stuff and nonsense

amo amas amat

2012-01-26T18:24:00.004Z

Amo amas amat,
A minibus,
A marmaladey cat.

Forgive the gratuitous regression to John Lennon quotes* and schoolgirl Latin, but I've been making marmalade this week.

We get through quite a lot of marmalade over the course of the year, so last Saturday I went and filled my shopping bag with 13lbs of seville oranges.

I made the first batch that afternoon.

hoodie

2012-01-19T20:17:00.005Z

My latest finished project. A hooded cardigan for myself. The pattern is the ubiquitous Central Park Hoodie, which I already made a couple of years ago for Hannah. It's always such a relief when a garment I've spent time on actually fits and does the job I wanted it to do!
The yarn was a total bargain - bought in the Hospice Charity shop for £4.50! I think it was pretty cheap even before it was given to charity and is 100% acrylic, but was actually quite pleasant to knit with - didn't have that static crackle that you sometimes get with synthetic yarn.

Anyway, I'm pleased to have a useful garment that will go with a lot of my other clothes. (The colour in the first and last photos are more accurate).

Unmatched buttons from my mother's button box.

the rise (and fall) of the sourdough loaf

2012-01-13T16:39:00.006Z

As my first “try something new” of 2012 I decided to have a go at making sourdough bread. (And in fact, to make more bread generally). This involves creating a sourdough starter from flour, water and the airborne yeasts that exist in the environment. My bread baking book had a recipe, so off I went.

100g bread flour and 115g tepid water mixed to a paste and left in a covered bowl on the kitchen worktop for 2 – 4 days

After this time it should look bubbly and smell pleasantly yeasty, and it needs to be fed. Add another 100g flour and enough tepid water to make a paste-like dough. Cover and leave for 24 hours.
By now it should be pretty active. Stir, then discard half the mixture and feed as before. Cover and leave for 12 hours, by which time it should be just about ready to use.

Increase the volume by adding another 100g flour and tepid water and leave for 6 – 8 hours. Measure what is needed for your recipe and put the rest in a closed container in the fridge.

So far, so sourdough.
I was a bit surprised after five days of so much bubbling and dividing and adding and stirring and leaving under a damp cloth that the recipe for California Sourdough bread still specified the addition of yeast as well as the sourdough starter, but I did it anyway and was very pleased with the results.

Next I wanted to make a loaf that just used the sourdough starter and no additional yeast. The recipe I chose was for a delicious-looking olive and thyme loaf. I measured the starter, added flour and water, kneaded and left it to prove. Well I waited and waited and really nothing happened. I’ve tried it twice now and the second time I actually left it for more than 24 hours, but the starter just wasn’t active enough to raise the dough.

I was disappointed, but used the starter to do another batch of California sourdough using a wholemeal/white flour mix. Again, the result was very pleasing.

I’m continuing to work with the sourdough starter, feeding and resting, but still haven’t produced anything that looks lively enough to work on its own. It’s beginning to feel a bit wasteful as I add and discard, but I’m going to give it another week or two. Of course I’ve had a look on the internet for other methods of creating a sourdough starter, but ended up feeling confused and distressed because there are so many different approaches. It could be that the ambient temperature of our kitchen in January is just a bit low (though all the artisan bakers extol the slow, cool rise rather than the accelerated approach). For now I’m just going with these wise words from the poet David Whyte: Start close in, don't take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don't want to take. (With thanks to Gail Adams)

den building

2012-01-05T09:51:00.002Z

Isn't it amazing how a few cushions, some chairs and a couple of quilts can keep A Retired Person happy for hours!

made in 2011/plans for 2012

2012-01-02T18:01:00.009Z

I started a post yesterday to record all the things I had made in 2011. Unfortunately I bored myself to tears trying to record it all and find the appropriate photos. I will therefore restrict myself to showing a couple of photographs of things I made for others that didn’t get blogged at the time.

A wrap/shrug for one little grand-daughter

and a little cardigan for the newest family member . The pattern for this one kept me on my toes as it is made cross-wise from wrist to wrist and uses provisional cast-ons and lots of stitches held on spare needles. (That link is to a pattern on Ravelry. I'm not sure if it will work if you're not signed up).

Inspired by a pattern idea on the Purl Bee website I made a swaddling blanket for the same baby.

Now, I'm concentrating on projects for 2012. First I simply must finish the cabled cardigan I used to illustrate my last post of November. The process, though enjoyable, is no longer enough; I want to be able to wear it. Equally I want to be able to wear a colour-work hat that I already have yarn and pattern for, so that's next on the needles.

And I have a sewing project that I want to make progress on. It was inspired by paisley quilts that I saw at the Quilt Museum in Lampeter and is going to make use of a Liberty print shawl that I gave to my mother as a Christmas present at the end of the eighties.

books in 2011

2011-12-30T13:29:00.009Z

My reading rate seems to have gone down in 2011. Unless, of course, I have forgotten to record some of the books as I finish them (always a possibility!).

Steve put up extra shelves this year to accommodate the collection. His own reading has added quite a bit to the bulk. We have both appreciated books as gifts, have bought quite a few second-hand and also from the rather wonderful "Last Bookshop" where everything costs £2. I have also bought full price books from bricks and mortar bookshops, notably Foyles, Blackwells and Waterstones.

I really don't want bookshops to vanish from the High Street and I won't be abandoning proper paper books, but I have also succumbed to the charm and convenience of the Kindle. It was my Christmas gift from Steve and I have read one e-book so far. I'm looking forward to the possibility of travelling with ten books in my bag, but just one rather snazzy piece of kit, resplendent in its own personalised Classic Penguin cover (designed and given to me by daughter no. 2) Here's this year's list with special favourites highlighted:

Sebastian Faulks, A Week in December
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Beginning of Spring
Helen Fielding, Cause Celeb
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Book Shop
Jonathan Coe, What a Carve Up
Karin Fossum, The Water's Edge
Henning Mankell, Italian Shoes
Helen Warner, RSVP
Penelope Fitzgerald, At Freddie's
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
Sophie Hannah, A Room Swept White
Bella Pollen, The Summer of the Bear
Mary Kay Zuravleff, The Bowl is Already Broken
Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Salley Vickers, Where Three Roads Meet
Steven Benatar, Wish Her Safe at Home
Andrew Motion, In the Blood
David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Graham Swift, Out of this World
Victoria Hislop, The Island
Chitra Divakaruni, Sister of my Heart
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts
Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Linda Grant, Remind me who I am again.
John Banville, The Sea
Tracy Chevalier, The Lady and the Unicorn
Maggi Dawn, Accidental Pilgrim
Nigel Slater, Toast
Kate Atkinson, Started early, took my dog
David Nicholls, One Day
Colette Rossant, Return to Paris
David Mitchell, Black Swan Green
Peter Carey, Parrott and Olivier in America
Paul Auster, Sunset Park
Helen Dunmore, The Betrayal
Anna Ralph, The Floating Island
P D James, Time to Be in Earnest
Jason Goodwin, The Bellini Card
Nicola Upson, Two for Joy

an everyday miracle

2011-12-21T11:25:00.002Z

I very much enjoyed spending some time cuddling our latest grand-daughter yesterday afternoon. At less than 48 hours old she was still very sleepy. Just as we were about to leave she woke and became alert – looking around in all directions, focussing and re-focussing. I was forcibly struck once more by the everyday miracle of a new life. Those eyes had very little to look at in utero, but within two days they are searching and processing the world, and the muscles that control their movement are being exercised. From the moment that she emerged from dark into light her senses were bombarded by new stimuli opening up new neural pathways in her brain (not that I know anything about brain development, you understand!).

We have six grand-children now and they’re all just as miraculous and marvellously made. But this little girl would not be with us without the intervention of modern science, because she was conceived through IVF treatment – something that only became available at around the time her mother was born 33 years ago.

We are all profoundly grateful. But we’re also remembering friends who have had a series of miscarriages and a stillbirth and who remain, through the amazing strength of the human spirit, generous, optimistic lovely people. And we are receiving regular updates on the condition of twins born at 26 weeks gestation, who are being cared for in separate hospitals. Thanks again to medical science there is every chance that there will be a happy outcome for them – I am certainly praying for it.

None of it seems quite fair to human sensibilities, but it all fits in with the extraordinary beauty and messiness of the world, which in turn chimes a chord with the Archbishop of Canterbury’s message last week: “The story of the first Christmas is the story of a series of completely unplanned, messy events – a surprise pregnancy, an unexpected journey that's got to be made, a complete muddle over the hotel accommodation when you get there...Not exactly a perfect holiday.”

Happy Christmas!

crab apple jelly

2011-12-16T14:25:00.003Z

Visiting a local friend recently I was impressed by the abundant crab apples on the tree in the front garden. She confessed to having no time (or inclination) to do anything about them this year and said I was welcome to pick them.

So, last Friday Steve and I went over there equipped with a good supply of plastic carrier bags and spent an hour gathering as much as we could reach. What we brought home filled three big mixing bowls and we still left plenty for the birds and insects to eat.

After washing and picking over I ended up with about 7kg of usable fruit, which I put in pans to simmer.

Making a jelly (as opposed to jam) is new to me, so I spent a bit of time comparing internet recipes and looking at instructions for creating jelly straining bags. I plumped for the recipe on the BBC Food website.

I was quite pleased with the straining device I set up using two chairs, a broom handle and a length of doubled muslin. All the recipes are very adamant that the bag should be left to strain without squeezing in order to avoid clouding of the final jelly. I did experiment a little in my treatment of the fruit in that I mashed one batch to pulp after cooking but before straining it and left the other batch just in its softened, simmered condition. I think the mashed fruit rendered up a bit more juice and I couldn’t see a substantial difference in the end result.

Monday saw me all set to get on with the actual jam-making process. In all I ended up with about 3.5 litres of juice and added sugar in a ratio of 10 parts juice to 6 parts sugar (volumetric measure) as one or two people had commented that the 10:7 ratio in the recipe was a bit too sweet. The juice of one and half lemons also went into the mixture.

Not having a preserving pan, I had to divide the mixture between three large pans. (It’s important to have plenty of headroom in the pan as it has to be brought to and held at a rolling boil for quite some time).

Setting point was achieved relatively quickly. I used an ancient food thermometer that used to belong to my parents and also did the “wrinkle test” with spoonfuls of jelly on very cold saucers. In fact the set was so efficient that when I started potting the preserve a skin had started to form and I managed to get great pre-set blobs in with the still runny jelly, which rather made a mockery of all my attempts to keep the juice completely clear! I ended up with 10 jars of various sizes.

Well it won’t be a prize winner, but it will still be delicious with hot and cold meats and on toast and I may even give away a pot or two.

back to the knitting

2011-11-30T17:25:00.003Z

Finally the last day of my November blog-a-day extravaganza has arrived and I’m very relieved! I have enjoyed the challenge and the responses, but it has been hard coming up with something every day. In fact I didn’t quite manage it. There was nothing on the first because I only found out about it at the end of that day, and I missed two other days because I was without inspiration or couldn’t make the words work.

The experience has increased my admiration for journalists who come up with a regular comment column. Frankly I just don’t have enough opinions to keep up at this rate for any longer.

I will carry on though, just not at the same frequency and I hope to get back to more of the knit, stitch and dye of my original intentions.

time to be in earnest

2011-11-29T17:19:00.003Z

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I am reading P D James’ memoir Time to be in Earnest: a Fragment of Autobiography. I’m still reading it, and enjoying it enormously. She has taken a refreshing approach, having resisted writing a full autobiography and using the discipline of a diary of one year from her 77th birthday in 1997 to her next birthday. The diary acts as a convenient hook for a discursive comment or memory. So, for example, she might write about sitting next to a Deputy Chief Constable at a literary dinner and move from discussion of police procedure, via her opinion of the death penalty, to her personal response as an eleven-year-old child to the news reports of the murder of a child.

Thus an autobiography of sorts emerges in an interesting non-linear way but she retains control of those elements she prefers not to write about or elaborate upon. In many ways this working method is similar to blogging (in the hands of a consummate writer).

I’ve enjoyed her detective fiction and knew something about her life before I started reading. I was aware, for example, of her difficult personal life after her doctor husband returned from the second world war so psychologically damaged that he spent the rest of his life in and out of hospital until his death at the age of 44. I knew that she took on the mantle of provider for the whole family and worked as a senior Civil Servant. What I did not realise was that, as most girls of her class and generation did, she left school at sixteen. So the enormous range of her intellect has been fed by her own experience of life and relentless reading, rather than by conventional education.

I am struck, as I read, by what a very active public life she was leading at the age of 77; a packed diary of book signings, publicity tours, talks, conferences and dinners as well as personal visits and social life. She has continued to write and publish in the years since this memoir and I am particularly looking forward to reading Death Comes to Pemberley where she bring detective fiction to Jane Austen’s world! Last year (at the age of 90) she was one of the guest editors on Radio 4’s Today programme. She interviewed the BBC Director-General Mark Thompson and gave him a rather hard time. Regular presenter Evan Davies is reported to have commented that she should be permanently presenting the programme.

living the dream

2011-11-27T20:32:00.008Z

We took a little trip down to Devon today to have breakfast with our friends Maggie and Jeremy and to visit their Open Studio event.

M+J are friends from our Oxfordshire days and they moved to Devon not long after we moved to Bristol. They were hoping for a gentler pace of life and to pursue their creative aspirations. I’m not sure that the pace of life is any less frenetic (in fact I know it isn’t), but they have certainly cracked on with the creative stuff. Since moving to their village home they have converted existing outbuildings to create an office and high-tech picture-framing workshop for Jeremy and a painting/printmaking studio for Maggie.

They have made loads of contacts in the Devon art world and Maggie collaborates regularly with other artists and shows her work several times a year at local galleries. At Christmas she opens her studio and fills it with her own work as well as lots of stuff from other artists and craftworkers.

We had a lovely time looking and buying. When we left the studio was full of eager customers looking for original Christmas presents.

We couldn’t visit South Devon without a trip to the coast, so we spent some time splashing along the seashore at Bantham.

It was the loveliest day for a trip. Although cold and windy the sun was strong and bright. The sea and the countryside sparkled and as we drove home along the M5 the light gave the late autumn trees an extraordinary delicate clarity.

an outbreak of nostalgia: the good-old/bad-old days

2011-11-26T17:58:00.004Z

Yesterday I met my sister in Birmingham for “Christmas Shopping”. Neither of us is particularly addicted to retail delights and very little actual purchasing took place, but we did spend the day nattering and eating lunch and drinking cups of tea. It was also the opportunity for a little nostalgia.

