what a pathetic summer we were going to have. I did a double-take when I saw these tiny scarlet chillis, as I was quite certain I'd killed them off.   

 

A Hitchcock film might not be everybody's idea of light relief, but Rebecca (1940) turned out to be just the distraction I needed last night. I'd never noticed before just how beautiful Joan Fontaine is and, not only did I find myself admiring Laurence Olivier (I find him just too much usually) I also registered the masterly effects with shadows for the first time. As ever, the highlights were Laurence Olivier's bad-tempered marriage proposal ('I'm asking you to merry me, you little fool!') and the quite brilliant George Sanders who plays the cad to perfection.

George Sanders also wrote one of the most famous suicide notes ever. It had a profound affect on me when I first read it in the newspaper account of his death. I was 13, and I was stunned by both his cynicism and his honesty. Funnily enough, I've never met anyone else who has memorised this note. But, goodness me, I love watching him in films and I adore his voice. Ironically, he always provides light relief.

secondary considerations

I'm now into the second week of writing my second book. I think I'm finding a new routine, but this book is different to the first and thus requires a slightly different approach. With the result that all other meaningful thought processes have had to go out of the window for the time being.

And this is why I forgot to say that the scarf - perfect for an automaton's brain - is indeed  My So Called Scarf. I'm knitting it on 7mm needles (one bamboo, one plastic because I have no idea where their partners are - maybe supporting a dahlia somewhere or skewering a child's paper sculpture - who knows?). I have 40, not 30 stitches, because I like wider scarfs because I get very, very cold in winter, and I am just going to knit until it's long enough to wrap round my neck and keep my front warm.

It's also why I forgot to say that I'm afraid I won't be giving out the recipes for the wonderful gingerbread I made recently or for yesterday's marmalade buns, even though some of you asked very, very nicely. I have my reasons.

It's also why a bottle of champagne and watching Singin' in the Rain were the height of Simon's birthday celebrations yesterday. He is very forgiving and enjoyed the brilliance of the film far more than I'd expected. I now realise that was probably something to do with the champagne.

And in the midst of all these secondary considerations, there are some lovely pieces of publicity coming up for my first book. I promise I won't forget to tell you about them when I can.

rainy day films

 

Just because I haven't written about films for a while doesn't mean I haven't been maintaining my viewing standards. I'm finding that I dislike television more and more - I really don't understand why we, as viewers, often let ourselves be spoken to as if we were morons. So films are a wonderful alternative to screen-dross; I like the fact that the good ones are complete narratives, brilliant period pieces or thought-provoking commentaries.

 

The weather has meant more time inside recently, and my film count is correspondingly high. Our 'wet season' began with one of Phoebe's favourites - Easter Parade - with the ever-quivering Judy Garland, a dog named 'Short Hemline' (to go with Ann Miller's outfit), and some delightful millinery. Then we watched Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette which we agreed was very prettily pink and pale blue to look at, but we couldn't fail to notice that they'd blown the budget on frocks, cakes and shoes and left nothing in the piggy-bank for the script.

   

As a contrast to this insubstantial, whipped cream affair we then watched Volver which is all black humour and rich, Spanish hues. We loved this community of strong, supportive women and thought Penelope Cruz was great, but we weren't quite ready for the end when it came - it felt as though it just trailed off. But at least everyone ate proper, home-cooked food in this one, and not just pastel macaroons.

 

I couldn't resist revisiting North by Northwest one quiet afternoon last week (research purposes, of course) and this time I watched for colour. I'd noticed the grey/silver/neutral theme but was amazed to see just how cleverly and deliberately red is used - like spot-colour and often to signal danger or passion. Then there are the scenes with teal touches (dresses, accessories, taxi upholstery) and some glorious peachy pinks ones (with Eva Marie Saint, and not a little allusion to passion and flesh).

But my absolute top recommendation for a rainy day film is the very apt Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, 1964) with a captivating young Catherine Deneuve. Alicia recommended it and I found it easily on Amazon, because it turns out it's quite a cult film.

