yarnstorm

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.

it's official: Simon's the man for me

 

The votes have been counted and Cary is our man. (I thought we deserved a full-colour shot at this stage.) 

He polled 26 votes (including mine) to Gregory's 21. There were 8 greedy people who wanted both Cary and Gregory, and 8 who couldn't make up their mind (I know it was a tough one, but if you had them both standing there in front of you, I think you'd be pretty fast off the mark...). The voting looked like going GP's way, until Cary's admirers came in in force towards the later stages of the contest.

   

(Love this shot from Bringing Up Baby of Cary in a marabou-trimmed satin negligee, surrounded by his women voters.)

Thank you for making this such a laugh. I have to say I agree with everyone who said that GP is the one with whom you'd feel happy eating cake, knitting and dressing down. But you see, I already have my very own Gregory Peck at home and he's called Simon.

Today is our wedding anniversary. (I'm pleased my Mum phoned to wish us a happy day as we wouldn't have realised it was today.) Let me tell you about Simon:

- he has a Cary Grant-style cleft chin, so not only do I have the GP comfort zone, I have a suggestion of the CG charm as well.

- I always dreamt of marrying a fair, 6'2" rower who'd been to Cambridge. Instead I saw sense and married the 5'10" dark-haired footballer who'd been to Huddersfield Poly.

- He fell for my bottle of vodka before he fell for me, I think. (I met him the day after I'd come back from a business trip to Moscow).

- We spent that night listening to Monty Python records and laughing until 5am - much to the disgust of all the friends in the room who were trying to sleep. I'd had such serious boyfriends before Simon that it was quite unsettling to laugh so much.

- When we weren't laughing, we were eating. I put on two stone (12 kg) in the first year of knowing Simon. I'd never met anyone who liked eating as much of the same things as me.

- We bought a house together before we discussed marriage. I wasn't going to rush this, despite the unshakeable rock bun bond.

- I lost the two stone before our wedding day. Nevertheless, we have never had a wedding photo on display in the house. I can't believe it was me in that meringue. What was I thinking?

- Since then we've been through the difficulties of childlessness, IVF treatment, bereavements and many of life's up and downs.

- We've also experienced the joy of having three children, an incredibly happy marriage and a great, noisy family life.

- Simon is my best friend. I still look forward to him coming home every single day, and we still laugh and eat immoderately.

- And look what he bought us for our anniversary. After I wrote on 23 April about the Penguin Donkey I saw at the V&A Modernism exhibtion, the complete love went and tracked down the manufacturer and ordered one. It is the most wonderful piece of 1930s design and I filled it with old Penguins and Virago books immediately.

Who needs Cary Grant OR Gregory Peck?

bring in the men

   

It struck me today that we haven't had a man around the blog for quite some time. I love writing a blog read by women, but I feel I ought to restore the balance a little.

I'm in the middle of piecing my log cabin quilt and have been enjoying a Cary vs Gregory argument in my head. Last week we watched Spellbound with G Peck; I was so impressed I actually felt disloyal to Cary. And then I watched Notorious and was overcome once more with all things Cary.

So let's just weigh things up. On the one hand we have the human coat-hanger whose clothes never have unnecessary creases - only the ones his tailor intended. Who never lost his hair, or his suavity.

I mean, he even does ageing grey with aplomb. We have a unique voice and delivery, wonderful physical presence and movement, and as much style as we can handle. True, there are minor issues with the sun-tan levels (rising to mahogany on occasion) and dubious neckwear (cravats, bandanas). But there isn't much to fault in terms of the packaging.

On the other hand we have the tall, broad-shouldered, hugely masculine G Peck. A man who can make horn-rimmed spectacles sexy.

   

A man whose voice would melt a polar cap, never mind the hearts of a few million women.

A man who may be a little more sartorially crumpled than Cary, but who always seems to have as many pockets as a man needs (no, I've no idea how many that is). The only issue, apart from a little moral earnestness which never troubled Cary, is in the ear size & positioning department. And the niggling idea that he didn't age quite as well as Cary.

 

So where do we stand? Well, if I wanted someone to take me and my mink to Bermuda (like Doris Day) or for a night of cocktails and sweet nothings, it would be Cary. But I wouldn't expect him to call the next day.

And if I wanted someone to read me poetry, tell me everything is going to be alright, and see me safely home, it would be Gregory. And I wouldn't have to worry half as much about what to wear (and whether to bring my specs) on a date with him.