Back in the day when we were growing up in Lichfield, Birmingham was our closest big city for shopping and there were only two department stores, Lewis’s and Rackhams. Despite being only about 15 miles away we only visited Birmingham once or twice a year and one of those visits was the annual trip to visit Father Christmas and Mr Holly in the grotto at Lewis’s . We also remembered Rackhams, which was the posher store, having a particularly magical toy department, which would have a model railway with full landscape and running trains as a centre-piece and other mechanical toys performing their tricks. There were wonderful soft toys and walkie-talkie dolls and rank upon rank of matchbox cars and lifelike farm animals. I can report that House of Fraser, which has taken over Rackhams, no longer has a toy department of that calibre.

Obviously those childhood memories are overlaid by memories of visiting Birmingham as I got older. I was probably about fifteen before I was allowed to go on the train for a shopping trip with friends. Visits to the pantomime at “The Alex” and later other theatre at Birmingham Rep were highlights. I remember Spaghetti Junction being constructed to great media excitement. Like many major cities, the central shopping area of Birmingham has altered almost beyond recognition since those days and it got me thinking about the speed of change.

Coincidentally the book I started reading on the train yesterday is a memoir by P D James; Time to Be in Earnest. Writing in 1997 about her early life in the 1920s she remarks that “a Victorian child of the same class – the Pooters’ daughter perhaps - received into our family would have felt immediately at home; a modern child, transported to a house without electricity, central heating, television, telephone or the use of a car, would feel himself banished to a dark age.” In many ways I feel that my own childhood in the 1950s was still more similar to hers than to a childhood at the beginning of the 21st Century. Obviously we did have electricity in my first family home, but no central heating, telephone or car. It was still a world of coal fires, liberty bodices and chilblains. Change began to accelerate in the sixties and has continued to run faster and faster ever since.

I’m not quite sure what point I’m trying to make here apart from offering it as an observation. I’m certainly not decrying progress – after all how would I be communicating these thoughts on my fancy interwebular device if we were still living in the fifties?

Photo: Steve's and my teddies from the fifties. I don't think Antiques Roadshow would be interested.

I love local

2011-11-25T18:53:00.002Z

I love living in this area. Thursday afternoons are veg box delivery day at the Southville Centre. Leigh Court Farm is just on the outskirts of Bristol. Minimal food miles for this lovely bag of vegetables. I’m afraid I’m such a neglectful blogger that I had already used leeks and potatoes before I remembered to take a photo.

In addition to the veg boxes, someone from Mark’s Bread always pedals up from North Street on the bread delivery tricyle on Thursday afternoon to sell lovely artisan bread.

Yum.

garden gloom

2011-11-24T15:48:00.005Z

I have resisted writing this blog post for quite a long time because it is so negative. Back in April I blogged enthusiastically about the garden and everything I’d got set up to produce food this year. Sadly, as all real gardeners know, growing things doesn’t always turn out like you hope. This year was particularly disastrous.

The herb garden wasn’t too bad, though none of the stuff that I started from seed this year came to anything. We had a few micro salads from our wall-mounted gutters, but they got very badly slug and snail infested and were very difficult to keep going.

We tried potatoes in bags again and the yield was even less worth the effort than in previous years. In fact I had to empty two bags (eight potato plants) to get enough for one meal!

We had about ten beans in all from the dwarf bean plants (the pots were better than the ones in the ground) and none of the peas made it past germination. The broad beans were pretty, but not prolific.

Most of the tomato plants drowned when we had torrential rain just after I’d put them out. I was then given three plants and this is what they produced!

We knew that the fruit probably wouldn’t really get going this year, but all the putative apples dried out and dropped off at a pretty early stage, there wasn’t enough rhubarb to pick and neither did the gooseberry or blackcurrants produce fruit.

Really the only modest success was the garlic which kept us going for a week or two.

I’ve even managed to make a disaster of the wormery compost which was just vile and I’ve had to start again, but am not convinced that it’s working any better. I thought wormeries were supposed to be easy to run!

This year’s winners were the nasturtiums which self-seeded from last year and simply took over the whole darn lot. I kept yanking them out, but finally gave up when everything else failed and let them run riot.

Finally two weeks ago Steve declared war on them and pulled them all out. The garden now looks bleak and unattractive, but I need to start thinking about next year and what might actually work.
This is a bit of a misery memoir, but I have a little bit of distance now from the really deep disappointment of getting so little reward for the effort (and money) I put in. I’ve got a lot of hopes pinned on the fruit to get going next year and I think I might move some of the herbs into the raised bed. I definitely won’t be growing from seed next year – it’s too heart-breaking when it all goes wrong.

getting my head straight

2011-11-22T18:11:00.004Z

It’s been a getting my head straight day.

Went to the hairdressers this morning for a restyle (longish hair getting to be a messy nuisance when combined with winter coat collar) and was planning to have some coloured lowlights run through it. After we’d spent a while looking through colours and talking about what would work, the stylist finally turned to me and said: “actually I think you’d be mad to do it; your hair is a lovely colour and although it’s grey it’s actually got quite a few different shades streaked through it.” Wow, an honest opinion! I took her advice; sometimes that’s all it takes to make you see sense. (I did go ahead with the geometric bob, though)

Then this afternoon’s bit of head straightening was a hearing assessment. After going through all the usual questions (did you ever work in a very noisy enviroonment?) and sitting with headphones on listening to various frequencies and volumes of beep I was told that my hearing hadn’t really changed very much in the past two years. My hearing aids have been slightly re-programmed. It was all enough, though, for me to walk home in a bit of a daze with my ears ringing and somehow I can’t hear anything Steve says to me! I’m hoping that I’ll get used to it soon.

(The picture is from google images)

Of the Brilliant and the Dark

2011-11-21T18:53:00.004Z

Steve and I went to hear some live performance yesterday afternoon. I had been given a flyer for “Of the Brilliant and the Dark” by musician Ellen Southern earlier in the year when I was doing a stint on the Malago WI Tea-stall at Best of Bedminster Show. She talked very compellingly about what she was doing and I resolved to make it a date. I love being able to support creativity.

Ellen’s work was a response to an invitation to remix the original 1969 score of “The Brilliant and the Dark”. The original piece was an opera commissioned by the WI and performed 42 years ago by 1000 volunteer female voices at the Royal Albert Hall. The score had been lying forgotten in the Women’s Library ever since.

We had no ideas what to expect. Yesterday’s performance was a one-off at the Cube Cinema in Bristol. It was our first visit to this venue in our eight years of living here. It’s a community cinema/performance venue and exhibits all the unkempt charm that implies. Steve was suffering from a sick headache and accompanied me somewhat on sufferance, which wasn’t helped by the fact that the performance was more than half an hour late starting and we all had to hang around waiting to get into the performance space.

Once underway, however, the performance took our breath away. I’m not an enormously musical person and my language for talking about music is very limited so I’m resorting here to the publicity material:

Enter a haunting world of atmospheric vocal harmonies in this début song-cycle by former Bristol based artist-turned-vocalist, Ellen Southern. Weaving together entrancing music and visuals, the piece transports the audience through a collective life-cycle ‘embroidered’ together though song, and encompassing wide musical influences from early polyphony to trip-hop. This highly original ensemble is made up of female vocalists, double bass, guitar, flute and percussion, which features a bellow-powered drone and pitched glasses.

We loved it. The mixture of female voices used not just in song, but making percussive sounds and whispers blended perfectly with the instruments to create an eerie, atmospheric soundscape that was completely captivating. Steve’s headache improved and he was completely reconciled to the effort of going out on a grey Sunday afternoon to listen to experimental music at an unpromising venue!

More information and soundclips are available on Ellen’s website. She is making her score available to other artists so that it can be developed further and maybe brought back together in a joint performance at some stage.

budgie project

2011-11-20T17:39:00.004Z

When I remarked the other day that our knit and natter group was not solely women I was referring specifically to Andrew, who learnt to crochet at one of Paper Village’s classes earlier in the year and launched straight into making a crochet budgie!

The first budgie was Bert, soon to be joined by Bessie and they have their very own Facebook page. This has now evolved into a full-scale project to create a flock of budgies which, it is hoped, will be installed in a local museum. The idea is to raise money for charity, but also to create a community of people working on a fun (some might say daft) project. Andrew has got all sorts of people working on it from the regular knit and natterers to older people in residential care.

Each maker is encouraged to name his/her budgie and photograph it. Most people also go on to create some sort of budgie persona. One or two of the budgies are very adventurous and have been hang-gliding or climbing Mont Blanc.

As my budgie took shape a very different character emerged, however. This is Peter. He works in a hair salon and he likes nothing better than watching The Great British Bake-Off.

(If you have a yen to make a crochet budgie for this project you can buy a kit costing £5 at Paper Village, which contains 2 balls of yarn; some odd bits of yarn to create eyes, beak etc;. a pattern and a label to attached to the finished bird that you return to the flock. There is plenty of yarn left over to carry on making your very own aviary)

why are you doing it?

2011-11-19T15:42:00.002Z

So, I’m just over half way through the November blog-a-day challenge and it’s proving quite difficult to think of something to post every day. It certainly changes the nature of the way I blog. I was talking to a friend about it yesterday and he asked why I had taken the challenge on. Good question!

I suppose, partly it’s the good old “because it’s there” motivation. I discovered that the challenge existed and decided to give it a go. It’s also because my blogging has always been pretty sporadic, but had recently almost dried up. It wasn’t quite a choice between abandoning it altogether or going for it 100%, but increasing my posting rate – even if slightly artificially – seemed a good thing to do.

Which of course raises the question, why blog in the first place? To quote my own words back in January 2008 when I started :

“ I don't think I'm a natural blogger. I have resisted this for a long time. Have kept diaries in the past and always been keenly depressed by re-reading them.However, I have recently been inspired by the vast numbers of creative blogs out there - notably knitting, but other things too and thought it might be a good way of reviewing my work and encouraging myself that I have actually done something.”

That’s pretty much how I still feel about it. If I were doing it just to be read by other people I think it would be quite a different blog, but the fact is that I am using a public medium, so there’s obviously some desire for it to be seen and read by other people. It also means making sure that I only publish things that I don’t mind anyone else seeing (and that I don’t infringe anyone else’s privacy).

Although my blog is still largely for my own benefit, as time goes on one becomes aware that blogging creates a community. Some of the blogs I visit on a regular basis have masses of comments and I gradually noticed names appearing in more than one place and a kind of blog-circle emerges. There’s a kind of reciprocal courtesy in the blogiverse that means that if someone comments on your blog, you visit theirs and make a comment and gradually relationships are formed. Up to now I’ve been quite a shy blogger; visiting blogs, reading them and slipping quietly away, with perhaps an occasional comment. Recently I’ve felt more inclined to take part and have a voice in the conversation.

Sharing the blog on Facebook also makes a difference to how it is seen and read. Facebook oddly feels more public than the more anonymous cyber village that is blogland. One is more conscious of the people one knows reading and forming opinions. These are the moments to be grateful that there is no “dislike” button! It has also lead to some welcome conversations in the real world with people who have read what I’m saying and said that they enjoy it. (Thank you).

printmaking adventures

2011-11-18T08:06:00.006Z

This exciting piece of kit was delivered this week.
It's a relief printing press,

bought as an early Christmas present for Ruth

by her lovely husband, Stuart,

to help in the production

of her exciting new range of lino prints.

knit and natter: a very good yarn

2011-11-17T12:08:00.002Z

After a morning of technological meltdown yesterday trying to reinstall my wireless printer (unsuccessful so far), it was a relief to leave the house for the refuge of Wednesday afternoon’s Knit and Natter group.
We meet at Paper Village our local craft and yarn store, owned by the redoubtable Vicky - all round artist, crafter, trainer and social entrepreneur.

She welcomes a mixed group of knitters and crocheters every Wednesday afternoon just for the cost of a cup of tea. People come and go over the course of the afternoon and the range of projects is even wider than the range of people working on them (not exclusively women, by the way).

It’s hard to say what is so enjoyable and just plain right about sitting around yarning in the company of others, but it is – give it a try.

ladies who mooch

2011-11-16T10:11:00.006Z

I had a lovely day with my Daughter no. 2 yesterday.

Hannah had a hospital appointment in town early in the day and a work commitment in town mid afternoon and decided it wasn’t worth going back home to her computer in the interim, so we met up for a leisurely coffee in Park Street. We thought about going to see a film, but the only thing available at a convenient time was a horror movie, so we wandered in and out of shops looking at this and that, discussing Christmas present ideas for each other and rest of the family.

By the time we got to the Harbourside it was time for a leisurely lunch. Then we carried on our drift through town and shops until we arrived at the Drawn in Bristol pop up shop for Hannah to do her duty stint.

We talked and talked, very little was actually bought and it was lovely. Despite living in the same city and catching up with each other reasonably frequently an extended time like this is fairly rare. Anyone with three children knows how special it is to spend time with just one of them alone and this pleasure continues into adulthood.

With a baby due in six weeks it may be some time before we can have another day like this, so it was time to savour.

(Image: two of H's prints displayed on our kitchen wall)

singing their hearts out

2011-11-15T08:17:00.001Z

I’m so enjoying the current series of The Choir. I had somehow only managed to catch an isolated episode or two of Gareth Malone’s previous efforts to bring the joy of singing to unlikely places.

On the face of it there’s nothing at all unlikely about a group of military wives forming a choir – it’s just that no-one’s thought of it before. Judging by the enthusiasm of the recruits he has signed up at Chivenor and in Plymouth it’s something they’ve been waiting for. Watching a programme about the military would not be on my regular wish-list, but whatever my views on Afghanistan or Iraq, there is no doubt that the women and their families left at home while their partners are deployed in dangerous places have a very difficult life indeed.

Gareth Malone is very talented at what he does. He creates enthusiasm, boosts flagging confidence, challenges people to do things they thought they couldn’t do. His choice of repertoire is very clever, starting with pop songs that people already know and gradually introducing more classical work so that the singers can experience a range of music and develop their musicality.

One or two of the women involved are veterans of the waiting game and are very strong characters who have learned how to live that kind of life and still be individuals in their own right. Others, one feels, are crushed by the sense of only existing as the satellite to someone else’s dangerous career. So it is inspiring to see these women coming together as encouragement for one another, overcoming nerves and natural anxiety about performance to (literally) find their own voice.

It’s cracking good television and my only gripe is that we don’t see quite enough of the rehearsals and the singing.

childcare and more domestic goddessry

2011-11-14T18:23:00.004Z

Today was a childcare day and as Steve was playing golf with friends I was holding the fort alone!

This child is obsessed by scissors. Given the chance she will spend the entire day snipping little pieces of paper from bigger pieces of paper. She hasn't got a great deal of control yet (especially given that she consistently uses her left hand and the scissors are all right-handed), but making a series of diagonal cuts and then trimming them off seems to hit the spot at the moment. Papercut artwork is everywhere at the moment so perhaps she's picking up the cultural trend?

There's quite a lot of picking up to do afterwards.

