jane brocket

spring housekeeping

Nice photo of magnolia to go with a couple of bits of housekeeping, as they say at the beginning of conferences.

We've just added another quilting workshop date at Ray-Stitch: 22nd June

Quilt Me! is now available as an ebook.

As is The Gentle Art of Quiltmaking

Jacqui Small has created a very nice Cake Lover's Notebook based on Vintage Cakes (also an ebook).

Vintage Cakes has been translated into Spanish, something I am delighted about.

And my Colors book has been translated into Simplified Chinese, something that has also pleased me enormously. I gave a couple of copies to my sister who is a primary school teacher and she tells me it's been very well received in her school.

The most recent book in the Clever Concepts series is Cold, Crunchy, Colorful. I am also very pleased with the reviews of this one (on the page in the link).

So no, basically it's all good, as they say in  Twenty Twelve, and probably at all conferences as well.

good for absolutely nothing

[A Grenadier Guardsman (1917) Sir William Orpen (1878-1931) in the Imperial War Museum]

If ever an image is needed convince the viewer that war is good for absolutely nothing, this could be it. It's all in the glassy, weary, unbelieving eyes that have seen terrible things.

This portrait by William Orpen hangs in the NPG opposite a wall of military officials and generals and bigwigs who meet the eye with supreme confidence and assurance. You look from one to the other and back again, and know just how incredibly wrong the men on one wall were.

The paintings are part of a small, free exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery which is definitely worth seeing, despite the fact that  it could have been a lot bigger. As you would expect there are some very powerful images of dead, injured, maimed and dying soldiers, but it was the portraits and drawings by William Orpen that stood out for me. He also painted many of the senior military figures which is what he was sent out to do, but he soon found himself recording images of ordinary soldiers. He drew all the time and very quickly, and the drawings included here are wonderfully immediate and unguarded. There are no poses with medals and waxed moustaches and top brass uniforms here, instead Orpen captures soldiers in unguarded moments leaning against the side of a trench or waiting for medical assistance, exhausted, suffering, wrecked and shellshocked. These are the the portraits with real power.

[I recently read Wilfred and Eileen which is also guranteed to make you question the point of war. This is a fictionalised account of a true story and it's extremely good. Although it's about a man who goes to war, it's Eileen who is the unexpected heroine, and it now makes me wonder why the NPG didn't include more portraits of women in the exhibition - just this morning I've been recommending Testament of Youth to Phoebe. An opportunity missed.] 

 

too tidy

My study badly needed repainting but I put it off for ages because the idea of dismantling the room I'd been working in for sixteen years was just too much. Finally, however, it had to be done. I knew everything would have to be taken out because a new carpet was needed as I'd worn it out completely in some places (didn't realise a chair on wheels could do that, or maybe it was just my big feet) and I just assumed it would all go back in. Then, the night before the decorating was due to start and with books everywhere, I suddenly decided to change the whole lot by removing the built-in desk and putting in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase instead of the drapers' drawers (now with my sewing machine in Alice's room) thus solving part, if not all, of the ongoing book storage problem.

It was a revelation which now feels like a fresh start. I've been ruthless with what's allowed to come back into my study, and have had to rearrange practically every single bookshelf in the house in order to deal with the knock-on effects of changing the selection in here. I've brought in all the books that relate to the projects I'm working on as well as those that are relevant to what I want to do next (to keep me focussed and inspired), and the rest have been dispersed.

After much sorting, yesterday I finally had very tidy bookshelves, a very tidy desk, a very tidy floor, in a very tidy room painted a lovely rich shade of coral. It was lovely, until I sat down to work and felt very odd. It was as though something was missing behind me and to the sides and then it dawned on me that it was simply too tidy. It turns out I don't feel comfortable or at ease in a super-tidy room, even if it's my own. 

So out came all the postcards I've collected on my Grand Provincial Tour visits. Out came the Blu-Tak, and up went arrangements of all the favourite or interesting paintings I've seen so that I can see them all around me. In came flowers, books stacked one on top of each other, and a devil-may-care attitude to my desk surface.

I feel much better now, more at home, more at ease. I remember enjoying A Perfect Mess when it first came out, and never has its message felt more true. A tidy desk or room doesn't automatically mean a tidy mind, as they say: in my case it can also mean a so-tidy-it's-empty mind.

ups and downs and ups

Alice had a very miserable time when she first went to university. It turned out to be all wrong and when I discovered that no-one had noticed her absence after two weeks of non-attendance (we'd brought her home), I knew it was the right decision for her to leave. It was a difficult one for her to make - all the expectation and the constant tecaher-talk of university being the ultimate goal if you are doing A levels can build up to an alarming degree. So when it doesn't work out, it can be hard to let go.