I always think of 'cult films' as being a) incomprehensible or b) spectacularly violent or c) spectacularly gross or d) spectacularly long or e) spectacularly silly (or maybe even all five), but this is none of these, so maybe I need to review the way I categorise films. I certainly had to adjust my mindset when I first started watching this because every line of the dialogue is sung, and yet it is not a musical. Initially I thought this may be an affectation too far, but then it began to grow on me and I stopped noticing the fact that oily garage mechanics were singing about where they were going that night, and that left me free to concentrate on the colours.

 

For the Umbrellas of Cherbourg is all about colour. In fact, you can't fail to notice the sub-title 'en couleur et en chante' (the chante should have an accent on the 'e' but my keyboard is far too English for such niceties) - in colour and sung. But 'en chante' can also suggest 'enchanted' and that is exactly what this film is. There is magic and a touch of the fairy tale in the rainy town of Cherbourg where Genevieve (accent missing again) works in her mother's umbrella shop and falls in love with a gorgeous Guy.

 

The colours are fantastic (apparently Jacques Demy, the director, arranged for the buildings on several streets to be painted in the bright colours you see in the film) and they form part of the story. They are not simply backdrops, but a visualisation of the characters' emotions. It's all sweet pinks and yellows at the beginning, and then it moves into bright greens, hot pinks and oranges before the spectrum alters several times as the story delevop (I'm not saying what the palettes are as that may give away the story.) And never before have I seen such stunning wallpapers in a film. They deserve their own Oscar.

It's completely delightful and enchanting, and the pale aqua and beige parting scene at the railway station nearly broke my heart. It also reminds me I must remember to buy an umbrella, as I look like a drowned rat every time I leave the house. All the more reason to stay indoors and watch rainy day films.

barefoot in the garden

I do like the day I can paint my toe-nails for the the first time in the year and find a tulip to match the colour (the bright satin-pink 'Mariette'). This little piece of garden folly made me think about the film Barefoot in the Park (1967) which I haven't seen for ages but which sticks in my mind for two things; Jane Fonda going barefoot in New York and the jaw-dropping gorgeousness of Robert Redford. And this is from a woman who still maintains that the wrong man (Robert Redford) got the girl in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). It should have been Paul Newman, with his startlingly blue eyes and bicycle tricks. Don't you think?

                      ***

Each morning I go to the tulip patch and pick bunches for photography and display. The kitchen windowsill is beginning to resemble a seventeenth-century Dutch still-life, the kind that teems and overflows with feathered, stripy, brilliant tulips. This is what the bulb patch looked like when Simon was planting it last December:

and this is how it looks now. And that's after I've been through with the secateurs.

And this gives an idea of the scale of the planting task:

Simon may not have piercing blue eyes, but he's nifty on a bike, and the best bulb-planter I know.

all work and no play...

 

...could make me a very dull girl. But when this work involves research on my favourite Doris Day films, then it probably qualifies as play. Oh, the pressure of re-watching the colour co-ordinated picnic scene in 'The Pajama Game', the fab gingerbread icing scene in 'Young at Heart' and the whole of 'Pillow Talk'. I'm not sure I can take it. The biggest problem will be trying to tear myself away from the settee, the crochet and the films to get back to the computer screen. But I'll do it for you.

Yesterday's photo-shoot was great fun; I haven't worked with other people for a long time, but the whole day seemed like an extended play-time. This was the first of two shoots and the photographer, who is indeed not only a wonderful photographer, but also a lovely person, will come back in May to take a few more shots of us and the house and the things I can't manage with my little camera. They will complement my photos, the ones you so kindly said you wanted to see in the book, and which will most definitely be in there.

And now I'm off to do some deeply meaningful Rock and Doris analysis. It's like trying to see the serious side of a rose-topped pink bun and a ball of fluffy angora yarn. Sheer hard work, believe me. 

 

the dark side

There's a nice little fusion going on with my favourite pastimes at the moment but I seem to have gone over to the dark side.