Luckily for my sanity she still has a lovely long nap in the afternoon, so I busied myself making mincemeat. It's probably obvious that I love all the heavily-fruited, spicy mixtures that feature in so many of the traditional Christmas foods, but I haven't previously felt it was worth the effort to make mincemeat. This is a non-traditional recipe, however, with no suet and heavy on cranberries and apple as well as the vine fruits. Looking forward to some mince pies now!

Now we have that very rare thing, a good telly evening - University Challenge, Only Connect and The Choir - and probably a bit of knitting.

enough is enough

2011-11-13T16:22:00.008Z

Having been brought up to believe that you shouldn’t start a new project before you finish the previous one, it came as a bit of an epiphany for me about twenty years ago when someone giving a talk on creativity suggested that it was actually good to have more than one project on the go at the same time. Some people might suggest that I have taken this advice too literally and gone a bit far in the opposite direction.

On the whole my creative stash lives in my workroom in the basement, but knitting and crochet are sociable crafts that can be practised sitting on a comfortable chair while watching the telly. This has meant that my yarn craft project bags were beginning to silt up at one end of the sofa. It was getting difficult to find what I wanted and generally stressful. So a large part of today has been devoted to sorting out this horrible space.

In the process I discovered that my main current project was in a bag far too small for it, so extra balls of yarn were lolling around here there and everywhere. That has now been sorted into one large bag.

There's a large bag full of the knitted squares for blanket-making that I blogged about last week. These need to stay at hand or I will forget to do anything with them.
I also found at least three bags of random/leftover/spare yarn; a scarf project started and (probably) abandoned; and a bag with two colours of recycled sari yarn which I have yet to find the right project for.

Then there was the bag that holds my in-between-other-projects/use-up-leftovers project - a crochet sampler blanket that will eventually be sewn together in strips.

This is definitely not abandoned, but needs to be on the back burner at the moment because of other things on the go. That and the random bags have been relegated to the basement depths.

As has this little project bag with the yarn and pattern for Fugue tam and mittens by Kate Davies. I have actually knitted one of the mittens, but it came out too small so I need to start again. I can't risk relegating this one for too long or I will miss the hat and mittens season.

Also begging to be sorted was my needle bag and another tube of needles. When it's organised this bag is incredibly useful as it also contains a ring binder for patterns. While Steve was at the cinema this afternoon I sat on the floor with all the needles and a needle gauge sorting out pairs and batches of double-ended needles. All my printed-from-the-internet patterns are now in plastic sleeves in the ring binder.

Hiding under all sorts of other stuff was a jar of buttons that I didn't know was there and would definitely have been looking for sometime soon.

There were also two sewing projects that had come upstairs for one reason or another and now need to go back below stairs.

All has now been reorganised and restored. To the casual observer it probably doesn't look too different, as there are still two large project bags and a work basket in the corner, but I know what's there and I can lay my hands on it, so this post it brought to you with a smug sense of relief and I can spend the evening knitting!

saturday art and craft

2011-11-12T15:20:00.006Z

It was a beautiful morning as I drove home along the river at 8am. The sun was coming through quite brightly. It had rained in the night and the water vapour held in the air wasn’t quite a mist or even a haze, but created a shivering golden pink light.

It was a lovely compensation for being up and out so early to deliver Steve to his stall at the Bristol Harbourside Craft Market where he’s selling Ruth’s and Hannah’s and his own work.

Later I visited Hannah who was doing a stint at the Drawn in Bristol pop up shop.
(photo credit: made in bristol - taken at the launch party last night)

Meanwhile Ruth’s work is also to be found at the Rostra Gallery in Bath.

saved by monkey and robot

2011-11-11T19:36:00.004Z

Well I really thought I wasn't going to have anything for the daily blog challenge today. Until I captured the moment when two little girls and their grandad

watched Susan Jameson
reading from Auntie Hannah and Uncle Felix's book "Monkey & Robot" for the CBeebies bedtime story.

figgy pudding

2011-11-10T17:33:00.003Z

For the first time ever my Christmas pudding actually has figs in it this year, so when the carol singers ask for some figgy pudding there actually is a slim chance of them having some!
As ever, I didn't have quite the right ingredients for the recipe (despite shopping specifically for several items yesterday). After yesterday's cake making extravaganza there weren't quite enough sultanas and I had completely failed to notice that the recipe specified dates as well as figs. I made up the difference with a few extra grams of the other fruits (figs, apricots and cranberries). We stirred and made wishes and now two small puddings are steaming away on the hob.

Rebecca at Poshyarns was talking yesterday about baking as meditation. She finds it calming. Much as I enjoy baking, I really can't say I find it soothing and the state of the kitchen afterwards is definitely not a joy. Just look at the state of that recipe page - it already looks like an heirloom recipe and I've only used it yesterday and today!

christmas cake

2011-11-09T18:08:00.003Z

I made a Christmas cake today. The house smells lovely.

I don’t have a special recipe that I use every year. I’m quite happy to try new ones from time to time. I also think that a bought cake is perfectly acceptable when life is busy.

For quite a few years I used a Delia Smith recipe, but always had to change the constitution of the dried fruit mixture. She specifies 450g currants, 175g sultanas and 175g raisins. Now I really like dried fruit, but currants always seem such unappealing, mean, pinched little things by comparison with juicy raisins and sultanas. I quite often go with a Good Housekeeping recipe. Needing to sell magazines, they generally have a slightly different recipe each year with names like “the ultimate Christmas cake”, or “our best ever Christmas cake”.

I’ve taken the GH route this year. This one is called their "easiest ever"! The fruit mixture includes prunes and stem ginger – no currants and no mixed peel!
Unusually the recipe involves boiling the fruit and melting the butter and sugar so that the mixture goes into the oven already warm and takes less cooking time.

I didn’t have any Amaretto liqueur, so used port and added half a teaspoon of almond extract when the mixture came off the heat.
It looks good so far!

I love oxford

2011-11-08T21:59:00.005Z

My first solo encounter with Oxford was not propitious. It was 1968 and I arrived by train for an interview at what was then Oxford College of Technology (now Oxford Brookes University). I got off the train and didn’t know which way to walk to get into the town. I spent quite a long time walking in the wrong direction before I discovered my mistake. By the time I discovered the city centre and realised that I still had to negotiate a bus ride to Headington I was distraught and rang my mother in floods of tears.

Strange then that I overcame my initial first impressions and went on the live in, or within easy reach of, Oxford for the next 35 years.

Because I came to live in Oxford as a student, I got to know it bit by bit. Its austere classical beauty seeped into my heart without the need for tourist sight-seeing. I finished growing up there; I kicked leaves in Christ Church Meadows; I studied; I swam in the river on May morning; I made lifelong friends; I learned how to punt in a straight(ish) line; I fell in love; I went to May Balls; I worked, I married and I raised a family within twelve miles of Carfax Tower.

So as we stepped down from the train in Oxford station this morning it was with a happy sense of anticipation of revisiting this beautiful city that I know so well. I knew it was going to be a day of treats.

The first was a visit to the Ashmolean Museum where Steve had pre-arranged a visit to the Western Art Print Room. He knew that the museum hold a collection of Turner watercolours. What you can see in the galleries of public art collections is only a fraction of what they have and most are willing to make other parts of the collections available to the public if you know what you want to see. Steve particularly wanted to see watercolours of Venice and an early drawing that Turner had made of the Ashmolean covered in scaffolding during an eighteenth century refurbishment. It was one of those marvellous white-glove experiences. We were presented with a large box of mounted watercolours and a small desk easel and left to revel in the experience of seeing the master’s work up close and personal. It was wonderful.

We had time after that for a wander around the galleries. We went in different directions; Steve to look at paintings and me to have a lovely mooch around ceramics.

Then we met a dear friend for a leisurely lunch at the Red Lion and talked and talked until all too soon it was time to get back on the train for home.

It was a grey and drizzly November day, but it was still beautiful. A lovely, lovely day.

photo credit: Steve Broadway

white hope

2011-11-07T14:03:00.003Z

A little bit of hope on a grey day!

For at least seven years we have had a window box of white pelargoniums sitting on the outside sill of the window in our basement light-well . It’s very sheltered down there and although it doesn’t get a great deal of bright light the plants have thrived on benign neglect, getting taller and taller and flowering almost all year round. I really love them; they’re not as intense and showy as the red or pink ones I generally put on the front windowsill (and have to renew every spring), but I love their quiet persistence and delicate old-fashioned blooms.

This year I have begun to fear that they are on the way out. They had become impossibly “leggy” in the continuing search for light and were falling and breaking. I decided it was time to have a go at taking cuttings. (Foolproof according to the BBC gardening website). These are the results.
Not only have they taken and rooted, but they are bursting into flower as well. I’m sure a gardening purist would say that I should have nipped off the flower buds to give the roots more chance to develop, but I just couldn’t bear to. This year’s gardening has been deeply disappointing after my enthusiastic start blogged back in April, so I’m just taking a little bit of encouragement where I find it.

cuddly blankets

2011-11-06T12:46:00.006Z

Finishing off other people's work seems to be a bit of a theme in my life at the moment. I have just handed over these two completed baby blankets.
St Mary Redcliffe Church have an active group of people knitting squares for blankets which are then sent to Ukraine. They were short of someone to sew them together, so I volunteered.

I have completed three so far (didn't photograph the first one) and have just picked up several more bags of knitted squares which I calculate should make another three. I have to confess that it's more time consuming than I imagined as there are lots of yarn tails to be sewn in before assembly can begin. Putting the blankets together can be fun, though. I played with colour-blocking on this one

and went for a more traditional patwork-style with this one.

I'm using crochet to seam them together and adding a crochet border.

what would mary say?

2011-11-05T10:27:00.005Z

I seem to have been haunted recently by the voice of Mary Portas passing opinions or giving me advice on the way I dress! I quite like Mary Portas – she’s all the things I’m not; opinionated, straight talking, passionate about what she does and very stylish. So I watched Mary Queen of Frocks on 4-oD with great interest. Her mission to rescue women in their middle years from the joint perils of frumpiness or looking like a teenager is quite laudable and I’m sure the Mary range in House of Fraser will be a big success.
Despite being a “high street” brand though, it is still too expensive for many of us. I love new clothes and I love fashion, but I grew up in an era when you mostly had two or three of any garment – one on, one in the wash and one just in case. I’ve moved on from that point, obviously, but I still expect my clothes to work hard. I try not to buy things that I won’t be able to wear with several other things in my wardrobe and, generally speaking, I continue to wear things for quite a long time. I realised today that one of the long sleeved V neck tops that comes out as the weather gets colder as a layering piece (see, I know the jargon!) is 19 years old, but that is a venerable exception. Five or six years is not unusual, though, so of course it is impossible to be at the cutting edge of fashion (as if!).
I don’t need “office” clothes any more and my day to day dressing is more often than not jeans, a loose top and a cardi. Yet I don’t want to give up all aspiration to dressing with a bit of style; there’s no doubt that knowing that I’m dressed well can boost my confidence and lift my mood. It’s nice to have a few things in the cupboard for special occasions or just because I fancy dressing up a bit.

Meanwhile I can just dream about being tall and slim with coat hanger shoulders, sailing up an escalator in my gorgeous understated clothes with my elbows akimbo, taking space in the world!

UFOs

2011-11-04T10:31:00.004Z

Most knitters/quilters/embroiderers will confess to a couple of UnFinished Objects in their work basket. Some are abandoned happily, others we’re always meaning to get back to. My daughter Ruth and I recently had the experience of picking up someone else’s UFO and bringing it to fruition.
In one of those convoluted six-degrees-of-separation ways we were put in touch with someone we already knew who was looking for a quilter to complete a quilt for his mother. His mother is very elderly and ill and he had come across a quilt she had started some years ago and thought it would be good to get it finished.

What Ruth and I were presented with turned out to be eleven completed square blocks which had been constructed in a variety of hand-sewn methods and quite a bit of spare fabric. We were given free rein to get on with it as we saw fit. It seemed important to us to use what we had been given as simply as possible and not get fancy with it. After some initial consultation we made our decisions surprisingly quickly and became a sort of quilting tag team.

Ruth created one more square based on some partially assembled scraps. I finished off the sashing borders around each square. Thus far we stuck with the hand sewing, but knew that we would have to get out the machines to finish it within a reasonable time.

I put the squares together and assembled the quilt top by machine. Then Ruth took on the assembly of a backing piece using a variety of fabrics from the work basket.

She added a binding strip and, using some quilt wadding from my stash, pinned together the quilt sandwich. I took it back and spent a couple of evenings hand-quilting very simply along the seam lines of the squares. I hand-stitched the binding fabric to finish the quilt. The finished article is about the right size for a cot.

In all it took us about a fortnight to finish - much quicker than we would have been working alone! We both enjoyed the process, delighting in the sense of continuity with another needle-woman. It was such fun to rummage through someone else’s workbasket (finding a couple of other UFOs in the process).

We were both also pretty anxious about taking liberties with someone else’s work. We had no idea what the original plan had been and worried that the lady in question might feel affronted by some of the decisions we had taken. Thankfully this proved not to be the case. I was taken to meet her and deliver the quilt on a day when she was feeling reasonably well and visiting neighbours for coffee. The quilt soon became the focus of conversation and memory as she pointed out some of the fabrics which had originally been used in her children’s clothing. I have heard since that the project is still proving a successful talking point in the family.

It makes me wonder what unfinished items will be hanging around in my work-basket when I die.
(I didn’t take work-in-progress photos I’m afraid, so what you see is the finished quilt in all its squidgy, lumpy glory – very difficult to photograph)

wanna sing with a live band?