But she did. She came home and got a great job that was not your average gap year job and proved herself to be eminently employable and with a great range of natural skills. So much so, the thought of university the second time around almost lost its appeal (we'd said it was worth reapplying as soon as she came home so that she had the option no matter what). But almost at the last moment she decided she'd try again, and off she went with a couple of bags and not a great deal of faith, yet by the time we got back from dropping her off in her hall of residence an hour or so later, we all knew everything was going to be fine this time.

She's now coming to the end of her second year and she couldn't have found a better place. Choosing the right university is a bit of luck mixed with a leap in the dark and a couple of visits, but even so you have no idea what it will really be like until you get there. I was pretty sure this one was going to suit Alice far more than the first: it's small, friendly, unpretentious, creative, very expressive, and has a fantastically interesting and diverse group of students. Happily, the hunch turned out to be correct. Alice loves it there, and enjoys her course, the people, the location, and sharing a house with friends. She's open-minded, tolerant, funny, caring and sociable, and fits right in at this very accepting and unprejudiced place.

I say all this because we went to see her yesterday and to take her and Tom (who is at university not so far away) out for lunch. We were on her patch, her territory, visiting her world and hearing about her experiences, and it was great to see how much at home she is there. I took a big pile of old, super-bright crochet blankets so that she could brighten up the shared living room, because crochet does that.

I've recently brought out this large chevron blanket I made for The Gentle Art of Knitting and am reminded of how brilliantly colours can work in crochet. It's not the 70s bright stuff that I gave Alice, but it's a lovely mix of heathers and tweeds and soft and natural colours that looks particularly nice around me when I'm reading Jude the Obscure and feeling relieved that in the end Alice didn't have as bad a time as he does when it comes to university.

high-coloured hyacinths

The hyacinths I've grown in the garden are way ahead of the tulips. Last year I could make mixed bunches of daffodils, hyacinths and tulips, but that won't be happening this year. Many of the daffodils are peaking now and the hyacinths which normally overlap to a certain extent with the tulips will be over well before the latter come into flower.

I planted a few bags of different varieties based on what I hoped would be really good, pure, interesting colours. I have grown some lovely white hyacinths (see Facebook) because they are perennially lovely, but these here are the hyacinths I was looking forward to seeing. And I'm happy with the mix of amethyst, indigo, lilac, magenta, mauve and violet which are all exciting colours and stand out brilliantly in the garden or on a windowsill. They look even better together in one vase - they create a deep and vivid spot in what is otherwise a white, yellow and green time of year.

The bulbs are, as ever, from Peter Nyssen.

garden party quilt

It's quite a while now since I wrote the post about cutting up old, hand-embroidered tablecloths, the one that caused a certain amount of adverse comment. I looked for the post but couldn't find it which make me think I must have decided I couldn't countenance any further negativity about what seems to me to be a non-starter in the outrage stakes.

Anyway, while sorting out almost every room in the house in the past week or so - you know what it's like, you start off trying to make space for a few more books and suddenly the whole place ends up rearranged in knock-on Rubik's Cube-style solution - I unpacked some large boxes of projects I've made for various books. Out came the crochet and out came the cushions to be put to good use, and out came lots of quilts that I haven't seen for a while.  

One them is the Garden Party Quilt. This is what happened to the squares of embroidered cotton I cut out of tablecloths and tray cloths and tea cosy covers. I kept to one size of square, chose all the best bits and my favourite details (a Welsh lady, some crinoline ladies, a Scottie dog, lots of herbaceous borders and richly coloured flowers) and put them all together to make a big garden party.

I used some of the leftover unstitched areas of the clotsh to make a border and put some little stitched squares in the corners. The back was made with three different quilting cottons which are all pretty, flowery, and sweet, and binding used a simple dotty pink fabric.

As there is so much stitching on the top of the quilt I decided against hand-quilting, and I tied it together instead with a pale off-white embroidery thread.

It's been so nice looking at this quilt again and remembering how much I enjoyed putting it together and how I had many favourite areas of stitching and how they still appeal. The quilt and the instructions for making it went into The Gentle Art of Stitching, but now it is out of the box and the garden party can be enjoyed in the full light of day.

side orders

Although I do main dishes of domesticity and colour and family and culture and craft here, I also like quite a few side orders which I rarely touch on in writing.