My sock yarn has a touch of gothic about it. Not usually my style, but I love the way the midnight-dark background is shot through with flashes of lime and cerise, lilac and teal. It's a 100% wool yarn from Fleece Artist and is really satisfying to knit with. But I have to confess it's a little tricky to see the cable stitches when I'm knitting in the evenings. And matters weren't helped last night by this bottle.

I'm not normally flighty when buying wine and I'm not easily seduced by a clever name on a label. But how could I resist this cult wine from South Africa? It's a blend of many different varieties and has a deep, dark ruby colour and a wonderfully spicy nose. There is an unmistakable touch of chocolate there (but this happens quite frequently with good Rhone-style reds) and I have to say that it gave me the same initial thwack around the temple that good, bitter chocolate does.

Of course, this wine called for a little simultaneous chocolate tasting and Green & Black's came up with the goods. And then, to complete our fusion evening, we watched a black-and-white film. Not any old black-and-white film, though. Oh no, this was Brief Encounter with its dark, smoky, train station scenes and the vintage clipped accents of Celia and Trevor. My favourite film of all time - because of everything that is not said. Unutterably poignant and teary, but I bucked up after another square of chocolate, another round of misplaced cabling, and another slurp of wine.

Welcome to the good side of the dark side.

terribly, terribly english

      

Train Landscape (1939) Eric Ravilious

Thinking about the pale, grey, watery light at this time of year usually makes me long for heat and sun and warmth. And yet. I'm beginning to think there's something in the washed-out tones of England when the leaves have fallen and the days are short.

The Westbury Horse (1939) Eric Ravilious

I thoroughly enjoy writing a blog which is read all over the world. The international aspect of blogging about crafts and domestic life cuts through barriers and universalises and enriches our experiences. But there are times when I feel terribly, terribly English, and just this week I've been immersed in Englishness in films and paintings.

 

Wiltshire Landscape Eric Ravilious

I still retain my northern vowels, but I do like a bit of cut-glass poshness in a film. I could listen to the plummy drawl of George Sanders all day and loved his suave English gentleman in Voyage to Italy, a strange film in which GS's Englishness is transported to Italy and comes under threat as everyone gabbles madly in Italian while he smokes and smiles sardonically, before uttering some withering line to perfection.

Then there's the clipped accent of David Niven in the wonderful A Matter of Life and Death (1946). I loved the image of the English airmen in heaven - all frightfully jolly and uncomplaining, and nary a consonant out of place.

Yesterday I went to a screening of They Knew Mr Knight (1946) organised by Persephone and it proved to be the epitome of 1940s English cinema. It is an adaptation of the brilliant Dorothy Whipple novel of the same name. It featured a family with immaculate BBC accents - living in Nottingham, when everyone knows that the earthy, flat-vowelled DH Lawrence heroes comes from there. But their Received Pronunciation was audibly untouched by Northernness even as their lives unravelled. Great film, though.

This year my Englishness is even extending to an appreciation of the landscape. Usually, I stay indoors and distract myself with bright yarns and fabrics. But I've been thinking about some of the English artists I like such as Stanley Spencer, Evelyn Dunbar and Eric Ravilious, and realising that, in fact, I love the organic, weathered, often neutral colours in their paintings.

Baker's Shop from High Street (1938), illustration by Eric Ravilious

It is now that Eric Ravilious' vision comes into its own. His delicate watercolours of the denuded landscapes of Wiltshire and Sussex. The fabulously evocative high-street shops in winter. The bleak war-time naval paintings in which everything is grey and dark.

 

Design for Child's Handkerchief by Eric Ravilious

But Ravilious also painted quite cheery interiors and had an endearing sense of humour in his designs for textiles and pottery.

 

I have this Wedgwood mug which is a recent reproduction of his alphabet design. (Please note that this Englishman chose a quince for the letter Q - clearly a man after my own heart.) The detail I love most, though, is near the top of the inside. It's a yacht for Y which floats on the tea when the mug is filled.