2011-11-03T14:55:00.005Z

Well no, I really, really don't want to, but on the other hand one of the things I have started doing since I retired is singing with a community choir. Community choirs are popular these days and some, like the wonderful Gasworks Choir, have waiting lists. I would normally have been very reticent about joining a choir. I’m one of those people who have never felt I was able to sing.
This choir is different though. It started as an arts initiative by our local GP Practice who had funding for a whole series of “Never Too Late To Create” workshops. The participants were mainly older patients with mental health problems and/or chronic illness. One of the GPs who was closely involved with the groups has noted that the music/singing groups were especially popular and that involvement with singing appeared to increase self-confidence, produced improvements in mood and helped people to socialise with others and build supportive friendships. Since the NTLTC funding finished the choir has evolved into an independent group (the Big Friendly Choir), which is open (and free) to all regardless of health/age/ability. I was encouraged to join by a friend who was already a member.
I have come to really enjoy and value my Thursday morning sing! Our musical director, Mark Lawrence, is wonderfully encouraging and inclusive, and draws performances from us that we didn’t know we were capable of. There are one or two very talented singers with lovely voices who can sing harmonies, but the majority of us (like me) only feel safe singing with others. When I first joined I didn’t realise that public performance would be part of the deal and was acutely embarrassed at the prospect. I am still not confident about my own singing but have come to see that it’s about the group and what we can achieve together. We normally have a modest end of term concert in a cafe/gallery, but have also sung in a residential home; as part of the local Arts Trail; and at Bristol Central Library. In December we will be singing for the pleasure(!) of shoppers in Asda, with a group of children’s choirs in St George’s, Bristol and at the Central Library once more.
Most choirs charge their members a (sometimes substantial) fee, but this one is free and because of that we are regularly looking for funding. At the moment we have enough in the kitty to take us to Christmas and are awaiting the outcome of two funding applications. It seems that one of the things that I see as the choir’s greatest advantages – the fact that it is open to everyone – can be a disadvantage when applying for funds. If it were just for older people, or just for people with long-term health problems there would be a definite “peg” to hang it on, but the fact that we are a mixed group who have come together and formed a choral relationship regardless of problems seems to put us in a special category. There are people in the choir who could probably afford to pay for their sessions, but it would be invidious to create a sort of two-tier membership. This will be an ongoing situation for us, so if you know any funders/charities who might consider supporting us let me know!
We were recently recorded at one of our regular Thursday rehearsals singing a four-part round of This Old Freedom Train and published on YouTube!

habit forming

2011-11-02T13:32:00.003Z

It’s over three months since my last post. I’m very much more a blog reader than a blogger, but that is all about to change! I have been alerted in one of the blogs I read to the fact that November is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo). She also points out the oft-quoted “fact” that it only takes thirty repetitions to create a new habit (to be honest that’s never worked for me where exercise is concerned). But, having been conscious of my lack of blogitivity of late, I decided I am up for the challenge.
I do often have thoughts about a blog post running around my head – just as I often mentally draft letters or emails to friends, but don’t get round to sending them. Putting it all into practice is the big thing though and if the commitment is just for a month maybe I can do it and renew my blogging mojo.
One of the things that often keeps me from blogging is lack of illustrations. I’m not a person who photographs life as I go along, and so many of the blogs I visit have truly beautiful photos on them that I can feel a little intimidated. A post like this one is particularly hard to illustrate – nothing that I’ve made/or eaten/or seen to show off. Having trawled my photo archive I’ve chosen to illustrate the habit that comes easily to me and needs little or no reinforcement!
The question now is will I be able to think of something to say every day, and will it be interesting? Probably not – but only time will tell.

finished!

2011-07-27T22:47:00.006+01:00

Finally, my "vintage" quilt is finished.

I am pleased. It's not a perfect piece of quilt-making by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the overall impression is pleasing and I'm happy with the layout and fabrics. After I had bought the vintage bundles in St Ives I had some doubts and felt I'd been overtaken by holiday fever and the need to buy something; they seemed a bit dull and dated. After I chopped them up and added the plain central squares from my stash it started to work though, and I was especially pleased by the addition of the turquoise fabric, which just seemed to lift the whole thing and give it a bit of zing.

The backing is an old duvet cover which had ripped and has been dyed in cold water dye.

I still need to get to grips with machine quilting. I don't seem to be able to avoid creasing and puckering of the backing fabric.

Still, overall I'm happy and felt confident enough to take it to the village fete-style, 'Best of Malago' at tonight's WI meeting.

summer at the rwa - and a miscalculation

2011-07-03T14:41:00.006+01:00

We recently went (on the recommendation of a friend ) to the exhibition of Robert Lenkiewicz’s work at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA). We were very impressed by the work (and life) of this art world “outsider” with its big themes, such as mental handicap and vagrancy; and despite my initial misgivings I was very moved by the display of an embalmed body as part of the exhibition.
Before that it had probably been more than a year since I was last at the RWA. It seems that it is re-inventing itself somewhat, with a new cafe and refurbishment plans to improve storage of the collection amongst other things. The list of exhibitions for the summer season – Mary Fedden, Lisa Milroy, Elisabeth Frink, Damien Hirst, Jack Vettriano – looked inviting. Mostly quite safe, tried and tested stuff - apart from the Vettriano, which has caused something of a kerfuffle in RWA circles and led to the president resigning. Vettriano has long been the focus of a “critics-versus-the-people” stand-off and he is used to the fuss. In an interview on the local news last week he expressed himself delighted to be showing in a large public gallery and remarked that all the critical vilification just brings people in to see for themselves.

Indeed. I went along on Friday to see what all the fuss is about. I went with a (relatively) open mind having only ever seen reproductions of JV’s work. I have to say that on this occasion I am on the side of the critics. His work is technically fine and he certainly has his own style, but somehow it fails to inspire. What hadn’t been trumpeted in the press is that it’s a tandem show, pairing his paintings with the ballroom dance photographs of Jeanette Jones. I found her black and white images far more entrancing and evocative than the paintings.

I also loved the Lisa Milroy exhibition based on Japanese woodblock engraving and particularly liked her witty and affectionate portrayal of geishas. The small Frink exhibition and the “Up from the Country” two-hander from Neil Murison and Peter Murphy were also worth seeing as is Damien Hirst’s vast statue of Charity.

However, the work that I really wanted to see – Mary Fedden’s Celebration – was nowhere to be found! It turned out that I managed to arrive on one of the few days it wasn’t on show because it’s being moved from the main gallery where JV is now showing to the side gallery where “Up from the Country” is just finishing. How confusing. Oh well, I’ll just have to go again, and as I’m hoping that our friend Maggie will be visiting in August for some arty play that will be the perfect opportunity.

While I was there I visited the new cafe (of course!) which has been opened by local cafe/deli people Papadeli. I only had a cup of coffee, but the food all looked delicious and the room (reclaimed from one of the small ground floor gallery spaces) was calm and cool. As I stood at the service counter waiting for my drink, however, I couldn’t escape from the knowledge that I was standing where the ladies loos used to be! I can understand why they’ve kept the old crazed cream ceramic tiles; it fits the shabby-chic, old school feel, but unfortunately one can still clearly see where basins and hand-dryers have been removed from the walls and patched with brownish filler. Not the best bit of making good I’ve ever seen.

Still that’s an amused observation rather than a gripe. I enjoyed my visit and combined it with a fruitful, but sad, visit to Habitat’s closing down sale.

invisible

2011-06-17T20:55:00.006+01:00

I had a funny conversation with one of my daughters recently when I told her that during my first pregnancy I went from my office to the local shop each day and bought myself a pork pie and a tomato for my lunch – and that in fact on some days I went more than once (pork pies didn’t have quite such a reputation as a “bad food” in those days). She was surprised that I didn’t find it embarrassing that the shop staff would notice my heavy consumption of pork pies, but in fact it had never occurred to me that anyone would have noticed. I just made my transaction and left without any conversation to draw attention to myself, so assumed that I was invisible. I have suffered from this sense of invisibility all my life. I never expect people to recognise me when I meet them again.

It’s a commonly held view that after a certain age women become “invisible” and in some respects this may be true, but I have noticed over recent years that people in the street are much more likely to greet me with a smile. I think this has a lot to do with me looking more approachable as I get older. As an intensely shy young woman I think I probably gave the impression of being rather aloof and unfriendly, as I walked briskly along trying to look “cool” with my cheeks sucked in, my nose in the air and afraid to make eye contact with anyone. These days I wander around with a slightly bemused half smile and am reaping the benefit in smiles from strangers. I have started consciously allowing myself to make eye contact with people because I no longer fear that it will be misunderstood as anything except friendliness.

I even have conversations with people in shops! It's always possible that I'm creating a new impression as a crazy person (and my increasing deafness can certainly lead to some odd non sequiturs), but actually I'm enjoying the human contact, so I don't much care.

Er, that's Ruth my oldest daughter, not some random stranger!

16 x 16

2011-04-25T20:34:00.019+01:00

Our back garden is 16 x 16 feet. I admit that it’s bigger than a balcony (such as the New York space where the resourceful and knowledgeable Marie has a veg garden), but by most standards it’s a small back garden and it’s only in the last couple of years that we’ve considered trying to grow food out there.

This week I have been busy getting it sorted out for the growing season. Quite a number of things had died during the severe winter and as I worked my way round I discovered a good number of the pots had succumbed to frost and fell apart in my hands. A lot of my time was spent picking rose chafer grubs out of last year’s compost so that they didn’t end up in any of the raised beds. I’ve got hundreds of the ruddy things, but have remembered that Hannah’s neighbour keeps chickens, so I shall be making him a gift of them later in the week!

The enjoyable part has been planting up potato bags, potting on and planting out seedlings and being able to sit out for meals, cups of coffee and reading in the extraordinarily lovely spring weather we’ve been having.

I’m so pleased with what I’ve achieved this week that I’d like to give you a little tour!

Out of the back door and turn left.

Here is our herb garden – all in containers at the moment, though I was thinking today that I could create a small raised bed along that short stretch of wall. At the moment there’s oregano (two different types), rosemary, parsley, celery leaf, french sorrel, several mints, sage. I want some more thyme, which was one of the winter casualties and I’ve got basil and coriander germinating indoors.

Next bags of potatoes – Arran pilot. Yield isn’t fantastic from these bags, but I love tipping them out and digging out a meal later in the year.

On the wall is our salad bar. In here are some mixed spicy salad sown a couple of weeks ago and some sulky looking lollo rosso, which was bought as plugs and may or may not survive. The gravelly looking stuff is a crushed ceramic product supposed to deter slugs, which is necessary as the radishes that were growing in the left hand part of this guttering pipe have all been munched. There are three of these pipes, but the seeds in the next one up have only just gone in and I’ll be sowing the top one next weekend.

Round the corner along the left hand fence. This is the raised bed that our lovely growzones friends helped us to build two years ago. In here I have just planted out some dwarf beans. We’ve loved watching these grow this week. Last weekend they were just breaking the surface in a seed tray and now they’re big enough to take their chances out in the big wide world! I sowed peas along the fence and one or two of them are just beginning to appear. The plants in pots are chilli peppers.

The chard has overwintered.

Next we get to the gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes, which I have underplanted with garlic. (And more of the dwarf beans in pots).

Round the corner again to the back fence which is now well covered with trachelospermum and honesuckle as well as an invasion of clematis Montana from the garden the other side. There’s a bald patch in this bed which never seems to sustain anything and is the spot where we had the root of a eucalyptus tree ground out a few years ago. One day we’ll have to dig out properly and start again, but at the moment I’m enjoying the wild acid green of the euphorbia and looking forward to the lavender flowering.

This recess needs some action soon I think. At the moment it tends to be the place where things get put (dumped). Like the big bin that I collect kitchen and garden waste in for Stu’s compost heap and pots that are not currently in use. As it’s the view from the back door I’d prefer it to look a bit more attractive, so I’m thinking of taming some of that honeysuckle around a mini pergola and putting a seat in there permanently. Anyway, that’s for another day.

Round the corner again to the fence on the right hand side of the garden. This is in shade for more than half the day.

First we have rhubarb – planted last year, so probably nothing to pick this year.

On the fence is the espalier apple tree planted last autumn. It has just finished flowering and was absolutely covered in blossom, so I’m hoping that quite a few of the little nodules will plump up and ripen. Next to it is a climbing rose. I hope that these can co-exist and grow together attractively without killing each other. No sign of buds on the rose yet.

Just breaking the surface in this bed are some broad beans. I'm looking forward to seeing these grow as I chose a variety with unusual dark red flowers.

In front of the bed (and the first thing you see from the back door) is another gathering of containers. Allium, peony, lilies (out of shot). Sadly missing from this group is the camellia which appeared to survive the winter and was heavy with buds, but then just gave up the ghost and turned brown. I assume it was a delayed reaction to frost, but could also have been lack of water.

Here is the business end of the garden – the worm bin and the store. And here we are back at the door again.

This is how the back of the house looks from where my little pergola will be.

retirement musings

2011-04-02T13:43:00.007+01:00

I’m a little nervous about posting this as I don’t usually go in for so much self-indulgent rambling online, but writing it has been helpful to me and it’s not offensive to anyone, so I’m going for it. I should warn you that if you are easily irritated by other people’s navel-gazing, you really shouldn’t read any more! # It’s a year since I retired. Fortunately the kind enquiry “how’s retirement?” is beginning to dwindle, because I’m afraid the answer still has to be “I have no idea”! To be honest I don’t think I have adjusted yet, though as my daughter no. 3 wisely remarked when I voiced this thought a couple of weeks ago “What would that adjustment look like?” Well quite! # There have been some very surprising things. My job was moderately enjoyable and I did it reasonably well, but it was never what you would call a “career”. Yet I find that my image of myself was more shaped by my working identity than I realised. I worked from home as the part-time Finance Manager for a firm of architects, so I was used to being home alone and planning my time and getting to the end of a day and feeling that something had been achieved. There’s no longer an external discipline to make that happen.

Before I retired I did a lot of thinking about it, making lists of hopes and fears (which look remarkably similar to the ones Steve has enumerated in his thoughts on retirement). I think my biggest fear was of “drifting” – I’d always envisaged retirement as my opportunity to get on with the things that work prevented me from doing. I wanted to do more textile work and more “art” and above all I wanted to discover whatever it is that will really motivate me and make me feel alive. After a while I realised that like all of life’s major changes – marriage, parenthood, bereavement – no amount of planning and anticipation prepares you for the emotional journey of the real thing; you just have to do it. This fear has definitely been realised! I know myself well enough to know that given the chance I do just drift. I have always found it hard to motivate myself and I get easily distracted, rushing on to the next task before the first one has been completed (which is why I’ve always had such an untidy desk and the kitchen always looks as if the scullery maid’s on holiday). This would be fine if I actually enjoyed the drifting, but so often time is just frittered away on the computer. (I’ve given up solitaire for Lent which has been a great discipline, but I haven’t managed to bring my need to “just check my emails and have a quick look at facebook” under control.) I think to myself that I would like to go and visit the Museum and Art Gallery in Cardiff (a modest train journey) or to go to the British Museum (rather further, more planning required), but the days pass and I still haven’t done them. I haven’t done a great deal in the way of textile work either – and certainly no “art”. So, surprise, surprise – it wasn’t work stopping me from doing those things; it was me. Lack of drive, lack of commitment, these are the things I’ve always berated myself for, so why should I change just because I’ve retired?

Another thing which has surprised me is that retirement has felt more like an ending than I thought it would. Our move to Bristol, retiring at sixty – these were things that were supposed to mean that retirement would be a new start with lots of lovely things to look forward to, rather than an end. Over the past year there have been several episodes when I have felt I was balanced on the edge of falling into depression. This has both alarmed me (I really don’t want to go there again) and made me angry with myself – it seems so self-indulgent; my life is fine, I have people I love, who love me, I have things to do and things to look forward to, I am not without value – there is nothing to be unhappy about. And yet, and yet... I have come to the shocked conclusion that although it’s not something I believe with the conscious, rational part of me there is a deep subconscious part that has absorbed the prevailing world view that work and economic value are the things that make us worthwhile.