There have been lots of side orders of politics and current affairs and discussions on all sorts of non-domestic subjects recently.  This is in reaction to what's going on in this country and the world at the moment, what Tom and Alice are doing now and how they are engaging with the world, and Phoebe's articulation of feminism from a teenager's point of view. It's nothing new; I was a noisy, questioning, rebellious teenager and sometimes I'm not so sure I've mellowed much.

And nor do I think I want to. I can't imagine what it would be like to not want to talk about issues that matter to me just as much as the lovely things I write about here. That's why I admire people like Tony Benn who carried on caring and talking and campaigning until the end of his long life. (He was also a legendary tea drinker - I once saw him at Bristol Temple Meads station appropriately enough in a queue for a cup of tea.) It's also why I am so enjoying Wilfred and Eileen (1976) by Jonathan Smith (one of the Spring titles from Persephone Books - the Wilfred of the title was Wilfred Willett, an inspirational figure who joined the Communist party after WWI and wrote very successfully on nature and ornithology).

One day I might write about how and why I became so passionate about women's rights, freedom of speech, funding for the arts, why I am always so ready to dicuss education, the monarchy, religion, assisted suicide, plastic surgery, and so much more. But that side of my life is probably best kept for another time, a different blog, or a book - or simply the kitchen table, which is where it can be found most days.

[Photos taken at Reg the Veg last week while I unexpectedly had a couple of hours to kill in Bristol. The lemons and garlic I brought home are fantastic.]

sunday morning

Big cherry lollipop magnolia blooms. It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-the-magnolias spring, so I'm very glad I didn't blink. 

[theme tune for this post]

the journey begins here

I went to Manchester. So much going on.

Orlando at the still-wonderful theatre inside the enormous former exchange (with the prices of cotton etc still on the board and as they were when trading ceased). A beautiful and clever piece of theatre, although it lacked some of the deeper resonances of Woolf's novel.

The Grand Budapest Hotel which is much deeper and darker than much of the pink and purple and red confection that has been written about. It's brilliant and inventive in a maverick genius way and definitely requires another viewing with a pause button to take in all the details. It's very funny in places and Ralph Fiennes is a revelation.

A detour to Victoria Station (always my favourite in Manchester) to see this old tiled map of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway that fills a whole wall and covers the area from Hull to Liverpool. I used to come here when we dropped off my cousin who lived on the other side of the Pennines; the map and the destination names in stained-glass outside on the glass and iron canopy (which have been removed - for repair, I hope, and not permanently) always seemed incredibly romantic and exciting. Just imagine, I could get on a train in Manchester and go to Cork or Bury or Douglas or Preston or Accrington!

Or I could go east to Bremen or Leeds or the Baltic Ports or Goole or Amsterdam! 

No wonder I love train travel, stations, and maps. It all started here.

springing up

Daffodils (c1935) William Logsdail (1859-1944) in The Collection, Lincoln

Suddenly there are daffodils popping up and opening up everywhere. On roundabouts, by rivers, on verges, in gardens, by bus stops, outside schools, in window boxes and in overlooked patches of grass. How glad I am to see them, even though it does feel a litle early. They seem to be brighter, more vivid and somehow more yellow this year, but maybe that's the effect they have every spring. 

I've grown to like daffodils more as I get older. I can't believe you can get a decent size bunch for a £1 which means that you can get a real explosion of daffodils on your windowsill for £3 or £4, which seems to me to be extremely good value cheerfulness, especially when you come down in the morning to make a cup of tea and they are already exuding good humour.

 

Wild Daffodils (1968) Pamela Hardy (b 1942), in the Towner

I think I used to find daffodils simply too ordinary and predictable. But now that I have less tolerance for diva behaviour with flowers (and other things), I prize them for their simplicity, cheapness, and reliablity. They also last for a good week on the windowsill, while the daffodils outside stay a while and nod away happily for days.

Easter Monday (c1950) Winifred Nicholson (1893-19810), in Tullie House

Although they must be a popular subject, it would seem that it's not easy to paint daffodils without slipping into cliché and Easter Bunny territory. These are my favourite daffodil paintings. I like the elegance and varying heights in the William Logsdail picture, the way that daffodils work in a simple domestic interior so well in the Pamela Hardy painting, and having seen the Winifred Nicholson I can vouch for the fact that this is the purest, most intense evocation of spring and daffodils you could ever hope to see.