But when the chips are down, and I can offer only one man blogspace, then it would have to be the eternally gorgeous, witty, enigmatic Cary. What do you think? Shall we let him stay?

anti-grey measures

Slate, pewter, steel, charcoal. Call it what you will, but it's been a grey week. Overcast, gloomy, cloudy, wet, chilly and very grey. Vast, overshadowing greyness like this makes me focus gratefully on splashes of colour, literal and metaphorical, whenever I can.

This is what I do to chase away the grey.

1) Whip out my best tablecloth with bright, pretty bowls of flowers embroidered in the corners. Bring out the matching second-hand china and make afternoon tea with chewy flapjacks for wet, cold and tired children. They may not appreciate the embroidery and china, but they will be happier for the oaty calories.

2) Discover a colourful new blog and wonderful pages about the author. Kristin Nicholas left a comment about my embroidery and I hot-footed it over to her site. Kristin lives the life colourful on a broad canvas/wide screen and in technicolor (ha - how many cliches is that now?). She stitches, knits, paints, gardens, keeps chickens (not just three cross-breeds in a back garden, but a proper number of real hens) and is a one-woman industry. She's written some beautiful books - I just read Colourful Stitchery and am brimming with new ideas as a result - and now she's started a blog. I would love Kristin's work on the sunniest day, but it has been especially enjoyed this week.

3) Watch Dirty Dancing for ideas for what to do when rain cancels outdoor activities. I haven't actually done this recently (watched DD, that is) as I knitted to Hitchcock's Stage Fright which is in black & white and might, therefore, be construed as compounding the grey. But Marlene Dietrich is priceless as the scarlet woman, so this counts as metaphorical colour.

4) Make a lemon cake. Grating & squeezing lemons is the perfect antidote to gloom, and you can always picture yourself in Seville enjoying the spring sunshine which must be somewhere in the world. The recipe in Baking with Passion is a little different, quite delicious, and can be eaten by a family of five in a nanosecond.

5) Look at Summer Cooking by Elizabeth David. I bought this copy when I was 13 with money earned by working on Saturdays in the most appalling hairdresser's ever. The cover exuded simple sophistication, glamour and style and the blurb mentioned fresh herbs. Suffice to say that when I was a teenager there was something of a dearth of fresh herbs in Stockport, my siblings weren't interested in figs and goat's cheese (egg & chips were just fine) and Mrs David's instructions were brief to the point of being incomprehensible to someone who was in the throes of writing up chemistry experiments beginning 'First we lit the Bunsen burner...'. Still, I am impressed by my youthful optimism, have since found my own way of bringing sunshine foods to grey days, and am still grateful to the cover editor of this book for the early inspiration.

6) Book a one-day quilting workshop with...Kaffe Fassett and Liza Prior Lucy at the Festival of Quilts in August (I couldn't believe there were tickets still available). Now there's something which will very definitely not be grey.

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.

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.

loose ends

    

There are a few loose ends which need tying up blogwise.

In the sorry story of the non colour-fast sock yarn, there were three positives which deserve publicity.

1) I contacted Allison who owns simplysockyarn in the US. I bought the Cherry Tree Hill yarn from her, and thought she should know of the furore surrounding the socks. Her service had been exemplary and the yarns were despatched promptly and in great packaging. 

She responded to my email about the problem with understanding, great common sense and politeness. She offered to replace the yarn and pay for posting the socks to the US, but I was actually satisfied with being treated like a valuable and yarn-aware customer. So I recommend Allison's site as an excellent place to buy sock yarns.

2) I was also contacted by Gill of woollyworkshop, the main UK retailer for Cherry Tree Hill. She had got wind of the bad publicity, and even though I had not bought from her, she too wrote me a really kind and generous email offering her help. She even said she would replace the yarn, but again I was happy to leave it at that.

3) Finally, I was bowled over by the support of all the knitters and bloggers who commented and circulated the story. It's brilliant to know that there is such a level of consumer solidarity. It's ironic that the rude and arrogant customer service I experienced came hard on the heels of reading Lynne Truss' Speak to the Hand which is about the rudeness of contemporary life.

I haven't done any weekly awards for a while and feel that it was remiss of me to not make the obvious award to Heath Ledger after seeing Brokeback Mountain. As the blog will certainly look none the worse for a photo of him, I give you my Hot Pash of the Week.

And in the interests of fairness (and another fine photo of HL), here's one of him with the runner-up, Jake Gyllenhaal.