I recently heard an older woman say that she would love to see the northern lights and my inner-meanie said to me “Well that’s not going to happen, is it? She’s too old and she can’t afford it.” And then I felt ashamed and wondered when I started thinking that older people couldn’t have dreams which would never be fulfilled. I suppose a lot of life is about managing expectation – having dreams, but not being unrealistic. Over the years there are many things that we realise we can’t have or do because of money or circumstance or ability and as we get older more of the dreams of our youth have to go on the “never going to happen” pile. So has there been anything good about the past year? Yes, of course, lots of things. I went on a wonderful retreat/reading week at Sheldon, Steve and I enjoyed a brief holiday in Wales and lots of days out during his summer holidays last year. We have seen friends and enjoyed time with family. My days aren't spent entirely aimlessly because I look after our grand-daughters one day a week; I do Stu’s book-keeping, I’m treasurer of Malago WI, we have a weekly meal and discussion of faith issues with a group of friends, I’ve joined a community choir, I read and knit relentlessly and I have done some quilt-making. So actually life is full and rich, it just needs a bit more focus. # Coincidentally, while I have been drafting this post our great friend Si posted a link on facebook to a talk/blog post called Steal like an Artist. There’s some real practical wisdom in there and I am particularly attracted by the advice not to wait until you “know yourself” before you start doing the things you want to do and by the suggestion that you should project the image of the thing you want to be in order to become it. I had a conversation with someone yesterday who asked me if friday is my day off. When I said that I am retired she expressed surprise because “you always look busy and organised”. In the subsequent “what did you do when you were working” exchange she confessed that she had thought I was a psychologist! (I have absolutely no idea why and neither did she seem to). I’m obviously projecting some kind of efficient but empathetic image, which is a comfort I suppose! # I think it’s time I dusted down and resurrected my Fifty before Sixty manifesto and think about a new set of goals and targets. I need to dream some new dreams and make some of them come true. # PS. Blogger is having some serious problems with paragraph spacing at the moment (as others have observed). This is my third attempt at getting paragraphs where I want them to be and I don't hold out that much hope for it being right even now.

patchy progress

2011-02-18T19:03:00.005Z

After what seems a very long time I have managed to get back into my sewing workshop this week. It felt very good to be busy down there again and I've made some progress on a patchwork quilt.

The patterned fabrics are so called "vintage" fabrics from a retro shop in St Ives. I think I recognise them as 1970s bedlinen. The plain fabrics have been mined from my own fabric stash.
Influenced by Jane Brocket's visit to Malago WI last year and her book The Gentle Art of Quiltmaking, I've used a Half Log Cabin design for the squares.

Now that the central patchwork rectangle has been put together I'm just planning to add borders until I decide I've done enough.

faith healer

2011-01-30T12:47:00.005Z

We went to see Faith Healer by Brian Friel at the Bristol Old Vic last night. It’s a powerful piece with several themes: love and friendship, loyalty, what it is to be an artist and, of course, faith. I was struck during the play by the assertion of the character Francis Hardy (the healer in question) that most of the sick people who came to his “performances” were not there in faith; they hadn’t come to be healed. In fact they were there for a sort of despairing last resort – to have their incurability confirmed so that they could finally give up all hope. This idea is picked up in Joe Spence’s programme notes where he says:

“Throughout Faith Healer we are drawn back to the question of what it is to lose faith. It is suggested that people come to the faith healer not for healing through faith, nor even for the prolongation of hope, but for their elimination. The paradox of the human condition is that it is easier to live without faith or hope than to be eternally faithful or hopeful, and therefore always open to betrayal.”

This resonated strongly with me and could be interpreted rather depressingly. For me, however, it seemed somehow positive. It’s an acknowledgement that faith and hope are difficult choices, involving hard work and constant reassessment and recommitment, but nevertheless worth the effort.

As so often happens, these musings were picked up in another context. This Sunday in the church calendar is Candlemas, otherwise known as the Feast of the presentation of Christ in the Temple. Luke’s gospel tells the story of Joseph and Mary taking their young child to be presented at the temple in Jerusalem for the first time. In Jerusalem an old man called Simeon had been waiting many years for the coming of the Messiah. He had received a promise that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah. Finally the long years of faith, hope, prayer and devotion were rewarded by the revelation that this child was indeed the long-awaited Christ. The sermon reminded us what an amazing work of faith Simeon performed in holding on for so many years to a promise that he might have dismissed as imagination or wishful thinking.

I’m a very long way from having that sort of faith, but I do nevertheless take comfort from Simeon’s prayer of praise:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

made in bristol

2011-01-01T18:33:00.014Z

I didn't blog much of my knitting and stitching in2010 and have been reviewing everything I have made over the course of the year. This post has taken me a couple of weeks to write, partly because it's quite long with a lot of pictures, but also because it seems rather boring. By comparison with many of the bloggers I read, I have made very little. However, since the intention of this blog is for my own "makerly" encouragement, I have decided to stick with it - post and bore the pants off them! (Having posted this blog I find that it's dated 1 January, which was when I started it. It was actually finished and posted on 16 January 2011.)

The year started with two projects that should have been made in time for Christmas 2009, but didn't quite meet their deadline.

First Hannah's cowl neck sweater, which doesn't photograph well, but I know has been much worn over the course of the year. The reason it took so long to knit is that it's a strange honeycomb rib made by purling one and then knitting the stitch below. This makes for a lovely cushiony fabric, but takes forever to grow.

Then the lovely Elijah (blogged here) for Rosa.

For Ruth's birthday in March I used some lovely fabric from Fabric Rehab to make an "art-to-go" travelling sketchbook and pencils set. (Previously blogged here).

Later in March after my own birthday I made three quick crochet flower brooches for my lovely daughters who had worked so hard to give me a wonderful party. I didn't photograph them, but they were similar to these, with the addition of pretty buttons bought at the Tobacco Factory Market. These crochet flowers came later in the year when Malago WI had a "learn to crochet" evening and I made up a few samples to show what might be achieved.

I made myself some cosy socks in a soft ethical yarn I had bought in St Ives on our holiday in 2009. I loved them and then felted them beyond use in a 40 degree wash (boo)

For the Southbank Arts Trail last May I made a few felt tea cosies and some coffee pot cosies.

June saw the long awaited completion of my Cortona quilt. (Previously blogged and photographed) and I made little cardigans for the family's newest baby and her older cousin. I've managed somehow not to photograph them.

After that my woodland scarf came off the back burner and was finished in time for scarf weather. This was followed by the alpaca scarf that I started making at the beginning of 2009. Once finished it was admired consistently by daughter no. 2, so I have given it to her - though it is modelled here by her husband F.

I very nearly missed the Christmas deadline again with my final knit of the year. This time it was Ruth's turn for some complicated hand-knitting and I finished the Fiore di Notte armwarmers on Christmas Eve! (This terrible photograph was taken in a great rush on my own arm, before hastily wrapping)

My sewing machine had some serious problems this year and I finally took it to be expensively mended in November. Despite this it managed a few bits and pieces (and I also borrowed R's machine.) The giraffe bag made for D's October birthday

was closely followed by a lion bag for his brother M.
I'm hoping that now it's mended, with a needle that drops correctly onto the fabric below, I will make slightly quicker progress on the quilt I have started to make from fabric I bought when we were in St Ives in 2009. The fabric from a stylish retro shop was designated "vintage", but I balk at describing sheeting I can remember from my teens and twenties as vintage, so I'm trying to think of it as simply recycled!

my year in reading - 2010

2010-12-29T11:03:00.006Z

Forget the 100 books that the BBC thinks most of us won't have read. These are the books that I actually did read this year. As ever, it's not a particularly edifying list - a mixture of old and new; "literary" and trash; mostly fiction; a light dusting of "improving" books. For me, reading is less about learning and improvement and almost entirely about immersing myself in story - being the people, living the lives, exploring the places that one life on this earth (and my cautious nature) will not afford me. As I did last year, I have highlighted the books I particularly enjoyed.
There are a couple here that I thought were particularly terrible, but I'm not going to single them out!

Val McDermid, The Wire in the Blood

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Meera Syal, Anita and Me

E Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means

Penelope Wilcock, The Wounds of God

Jennifer Johnston, The Captains and the Kings

Paul Auster, Travels in the Scriptorium

Wm Paul Young, The Shack

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

John Bell, 10 Things they never told me about Jesus

Mary Lawson, The Other Side of the Bridge

Alexander McCall Smith, The Comfort of Saturdays

Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father

David Lodge, Deaf Sentence

Peter Owen Jones, Letters from an Extreme Pilgrim

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Maeve Binchy, The Copper Beech

Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner's Luck

Elinor Lipman, The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

Jane Brocket, The Gentle Art of Quilt Making

Adrian Plass and Jeff Lucas, Seriously Funny

Arthur Japin, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi

Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

Rose Lynas (ed), Votewise Now

Patricia Cornwell, The Scarpetta Factor

Elizabeth Noble, The Reading Group

Deboragh Moggagh, Smile

Mary Ann Schaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn

Nicola Upson, An Expert in Murder

C P Snow, The Affair

Ian Adams, Cave Refectory Road

Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology

Mitch Albarn, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Alexander McCall Smith, The Lost Art of Gratitude

A S Byatt, The Children's Book

Richard Holloway, Looking in the Distance

Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News?

Agatha Christie, Postern of Fate

Agatha Christie, The Clocks

Chris Stewart, Driving Over Lemons

Julian Barnes, Cross Channel

Madeleine Wickham, The Gatecrasher

Joanna Trollope, The Girl from the South

George Eliot, Silas Marner

Roddy Doyle, Paula Spencer

Anita Shreve, Testimony

Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna

scarf weather

2010-10-12T14:51:00.005+01:00

It's scarf weather and I've finally been able to wear my woodland scarf. It's been on the needles (interspersed with other things) since April last year.

I'm pleased with the result, though it's definitely a scarf whereas the pattern implied a shawl. I will probably get more wear from a scarf and it's lovely and long.

Statistics:

1 skein fyberspates scrumptious lace 2ply, which is a merino/silk blend

3.25mm needles

pattern: Woodland Shawl by Nikol Lohr

reality and unanswerable questions

2010-06-18T13:18:00.003+01:00

As she was drawing the other day, Iris idly asked me “why are we real?” It seemed unfair to ask a three-and-a-half year old to define reality, but I did ascertain that she meant “real” as opposed to dolls and toys. I suppose I could have explained that dolls and toys are real – real plastic and wood and so on, but the difference is that we are living sentient beings. However I didn’t think of it at the time because I accepted that her question was really the more philosophical question – why am I me? It took me straight back to my own childhood wonder at the fact that I was me rather than someone else and to my later questioning of the fact that I had been fortunate to be born in the relatively well off UK as opposed to, say, a poverty-stricken warzone. These are the questions that lead to “who made God?” or “what came before the Big Bang?” I’m afraid I ducked the discussion that we could have had by saying that I didn’t think that any of us really know the answer. Thinking about it since I think my answer was true, if maybe a little unhelpful to a child trying to make sense of her world. Indeed I’m just embarking on a book by Richard Holloway (formerly Bishop of Edinburgh – now largely faithless) Looking in the Distance which explores these very questions. Maybe I’ll be better equipped for the discussion next time!

the photo is one I took on my recent retreat in Devon

comparisons

2010-06-16T14:11:00.009+01:00

Not long after we moved to Bristol an American friend arrived to visit us and memorably (if rather exaggeratedly) enthused "wow, I'm thinking - San Francisco!" I think she must have been treated to a switchback ride on the Bristol hills with their fleeting glimpses up the Avon Gorge to the suspension bridge. There are parts of the riverside in central Bristol which show a distinct homage to Venice. The Granary on Welshback, for example - one of my favourite buildings. (photo copyright Linda Bailey licensed under this Creative Commons License)

I was sitting with a cup of coffee on the harbourside this morning, looking across the water towards the Hotwells and Clifton slopes. I thought that the backs of the houses clinging to the side of the hill behind the new apartments reminded me (a little) of an Italian hill town.
And then I thought - why this constant need for comparison? It's Bristol - and it's great. I love it.

catch up

2010-06-11T04:14:00.006+01:00

A bit of a catch up of finished objects, completed during the past few months.

This is a travelling sketch book set made for Ruth's birthday in March.

And this is Elijah, made for Rosa:

It was his delicious feet that made me fall for the pattern.
And his wise eyes.

finally!

2010-06-08T18:35:00.004+01:00

That's "finally" as in "finally I'm back", but also "finally" as in "finally I've finished my Cortona quilt. It is so called because the design is inspired by some tiles I admired in the church of Santa Margareta in Cortona when we were there on holiday five years ago. The little squares echo a rounded notch in the tiles which makes them look a little like jigsaw pieces. I drew the line at trying to cut and stitch curves! I bought the fabrics and got to work pretty soon after we came back, but putting it together was a pretty fiddly and repetititve business that I could only face in small doses. And to be fair to myself I have completed a lot of other things in the meantime. The photographs don't really do the colour justice - it's a pale sage-y green. The quilt is now in its planned home - on the bed in our spare bedroom where it looks cool and peaceful.

Service will be resumed

2010-03-24T07:54:00.003Z

Very conscious of not posting anything for a very long time. (Not that I imagine anyone's waiting with bated breath!). It's actually not for want of things to blog about - there are a number of Finished Objects that have been photographed and I have had a big and special birthday. The fact is I haven't really been able to concentrate. I am retiring at the end of the month and, although I don't work full-time, most of my random access memory has been consumed by thoughts of handing over the job in a healthy state to my successor, pensions and planning for post-retirement life.

The other barrier to posting is that this computer, which belongs to the office, is fairly new and needs to be passed on to my successor. I have been asked not to get it all clogged up with too much personal stuff, so I'm not uploading photos.

After Easter I'm going on a post-retirement retreat and hope to come back ready for anything!

breakfast

2010-02-07T16:28:00.003Z

I love breakfast. I wake hungry and could never skip breakfast. I really like the fact that these days people go out for breakfast, meet for breakfast, linger over breakfast. Personally I'm not a fan of the Full English which leaves me feeling stodgy and bloated all morning. Most mornings I make myself a modest bowl of porridge with raisins and a banana, or a couple of weetabix with skimmed milk and a banana (heated in the microwave until the milk is hot and the banana takes on a squidgy sweetness). Today I decided to give my breakfast a little more attention. I had been talking with a friend about mindfulness, so today I made and ate my breakfast mindfully. I had a small bowl of lightly spiced apricots with vanilla yogurt and two slices of wholemeal toast with apricot conserve. To draw it all together and make it a minor feast for the senses and the mind I made myself a pot of spicy chai - fragrant with the scents of cinnamon and cardomom. I enjoyed the gentle pace and the flavours and the aroma and the fact that the spices in the tea echoed the spices in the apricots and yogurt and the apricots were repeated in the conserve. A little piece of culinary poetry to start the day!