And today I've been to my usual quilting shop to discover that I am known as their 'Wednesday lady'. Yes, we are so English that, even after several years, we are not on first name terms. Which amuses me, in an English way.

You have to take your English pleasures where you can find them at this time of year.

pure style

I have just read this book. Well, when I say read, I mean I have skimmed the words and lingered over the photos. I would never have guessed you could enjoy looking at pictures of a fully-clad man so much. To be honest, this is sartorial porn.

The commentary is really quite awful (wouldn't it have been good if a book about style could have been written stylishly?), but the author does go into minute and revealing detail about Cary Grant's clothes. I love the story about CG ordering shirts from a tailor in Japan; if they weren't just right, he'd send them back 10,000 miles to have the collar tips extended by one eighth of an inch, or something similarly obessive.

The book is packed with fabulous photos of CG in films, on location, at leisure. It dawned on me that the majority, and the best, are in black and white. It makes you wonder if CG dressed deliberately to look great in monochrome. He is nearly always wearing a black or grey suit or a white tuxedo with a startlingly white shirt and neutral tie. All of which go perfectly with his black hair when young, and his grey hair when older. (The mahogany tan was perhaps necessary in order  to define his face; if it was pale you probably wouldn't see it...)

It can be no coincidence that the two other books I have about CG have black & white covers. This man's look is pared down to the absolute basics; no frills, no fuss, best fabrics, top quality design. He's so beautifully and cleanly delineated, he's almost a cut-out. But not quite. There's the man inside whom we can't see fully, and this cleverly hidden self is the most tantalising thing in the whole book.

good friday

What makes a good Friday?

Phoebe

 

Phoebe herself, with her kissable cheeks and dancing feet, is enough to make anyone's Friday. But her new red polka dot top makes her even more delectable. She tells me spots are 'in' this season, and I bought this on the condition that she wears it tonight at the end-of-term school disco. It was a deal.

Can you tell that this child has watched America's Next Top Model until I could stand Tyra no more?

warmth

7 am and it's warm enough to collect the newspaper in Birkenstocks, and contemplate the patterns in the path. I know you've probably had toe overload, but this is my third & final nail varnish colour for the summer. And it's a cracker. It's a pearly, brilliant red by Revlon. Someone had a great time naming it 'Frankly Scarlet', as in, 'I don't give a damn'.

white hollyhock

The hollyhock has had a growth spurt. It's giving Jack's beanstalk a run for its money. I was amazed to see it has crinkly white flowers with fabulous lime-green centres. I was convinced it was going to be pink. Just like a child, it hasn't turned out as you expected.

'holiday'

 

Someone (I'm really sorry, the name has slipped my mind) mentioned that you can watch Katharine Hepburn knitting in Holiday. This is worth the price of a cheap, Amazon DVD alone, but when you throw in Cary Grant doing backflips (and a circus trick with KH), it starts to look like remarkable value.

It's an intriguing film - often played for laughs but with with a very serious, progressive message about independence and personal freedom. Excellent for a Friday.

And KH really can knit.

bulb catalogue

 

Now I can plan the tulip beds of my dreams. I love it when the catalogue (from Peter Nyssen of Manchester) arrives in high summer and I can spend many a happy hour drinking tea and making lists. Simon is not so thrilled.

parallel lines

This Friday it's not the Blondie 'Parallel Lines', or Ian Marchant's excellent book of the same title. It's the marvellously soothing parallel lines of knit 2, purl 2 rib in Jaeger Merino Aran. I'm ashamed to admit that I've started another slipover from the Rowan Weekend book and this time I decided to do a Sarah Dallas and use a contrasting colour for the cast-on/cast-off rows. I'm using a pure wool in charcoal grey instead of the Rowan Cashmerino Aran.

white chocolate chip cookies

For Norma who says I torture her with photos of my baking.

Chosen by Phoebe who has her friend staying over for the disco tonight.

Wishing you all a very good Friday.