26 postcards

2010-01-01T10:32:00.006Z

I'm not a great one for New Year Resolutions - they've always seemed a bit fakey and artificial to me, expecting life to change as a result of a particular day in the year.

This year, however, I have got one. I want to keep in touch more with my distant friends. There really are no excuses for not sending the occasional "how are you" email and Facebook makes that kind of casual contact very easy. Not everyone uses Facebook, however, and this Christmas has brought news of really big things in people's lives (the death of a spouse, major surgery for a daughter) that I knew nothing about. In the days when I lived in the same town as these people there was no need of special keeping in touch - we saw each other at the shops, we visited each other's houses, we knew what was going on. Now that we live in different places it has proved harder to keep that awareness of other people's lives.

So this year I will be sending emails to old friends. Some of them will no doubt wonder what has come over me - why do I think they need news of me? In actual fact I will be sending some of my news in the hope that they will reciprocate with some of theirs.

As an additional impetus to my good resolution I have bought myself a diary which includes 26 detachable postcards inserted between the weeks of the year. My plan is to wing off a postcard to someone in my address book every fortnight during the year.

reading list 2009

2009-12-31T10:07:00.007Z

For the first time ever I decided to record what I read this year. As part of my 50 before 60 manifesto I set myself the task of reading at least two books a month, with the additional challenge of making one in five of them something a bit harder – non-fiction or maybe a classic I’d never got round to before. The first part was fairly easy, but I’m not sure that I actually achieved the second part. Although I’m a fairly prolific reader, I’m basically lazy – preferring a story to an intellectual challenge.

It’s a fairly hotch potch list – some of which is almost embarrassing to publish! There’s a fair amount of crime fiction in there which I always turn to when I don’t know what else to go for. There’s at least one book in the list that I can no longer remember reading and a couple that were accidental re-reads, discovering partway through that I had been here before, but couldn’t really remember how it finished. I acquire my reading matter in several different ways – presents, occasionally buying new, sometimes buying second-hand from GreenMetropolis or charity shops, sometimes borrowing from the library. I belong to a reading group, so 8 or 10 books each year are read for discussion; I follow up recommendations from friends and reviews I’ve seen, but charity shop books can turn up some unexpected treasure (as well as a lot of trash). Kat Pomfret’s Paradise Jazz was one such jewel, read late in the year – I’d never heard of her, but found myself beguiled. Others that I enjoyed enough to recommend are highlighted below:

Barbara Kingsolver: Prodigal Summer
Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Penelope Lively: Consequences
Kate Atkinson: Case Histories
Anne Tyler: The Accidental Tourist
Melvyn Bragg: Credo
Anne Tyler: A Patchwork Planet
Tom Wright: Surprised by Hope
Stef Penney: The Tenderness of Wolves
Sebastian Barry: The Secret Scripture
Whitney Otto: How to make an American Quilt
Peter Robinson: Playing with Fire
Lillian Harry: Dance Little Lady
Iain Pears: An Instance of the Fingerpost
Barbara Vine: The Chimney Sweeper's Boy
Stieg Larssen: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Gail Godwin: Father Melancholy's Daughter
Dan Rhodes: Gold
Barbara Trapido: Brother of the More Famous Jack
John Drane: Do Christians Know How to be Spiritual
Sophie Parkin: All grown up
Barbara Trapido: The Travelling Hornplayer
Jill Dawson: The Great Lover
Cecilia Aherne: Thanks for the Memories
D S & M Linn: Sleeping with Bread
Libby Purves: Shadow Child
Bella Pollen: Chasing Unicorns
Joanne Harris: The Lollipop Shoes
Rob Bell: Velvet Elvis
Debra Adelaide: The Household Guide to Dying
Bella Pollen: Midnight Cactus
Michael Dibdin: The End Times
Guillermo Martinez: The Oxford Murders
Iain Pears: Giotto's Hand
Jamila Gavin: Coram Boy
Lauren Weisberger: The Devil Wears Prada
Sebastian Faulks: Engleby
Chris Sunderland: The Dream that inspired the Bible
John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany
Paulo Coelho: The Pilgrimage
Rosie Thomas: A Simple Life
Sarah Harrison: Heaven's on Hold
Kat Pomfret: Paradise Jazz
Ian Rankin (Jack Harvey): Bleeding Hearts

birthday boy

2009-11-10T18:02:00.006Z

Dan had his second birthday while we were on holiday so we were able to give him his presents in person. This little tank top was a quick knit I made for him.

You can't see it clearly, but it has a cross stitch detail around the neck and armholes. Had to do a bit of fudging as the pattern was for four-ply and I had double knitting. After some higher maths with the calculator I knitted it as if for the three-month size as far as stitch number was concerned. I'm not sure if it's the pattern or the modifications, but the neckline seems rather deep - giving a slightly "off the shoulder" look. Anyway, he looks gorgeous.

And no, I didn't expect him to be excited that Granny had made him a lovely handknit - we did give him a little trike too!

Photo credits - Alice

st ives

2009-11-02T09:43:00.007Z

Just back from a week in our favourite place – a wonderful apartment overlooking Porthmeor Beach in St Ives.

On the first Saturday of half term four households converged to become one big family. This was a trip to celebrate Steve’s and my 60th birthdays. Our ages are actually separated by just over a year, but this was a convenient mid-point in time to get the tribe together for a lovely holiday.

Everyone took turns to cook, so we ate well and copiously! According to our tastes we variously, walked, played on the beach, flew a kite, dug in the sand, visited the Tate, read our books, played Scrabble, did crosswords, lounged about, knitted, baked cakes and bread, shopped, photographed and blogged. The latter was Steve, who photographed and blogged obsessively all week and can be read in more detail here!

A highlight was the evening surprise when we were taken down to the beach after dark. Once there, little nightlight lanterns which the children had helped to make were lit, cava was popped open and drunk and two fantastic sky lanterns were sent sailing over the ocean taking all our prayers and wishes for the future with them.

A lovely week, to be savoured in memory.

photo credits: Steve and Felix

another finished object

2009-10-17T09:41:00.005+01:00

I have finally managed to take some pictures of the little cardigan I made for Iris’s third birthday.
Cute.

I am pleased with it.

These terrible pictures were taken on my phone in a café and I was also being entertained by a story about how her two little mice hop into her cup of tea. This was dramatised with much expressive eye-rolling, nostril-flaring and general "well-would-you-believe-it! the-things-they-get-up-to" facial gymnastics. No wonder I couldn’t hold the camera still.

And by the way – my hair was that colour when I was little. I was never allowed to wear pink because it "clashed".

Knitting statistics: Pattern "Hawaii" by Sublime Yarns, recently reprinted in Let's Knit July issue. I used Patons Diploma Gold DK, which is inexpensive and machine-washable.

gothic melodrama

2009-09-21T17:55:00.006+01:00

Finally another finished object to blog about.

This shawl was a secret as it was a 50th birthday present for a good friend. I had pursued one idea for a while before realising that I was making something that I wanted rather than what would suit my friend D, so had to do some hasty pattern-trawling on ravelry and hunting for lovely yarn. I reckoned that crochet would make it quicker than knitting, which is probably true, but lace-weight yarn in a complex pattern grows pretty slowly whatever technique you use!

Eventually settled on Annette Petavy’s lovely Arrows pattern and chose 100% silk yarn, Glister, from Skein Queen in colourway "Gothic Melodrama".

I started it mid-July and presented it when we all met up for a birthday lunch in September. D is someone who really appreciates handcrafts and I was pretty confident that the colours I had gone for were "her", but it’s always pretty nerve-wracking handing over something so personal. She would never be so rude as to let me think she didn’t like something I made for her, but I think I got it right!

The photo colours are a bit hit and miss. The picture of the skein of yarn is pretty accurate of how it looks in daylight. If I were to do this pattern again I would use a semi-solid coloured yarn rather than the multi-colours as it would show off the pattern motifs better.

change of plan

2009-08-12T13:18:00.004+01:00

Last Thursday Steve and I set out to visit Hidcote Manor Gardens – I was hugely impressed by these beautiful gardens when we visited years ago and we fancied a return visit now that we have rejoined the National Trust.
However, as we approached the M5, electronic signs were warning of long delays between J15-14 because of an accident. With only minutes to re-plan the route we stayed on the M4 and found ourselves well on our way to the Severn Bridge. By the time we stopped at Aust Services to look properly at the map together, Steve suggested that we’d come so far that we might as well carry on and visit Cardiff, which was one of the destinations on his list of things to do this summer.
So it turned into a different kind of day out – a city day instead of a garden visit. We had heard lots of good things about Cardiff’s regeneration particularly around the seafront, so headed for Cardiff Bay. I’m afraid we found it decidedly underwhelming and after wandering for half an hour headed for the city proper. There we visited the castle - with some trepidation, fearing that touristification would have spoiled it. We loved it and felt we really got our money’s worth (with his over-60 bus pass Steve went in as a "senior" teehee). The entrance price includes an audio-guide (narrated by the lovely Huw Edwards) which I used liberally but Steve refused to touch with a bargepole. The castle has roman walls (only rediscovered in the 19th century), a medieval keep and baillie and a newer castle block. The latter has real wow factor when you climb the stairs and find yourself inside a Victorian gothic fantasy of the romance of the middle ages – one of the small dining rooms with its gilded angel mantel-supports felt like being inside a fairground pipe-organ!
After that there was only time for a cup of tea in Howell’s Department Store before setting off for home. Ironically we then got caught in severe traffic delays because of roadworks at the Cardiff end and the Balloon Fiesta at the Bristol end and took the best part of three hours to get home! Maybe we’ll try Hidcote again this week.

what would banksy do?

2009-07-28T12:10:00.005+01:00

As we queued for the banksy exhibition in bristol this morning I watched a cheerful big issue seller working his way along the line. He was met with the usual range of reactions from tolerant amusement through being completely ignored to irritation. (To be fair, this was a fairly genial queue and there wasn't any animosity.) I was suddenly struck that anyone in the queue or watching it, including the big issue seller, could be banksy - we could be entertaining banksy unawares! And then I thought, um - sounds familiar...

star chart - final instalment

2009-07-16T20:57:00.007+01:00

Here's the update on the rest of my 50 before 60 manifesto:
33. Continue to explore faith and doubt with my spiritual director: still doing this regularly; in fact I saw her today.
34. Do work filing once a month instead of a marathon when life becomes impossible: have definitely got better at this, but there's a bit of a pile at the moment - this is a good reminder.
35. Make a simnel cake: Yes, did this and reported on it here.
36. Go to cinema once a month: started well on this, but have lapsed of late. There hasn’t been much that appealed to me and there’s no point just going for the sake of it.
37. Finish my "cortona" quilt: I’ve been working on this.
39. Make a range of "earth friendly" cotton shopping bags for the Arts Trail: Yes, did this – reported here.
41. Have a pedicure: this didn’t turn out quite as planned, but Ruth suggested that we should have mutual footcare evenings. She’s having difficulty reaching her feet because of advanced pregnancy and I struggle too because of stiff joints and avoirdupois, so it’s worked out well and means that my feet are getting regular treatment rather than just a one-off.
42. Write up detailed job notes for my successor at work: not started this, but have started talking and planning for the changeover.
48. Reawaken my interest in wildflowers and foster my granddaughter’s existing interest in flowers by teaching her the names of wildflowers and collecting some to press: we have done a little bit of this and started a scrap book.

curious

2009-07-08T17:43:00.003+01:00

Recently I’ve been taking morning walks based around the Avon New Cut. It’s a sort of wildlife corridor in an otherwise urban piece of Bristol and there’s a choice of foot and road bridges to vary my walk.
On one stretch of the walk along Cumberland Road I have been puzzled to see several of these:
Plants with little plastic bags placed over the flower heads. I’ve notice four or five of them I think and the bags are on several flower heads on each plant, but not all of them. They seem to be identified with numbers and red dots. What are they for? I’m guessing some kind of research, but what and why?

I think the plant is ragwort, which is highly poisonous to cattle and horses. Not a particular problem where this is situated, but I’d love to know why they’ve been bagged. It could be groundsel which is the same family apparently; I'm not sure. However, I am very curious. Does anyone have any ideas? (Poor quality photos from my phone, I'm afraid)

star chart two

2009-07-07T19:27:00.004+01:00

OK, here's the second instalment of my 50 before 60 progress:

15. Increase loft insulation: this is definitely on the shopping list.

16. Grow some vegetables and herbs: YES! This has been a great experience and we are eating salad leaves from the garden and strawberries and generally watching everything get green and lovely.
17. Take part in Earth Abbey’s GrowZone: I reported on this in May. It was just brilliant and such a great kick-start for the garden. It also means that I’m not being too discouraged by the things that are failing. Quite a number of things have just been demolished by pests and in the past I would just have gone – oh, I can’t do that then, but the group is providing encouragement to put that down to experience and plan for the next harvest.
18. Start a wormery: not done yet, but I have talked to one son-in-law about creating one and am also hoping to do a permaculture course in the autumn which includes stuff about creating wormeries.
19. Make bread once a week: I’m not up to speed on this one, largely because the bread I was making with the Magimix wasn’t turning out that well. A hand-kneaded loaf last week was great, so I’ll have to do a few more of those.
20. Take grandchildren on the miniature railway at Ashton Court: not yet, but maybe when Alice comes down with Dan in August.
22. Read two books a month: This I have achieved quite easily and have very much enjoyed giving myself permission to read lots. I have been recording titles and authors and already looking back can’t remember some of the books I’ve read. Does this mean they were unmemorable, that my memory is bad, or that I should be writing "book notes" as well?
23. One book in five to be a challenge of some kind – maybe a non-fiction book or a classic I’ve never got round to: I’m just about achieving this, but as I said in no. 9 I struggle with anything that isn’t a "story".
26. Conquer lace knitting: this is on my needles at the moment and I’m loving it.

Decided to start with a straightforward rectangular shape rather than the triangular shawl with complicated stitch markers that I was trying last year.
27. Use the screen printing equipment I bought two years ago: well I’ve got it out of the box and used it, but can’t claim to have done anything very special.

star chart

2009-07-05T13:55:00.010+01:00

I’ve had really rather a rubbish week, which has left me feeling bad about myself. I don’t cope well with hot weather and although I’ve been dutifully sitting at my computer most days with the intention of working, I’ve got to the end of each session with very little to show for it and a sense of failure. I therefore decided that I needed to review how I am getting on with the 50 before 60 challenge to give myself a sense of achievement (stars on my chart!).

So here’s a report on the items that have made some progress. I’m doing a few at a time to make the blog posts a more manageable size and the numbers are the numbers used for the original list.

1. Visit Cambridge: this is booked! We’re having a few days in Cambridge and Southwold in August.
2. St Ives holiday with all the family to celebrate our 60th birthdays: this has been booked for about two years! Everyone’s really looking forward to it although we know it will be a challenge with so many small children in unfamiliar beds.
4. Make a daisy chain: I did this for Iris recently and here’s the picture to prove it!

5. Increase exercise to 10,000 steps per day: I haven’t quite achieved this, but I have started doing a 40-50 minute walk 4 mornings a week and increasing my exercise generally.
6. Reduce BMI to a healthy level: Again, not achieved (it’s a long-term project), but I am working on it. I had got really quite worried about my health – not really feeling "well"; breathless, head-achey, hips and knees very painful, funny lights and flashes in front of my eyes – so took myself off to doc and got tested for blood pressure, diabetes, thyroid function, sticky blood, cholesterol. Everything came back fine, but still left me needing to lose quite a bit of weight. As a veteran of WeightWatchers and Slimming World I’m very familiar with the yo-yo scenario – lose weight, put it back on again, lose weight… (you get the picture), so I presented rather a defeatist face to the GP. She was just lovely! Very encouraging; talked about "cycles of change", changing one or two things at a time and encouraging exercise. So I’ve been trying to control my portion sizes, have joined an online diet forum and getting out on the aforementioned walks.
7. Find a tai chi, yoga or pilates class: Yes. I’ve joined a yoga class at the Community Centre around the corner and I’m enjoying it.
8. Practise meditation every day: not every day, but I’m trying
9. Learn more about meditation and other spiritual exercises: One thing I’m doing towards this is going on a conference next weekend organised by Stillpoint in Oxford. Martin Laird has written a book about Christian meditation called Into the Silent Land, which I have tried and failed to read (I am so bad at reading anything other than fiction), so I’m hoping that the man in person will be inspiring.
10. Keep a thankfulness diary: hmm, I do this in fits and starts.

That's the first little chunk. It has already had the desired effect of making me realise that I do get things done one step at a time and sometimes life is rubbish and you have to go with it.

gasworks choir

2009-05-18T13:19:00.004+01:00

Steve and I don't normally make parallel posts, but we've done it two days running now! We went yesterday afternoon to listen to the Gasworks Choir performing at St Michael & All Angels Church in Gloucester Road. Our friend Gareth was singing and that was our reason for going, but I think I can say that we will be Gasworks Groupies from now on! It was exuberant, colourful and joyful and importantly for me I could hear and understand what was going on. In recent times I have had some very disappointing experiences at concerts because of my hearing loss so it was wonderful to go to something that I could completely engage with.

like ground force - but much more fun

2009-05-16T16:08:00.006+01:00

Our garden got the growzone treatment today! Growzones are an initiative of Earth Abbey to encourage a group in our area to start growing food in our back gardens and allotments. Steve has previously blogged about growzones and so has Gareth and today was our turn. Some of the gardens we have visited are quite substantial; ours is tiny – about 5m square and I would never have thought we could grow veg in it until I started to hear about permaculture.

In the space of three hours this morning eight people did a huge amount of work. A large pyrocantha bush was cut down and shredded preparatory to creating a veg bed just outside the back door.

On the other side of the garden pavers were lifted to expose the soil and then re-laid to create a small wall edging for a raised bed. This was then filled with manure, compost and topsoil ready for planting.

Three strips of guttering were attached to the wall to create salad beds.

And down in the basement light well a water collection system was set up.

It was all enormous fun and we enjoyed a very sociable lunch together afterwards. This would simply never have happened if it had been left to Steve and me, but because we all got together to help each other we have all benefited. I can’t express how pleased and excited I am by it all. I have planted up the raised bed with stuff I have grown from seed: peas, courgettes, tomatoes, swiss chard and have popped some shallots in there as well.

There are still some tomatoes and chillies to go in and our bag grown potatoes are looking very healthy.

Thank you Bruce, Chris, Bobby, Sara, Alan and Elaine!

copy cat

2009-05-01T19:56:00.003+01:00

I'm such a copy cat! I noticed that Roobeedoo was making the Simple yet Effective shawl and she directed our eyes here to the one that Soulemama made. I loved it. I wanted it. I asked for the yarn for my birthday. Hey presto! Here's my Simple yet Effective.

It has to be said, that it's on the small side - dainty really, but gorgeous yarn and lovely to work.

And while I'm doing show and tell, don't you just love that acid green euphorbia?

learning to love you more

2009-04-29T19:12:00.006+01:00

I need to start this post by explaining that several months ago I did something I had never expected to do - I joined the WI. A friend mentioned that a new group was starting in my area and did I fancy going along to see what it was like. I mentioned it to daughter R and she had heard about it too and decided to come along as well. It turned out to be a very well attended and lively meeting, with a committee of enthusiastic 30-somethings. Having been very much a rural/market town sort of organisation it seems that the day of the urban WI is dawning.

Anyhow, that preamble is to introduce the fact that Malago WI are taking part in the SouthBank Arts Trail and to make it easy for a disparate, not necessarily arty, group of women to take part they have adopted the Learning to Love you More website. This is the brainchild of artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher, who have put together a series of assignments that anyone can carry out. I have chosen the task "Make an encouraging banner"and have had a lot of fun putting it together using hand-made felt. After the exhibition's over I may actually hang it on the garden fence to encourage all the veg growing I'm planning to do!

The heading picture is a close-up of the lovely soft, woolly, felt

earth friendly bags

2009-04-19T15:18:00.004+01:00

Over the past few weeks I have made a pile of "earth friendly" shopping bags as an alternative to the plastic that is offered to us in most shops. These are my (so called) "artistic" offering for the SouthBank Arts Trail this year. The work stems from my desire to do my tiny little bit for our tired abused planet and is part of the aspirations set out in my 50 before 60 birthday manifesto. It also means that I have to become better informed about the environmental impact of plastic on the planet and, indeed, the environmental impact of making bags from commercially produced fabrics.

To this end I have been looking at plasticbagfree.com the website of Modbury in South Devon, where all the town's traders have committed to being plastic bag free. The campaign is inspired by Rebecca Hosking a wildlife film-maker who has seen for herself the damage that discarded plastics are doing to marine animals. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there, but particularly relevant to me is her warning that the alternatives to plastic bags are not necessarily environmentally friendly either.

I can’t guarantee the environmental credentials of all the fabrics I have used, but all the bags are made from remnants, offcuts or recycled clothes/bedlinen which has to be a tiny step in the right direction.

simnel cake

2009-04-17T17:40:00.004+01:00

As planned, I made a simnel cake for our Easter celebrations. I haven't made one for years and was pleased with the result from this Good Housekeeping recipe. I cheated with ready-made marzipan which had been in the freezer since Christmas and was probably the inspiration for the whole thing. It was rather a lurid yellow, but after toasting under the grill that didn't really matter. The layer of marzipan in the middle of the cake stayed in the right place during baking and provided a delicious layer of unctuous, almondy stickiness. As I had been off cake, biscuits and puds for lent this was quite special for me! (It has all been eaten.)

stillpoint

2009-04-10T05:03:00.006+01:00

Yesterday we went to an exhibition in Oxford organised by Stillpoint. 14 contemporary artists had been asked to make their own interpretation of the stations of the cross. The result is a strong, inspiring exhibition. It's at the Jam Factory until 16 April and I recommend it.

I was particularly taken by a piece by Alan Ramsey, which consisted of two panels completely covered in London Underground tickets and incorporating the artist's words about Jesus's silence under trial. I copied down the words and later realised that they work as a poem in their own right. I hope the artist will not object to me reproducing them here.

IF YOU HADN’T STAYED SILENT
(Jesus on trial)

If you hadn’t stayed silent
I’d never have grown up
I’d never have asked a single decent question
I’d never have seen that woman quietly sobbing
I’d never have laughed about my new coat with those Spanish girls
I’d never have obeyed the tannoy on 7/7
I’d never have heard my darkness on Old Street
I’d never have talked Bonhoeffer with that friendly American
I’d never have tasted the claustrophobia on my tongue
I’d never have hummed that lame little chorus to myself
I’d never have gone to meet her at Sloane Square
All the journeys
would have been
the same
We’re always telling you to speak up
We’re always slapping you around
Explain yourself
Bet you can’t guess who hit you?
Me.
I like it that you’re a quiet sort of person
Word and no word
I can’t imagine you babbling on and on
If you hadn’t stayed silent
I’d never love your kiss
more than prophesies or answers
I’d never want to keep playing
this brilliant hide and seek faith-game
I’d never ache
to see the light again

birthday list

2009-03-09T18:22:00.006Z

No, not a list of the presents I want! This list is about a different kind of hope.

Some time ago my friend Gai blogged about the 49 things she wants to do before she’s 50. I found it a very inspiring list - a mixture of treats, challenges, resolutions and plans; things that can be ticked off in one go and things to incorporate into regular life. I thought I’d have a go at my own list. Trouble is I’m ten years older than G, so I decided to make it 50 things to do before I’m 60. It’s my birthday this week, so I’ve got a year to do all the things on my list.

I well remember that after I passed my fiftieth birthday I got a bit gloomy, feeling that there wasn’t much to look forward to, just the downhill slope towards old age. In fact that was untrue, the past nine years have brought lots of wonderful experiences, including a major move to a different part of the country, a lifestyle shift and the birth of three grandchildren. But I know that in my low moments I can lose sight of the good things and forget what it is that I enjoy doing. So this list is to remind me of all the stuff I have to look forward to and remind me that I can still make a contribution to the world.

Visit Cambridge
St Ives holiday with all the family to celebrate our 60th birthdays
Walk (part of) the Kennet and Avon canal
Make a daisy chain
Increase exercise to 10,000 steps per day
Reduce BMI to a healthy level
Find a tai chi, yoga or pilates class
Practise meditation every day
Learn more about meditation and other spiritual exercises
Keep a thankfulness diary
Plan a retreat
Take some kind of pre-retirement course or life coaching
Reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill
Where reasonable, avoid buying plastic
Increase loft insulation
Grow some vegetables and herbs
Take part in Earth Abbey’s GrowZone
Start a wormery
Make bread once a week
Take grandchildren on the miniature railway at Ashton Court
See theatre regularly
Read two books a month
One book in five to be a challenge of some kind – maybe a non-fiction book or a classic I’ve never got round to
Go to a couple of major exhibitions (maybe in London)
Give myself a weekly treat
Conquer lace knitting
Use the screen printing equipment I bought two years ago
Take an art or textile course
Get my Central Park embroidery professionally framed
Get properly fitted for a bra at Rigby & Peller
Clear cupboards and recycle junk
Learn how to make an egg custard with confidence
Continue to explore faith and doubt with my spiritual director
Do work filing once a month instead of a marathon when life becomes impossible
Make a simnel cake
Go to cinema once a month
Finish my "cortona" quilt
Research what I need to do to complete my OU degree
Make a range of "earth friendly" cotton shopping bags for the Arts Trail
Finish my mother’s florentine canvaswork. This was started in the 1960s. It’s never going to be the rug that was originally intended as some of the wool has run out, but could be a substantial floor cushion
Have a pedicure
Write up detailed job notes for my successor at work
Start an Etsy or Folksy shop to sell my handmade items
Apply for my bus pass, so I can go on jolly jaunts on local buses around the country
Get an indigo vat going and do some dyeing
Invite someone else to join in the fun of indigo dyeing
Try to save up some money to get my grandmother’s old armchairs reupholstered
Reawaken my interest in wildflowers and foster my granddaughter’s existing interest in flowers by teaching her the names of wildflowers and collecting some to press
Sort out the hopeless tangle that is my "jewellery box" and put things neatly (if temporarily) in nice new boxes in tidy little compartments
Make another list ready for next year!

cousins

2009-02-27T09:19:00.004Z

I have been pondering the cousin relationship for a while.

My first cousins were very important to me when I was a child. Although they were quite a lot older, they lived in the same town and we saw them regularly. They obviously enjoyed having a younger child to take care of and we remained close throughout my growing up. As adults we all moved to different parts of the country (different parts of the world even) and my middle cousin died of cancer when she was 35. These days we only seem to meet up for family events - weddings and funerals, but they are still family and those ties remain.

Steve also has a wide extended family of first cousins who were much the same age and has memories of Christmases where they all bunked down on the floor at his grandparents' house, family trips to Wales, cricket on the beach.

So we were sad for our own girls growing up without cousins. Eventually Steve's brother and his wife had twin daughters, but our girls were well into teenage and we only saw them once or twice a year, so although they are fond of them they regard them as a different generation and don't really feel they know them well.

Now I'm wondering how it will be for our grandchildren. So far there are three of them, aged between 16 months and 3 years in two separate families. Very close in age, but separated by 160 miles. How will their cousinly relationships develop? This week Alice has been visiting with Dan and we all spent a lot of time together. The first day Dan and Iris hardly engaged with each other at all - Dan was feeling very insecure away from home and Iris was feeling very threatened by this small boy she was expected to share toys and attention with. But the second day they relaxed a little and started to play together. The photo captures the moment when they actually gave each other a hug and a kiss.

say goodbye

2009-02-14T09:49:00.005Z

to the little lacy number.

This was a lovely knit and heavenly yarn to work with, but it just never suited me. This is the major disadvantage to hand knitting - never being quite sure how something will turn out. I fell in love with the pattern long before I ever geared up to the expense of buying the yarn and thought that the ribbed section at the waist would give shape and elegance. Sadly on me that waisted area fell below my waistline and the resultant effect was to make me look lumpen and far from elegant. Having persisted and worn it a few times last summer I reached the conclusion that I was never going to feel right wearing it. I felt grieved for all the work and expense that had been put into it. But then I took courage and ....

frogged it!

Then the gentle healing process of dipping the skeins into warm water and swirling them around watching the tight curls relax and give up their memory of being stitches.

Laborious hours of winding later I now have balled yarn ready to go.

This time I will probably knit the garter slip stitch jacket from February's Knitting magazine.

The shape is loose and casual - hopefully more forgiving, and with any luck should be a speedy knit.

25 random things

2009-02-11T09:06:00.008Z

The 25 random things meme has been tagging its way around facebook for a while now. After I had been tagged twice I thought I'd better give it a go. It turned out to be easier than I thought as one idea led to another. Then I remembered that last summer I had been tagged here on blogger by Just Gai to come up with six things about me and ducked it. So, in the spirit of re-use, recyle, reduce (well maybe not reduce) I am reproducing my list of 25 here. I haven't got a huge blog circle, but I think I may tag a couple of people whose blogs I read, but don't know in person.

I had a very bad squint as a small child. As a result I never developed binocular vision. I had four operations to correct the squint when I was 5, 6, 7 & 8. I am very grateful that something could be done for my eyesight as reading and needlework are such an important part of my life.
I’ve always been a bookworm. When I was a child my friends used to hide their comics before I went round to play!
Being a mother to our three lovely daughters has been my best achievement.
I grew up in a nominally christian family and made my own commitment to christian faith at the age of 15. Since then my faith has taken a variety of different forms, but has never completely deserted me. I wrestle continuously with faith and doubt. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and think the whole thing is barking mad, but at others it is a source of great comfort.
I have a very sweet tooth and can easily eat condensed milk straight from the can with a spoon.
I’m very untidy. I think this is because my mind is dashing on to the next activity before I’ve finished what I’m doing.
I wish I had carried on with A level maths. I was talked out of it because I was planning to apply to study French at University.
I’m frightened of old age. My father had dementia and my mother had a neurological condition that robbed her of language relatively young. Equally, I have no desire to die young – I’m too interested in finding out what my children and grandchildren are getting up to. I aspire to being a healthy and still intelligent old woman like my maternal grandmother who lived until she was 101.
I am completely uninterested in sport of all descriptions, especially team games.
I did actually once win a race. It was a three-legged race with my best friend at primary school. We disproved the theory that you need to be well matched in size to do well at this event. I was a good deal smaller than her in both height and weight. Neither of us was particularly athletic, but we did practise. I tucked myself in under her armpit and we had practised starting together on the middle leg and staying in stride; so we powered up the track while all the athletic, well-matched pairs who had been winning the individual sprint races tripped over each other’s feet and fell over and shouted at each other.
My mother taught me dressmaking when I was fairly young and I made a lot of my own clothes during my teenage years. We used my grandmother’s old hand powered sewing machine which stitched everything so tightly that it couldn’t be undone.
I love all textile pursuits. I learned to knit when I was about six and a lovely neighbour, called Mrs Turner, taught me to crochet a couple of years later. I got to know her because she had a lovely mongrel dog called Sally and I wanted to be allowed to take her for walks.
Discovering the world of contemporary embroidery and textile art in the early nineties was a real epiphany for me. In a family where I was intimidated by the considerable drawing talents of my husband and daughters it was wonderful to discover my own means of expression.
We used to visit my grandmother every Tuesday. When I was little I used to get bored with adult conversation over the lunch table and I disappeared into my own dark mysterious world under the chenille tablecloth. This is where I first smelled real coffee brewing in Gran’s spirit-burner Cona machine. Although I love coffee I have always thought that the smell is better than the taste.
I love the sight of allotments on the edges of towns and villages, there’s something very appealing about their tumble-down, messy orderliness and the evidence of so much industry.
I was born and grew up in Lichfield, Staffordshire, which is pretty much as far from the sea as you can get in any direction in England.
Over the past 37 years I have accumulated almost enough credits for an Open University degree. When I retire I’ll give it one last push and finish it!
I love crosswords and sudoku.
When I was 11 I wanted to be a vet. Thank GOODNESS I got talked out of it!
I need to spend time alone. I’m an introvert and naturally cautious, but nevertheless I love spending time with larger-than-life, try-anything-once friends.
People think I’m calm and serene, but they can’t see my feet paddling under the surface.
Steve and I will have been together for 40 years in October this year. On the face of it we don’t seem very compatible (if you compare his 25 things with mine!), but we have shared values and the differences in our personalities complement each other. Clearly, love conquers all!
I used to collect and press wild flowers with my mother. It’s something I would like to do with my grand-daughter.
I am living proof of the theory that "Dieting Makes you Fat". Despite numerous and frequent diet regimes I have managed to gain at least a stone in each decade of my adult life. This is not something I am proud of.
Self-deprecation comes to me as naturally as breathing and I have had to make a real effort not to make this list a litany of my faults and failings.

I'm tagging:

Flutter-by

Poshyarns

Roobeedoo

photo-montage of me aged about 3, 16 and 18

marmalade

2009-01-27T22:52:00.002Z

Just look at this gorgeous amber confection! I've made 18 jars of it. Bet Steve eats his way through it in about four months.

elegant ladies

2009-01-16T18:34:00.003Z

I've been getting such pleasure from these beautiful amaryllis. They grow so fast and bloom so dramatically. I bought these in Ikea of all places in early December. My normal preference for colour is a definite shade like the red, but I'm so glad I got the pale one as well - that pinky blush is so delicate and lovely.

holiday pursuits

2009-01-04T14:50:00.014Z

Since returning home from a very jolly and convivial Christmas in Leyland we have had a very lazy and lovely week - the best rest and recuperation I have had in years. I realised about ten days before Christmas that I hadn't had a great deal of "proper" holiday during the year. Working part-time from home means always being able to catch a few hours work here and there, which sometimes leads people to imagine I'm on holiday all the time, but frequently means that when I am supposed to be having a break I'm still regularly checking emails and looking at the bank balance online. So I decided to take the rest of my year's holiday allowance in one shot - two full weeks from 22 December. The few days before Christmas were a bit of a scramble as we had to sort the house out for visitors staying while we were away. All the stuff from the studio was still in the dining room in the aftermath of the December Exhibition so it was quite a big deal and we were exhausted, but it did us a favour really because it meant we returned after Christmas to an immaculate house and could just flop.

This was exactly what we did and I've spent quite a bit of time on the sofa under a quilt watching rubbish telly or reading.

I've done some knitting. Mostly working on a scarf in the alpaca wool I bought back in the summer. It's quite a slow knit because it's k1, p1 rib and needs close attention to the chart for the placing of the double cable twists, but I'm enjoying the results.

Trying to make up my mind whether to leave the natural colour, or to dye it - it may end up in an indigo vat during the summer.

Also did a very rapid knit project to make myself some wrist warmers. Quite a few of my cardigans have three-quarter length sleeves or open bell-ended sleeves and I've found a chilly gap between glove and sleeve-end even under a winter coat. So, in preparation for our new year's day walk, I made these. I had 72g of yarn, so had to keep weighing as I went along so that I didn't use too much up on the first wrist. Worked well and did the job.

My other creative activity was also in the interest of keeping warm - a draught excluder for the front door made out of an old jeans' leg and stuffed with old socks and tights. It still needs a bit more stuffing before I close off the end, but is already in service. This had the added benefit of forcing me to sort out my socks and tights drawer.

Also had the opportunity to sort out all my knitting needles into the pockets on the gorgeous bag Ruth has made for me.

There are flapped pockets both sides and a ring binder inside to store all my patterns - bliss!

Then there was the Christmas jigsaw - a fiendish optical illusion from my sister. I mostly did the straight edges and Steve filled in the middle! I was a bit bothered by the fact that the illustration of the puzzle is circular and the puzzle itself is square - an illusion indeed!

It wasn't all lolling around, though. We included a healthy sprinkling of social activity as well - time spent with family on a couple of days, new year's eve with friends, a new year's day walk and meal with other friends and a walk on an icy beach yesterday.

whose grand-daughter would line up her satsuma like this?

2008-11-04T13:33:00.007Z

Little Miss Low had two satsumas for lunch today. The first one she lined up with the sections all facing the same way. The second one was lined up like this, with the sections arranged around a central point of symmetry. Given that Mr B recently blogged about his obsessive list-making, I think that something genetic could be going on.
She also insisted that all the "ends" be pulled off because "I don't like to eat them".

lace knitting - gah!

2008-10-26T13:25:00.006Z

When I first started looking at knitting sites and knitting blogs I noticed that a lot of knitters favour lace knitting and produce lovely shawls and scarves. At the time I thought – no, this is not for me, anything finer than double knitting is just too fiddly for me, especially as I generally have to reduce my needles by two sizes to get the correct gauge. Then I realised that lace knitting may be a fine yarn, but it is knitted on larger than expected needles (and gauge for a shawl isn’t crucial) and I also discovered the wonderful world of beautiful hand-dyed and hand-painted yarns. At the Knitting and Stitching Show this year I was seduced by a gorgeous skein of Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace in a pretty lettuce-y green. I chose Swallowtail as my pattern and even had a friend in mind as the eventual recipient of my work.

However, it turns out I was right – it IS too fiddly for me. I have had five attempts at getting started, keep ending up with the wrong number of stitches and it’s all too fine and fiddly to identify my mistakes. I think I will come back to it next summer when there are longer hours of daylight to knit in, but for now all that frogging is beginning to damage the yarn, so it will be put on hold.
Meanwhile I have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous and am knitting an eco string bag on big fat needles.

sad

2008-10-21T13:57:00.001+01:00

I’m feeling sad. It has been a sad year: several deaths; major surgery and long stays in hospital; bad news about unborn babies; extreme weather conditions; work and financial worries; and relentless grey, wet weather. All of the above (apart from the wet weather) have been at second or even third hand, not my personal tragedies, but I’ve spent a lot of this year sympathising/empathising with or worrying about people I love and now I feel sad.
I can be a bit of a pollyanna – searching for the silver lining, looking on the bright side, urging people not to be gloomy, but sometimes I think it is appropriate to recognise that life has been tough of late and to acknowledge all that sadness in other people’s lives and mine too. I won’t dwell on it for long – we’re going to a wedding at the weekend, good stuff is happening as well – but just for today I’m not going to push the bad feelings away.
Note: this is not a bid for sympathy from the cyber world – just a statement of how it is.

manx loaghtan

2008-10-17T14:32:00.003+01:00

Knitting yarn from the Sheldon flock of rare Manx Loaghtan sheep. I bought this natural, undyed yarn when I was on retreat at Sheldon in May. It’s a slightly uneven, rather rustic yarn and it took a while deciding what to knit as I realised that my 500g pack was not going to be enough for a big sweater. In the end I went for a cardigan/jacket, knitting the sleeves from the top down so that I knew how long I could risk making them without running out of wool.

The ball-band says "knit as double knitting" though it looked and felt rather more like aran to me. My knitting tension never matches pattern requirements anyway so I decided to play around with needle sizes and see how it knitted up and then work from there (ended up using 5mm). I decided this was going to be my first venture into creating my own garment without a pattern and that I was going to make something to fit ME rather than some idealised size. After the gauge experiments the next step was taking my own measurements, which was a bit sobering as I realised that shaping to go in at the waist was not going to be one of my requirements. I went for a shape that would give plenty of ease around hip and belly while fitting more closely around bust and shoulders. This meant some dart shaping at the lower end of the jacket. Also went for a slightly scooped round neckline, which I find more comfortable than something that comes up close round my neck.

I am modestly pleased with the results. It fits better than most knitted-from-patterns garments I have made – so good not to have a cardigan that strains to fasten at the bottom edge – and I think it will probably work quite well with my winter wardrobe. If I’m honest it’s probably not a yarn I would have bought if I hadn’t been staying at Sheldon where the wool was produced. It’s an unusual colour – french mustard maybe, or cinnamon if we’re talking colour charts, but probably cowpat brown is more accurate - and the yarn still has that redolent sheepy, lanolin aroma, which was quite nice for knitting as my hands felt moisturised, but not particularly what I want my clothes to smell of. (When completed I washed it and used fabric conditioner and I don’t like the smell of that much better than the sheep smell.) I’m still happy to have bought and used it though – another piece of work that carries memories and associations and a good way of supporting the work of a valuable organisation.
(The sheep photo at the head of the post was taken by Cathy Wainwright and was posted on the Manx Loaghtan Sheep Breeders Group)

what if the hokey cokey is what it's all about?

2008-10-08T08:47:00.002+01:00

Spotted on a tee shirt at Greenbelt.

Greenbelt is, of course, awash with slogans on tee shirts (and some unusual fashion choices - see Mark Loudon’s photos), but this was my favourite. I noticed it on a scholarly looking bloke in the book tent in an understated navy blue.

Very post modern.

Seems like a good motto for living with uncertainty.

another continuity announcement

2008-10-07T09:06:00.008+01:00

This is probably not the most beautiful or original thing I have ever made - a canvaswork cushion cover worked in wool in tent stitch, but like so much needlework it is replete with memories.

My father moved into a nursing home in 2001. The house was an old priory and there was a pleasant garden to sit in. I thought that if I had a bit of simple needlework I could sit in the garden with him having desultory conversation or companionable silence as the fancy took us, which is when I bought the initial materials for this. In the event it was not many months before Dad's dementia meant that he moved to the top floor of the nursing home into the EMI (elderly mentally infirm) unit and we didn't get to spend that much time in the garden, though I did carry on stitching from time to time when I visited him in his room. The stitching was incomplete when he died in 1984 and I've only picked it up occasionally since. Suddenly, around Easter this year, it was finished and set aside to be rediscovered when I had my workshop clear-out. It was very distorted by stitching and took a LOT of blocking to get it back to a square enough shape to be turned into a cushion. Now it's done - on a chair in the sitting room and full of happy/sad memories of my father and a difficult time in our lives.

Edited postscript. Obviously (as Alice has pointed out in her comment) he died in 2004, not 1984 - don't know how that got in there!

they're joking, right?

2008-10-06T13:56:00.003+01:00

I bought some buttons on Saturday afternoon. Nothing special, just squarish wooden buttons for the cardigan that I have almost finished. I sewed two of them in place and then noticed the warning on the back of the card:The idea that I might remove these buttons and sew them back on each time I wash the cardigan is just so far from the way I live my life that I just laughed.

here's one I made earlier

2008-10-05T13:17:00.004+01:00

This was finished some time ago – just in time for H’s birthday in August in fact, but I didn’t have time to photograph it before giving it to her. Finally got round to standing her in the garden and taking some pics last weekend – though they’re still not exactly brilliant photographs. The pattern is Central Park Hoodie and seems to be one of the most popular patterns on the KnittingDaily website. H chose the wool, which is Rowan Pure Wool Aran. It was lovely to knit with and I enjoyed the interest of the fairly simple cable. I even managed to continue the central back cables up the back of the hood.
I’ve got a ball of wool left over and I’m planning to make this for myself.

woad 3

2008-09-15T17:43:00.006+01:00

Well finally my woad was ready for harvesting and I made a special trip to the allotment with my secateurs.
I’d been chatting to another woadie in Frome, who had told me that rather than going through the very lengthy process of extracting the pigment, I could in fact use the fresh woad leaves to make a more delicate shade of dye. It gives subtle spearmint shades rather than the blue normally associated with indigo. I had seen a description of this process being applied to fresh indigo leaves, so decided to give it a go.

Even this process was fairly slow and time consuming:
chopping leaves,

heating water and steeping the leaves (careful not to let it get too hot), adding soda ash and sodium hydrosulphate, whisking for ages and ages as the froth turned blue and then back to green again, but finally the dye bath was ready to use. I dipped my prepared cloth and watched the magic process of pulling the cloth out of the bath a greeny/yellow colour and watching as the exposure to air turned it blue-ish.

Unfortunately there wasn’t really enough dye to make repeated dippings to get more intensity of colour, but I hung them all out to dry anyway.
Sadly by the time they had dried they were much paler and by the time they had been properly washed and rinsed they just look like whites that got into the wrong wash…
Oh well, it was fun to try, but probably not something I’m going to make into a regular activity.

plastered

2008-08-09T19:19:00.002+01:00

I had to vacuum the soles of my feet today! That’s a first for me.
I’ve been clearing out my workshop (it seems like months I’ve been working on it). There was a shallow plastic box on a shelf just above my head with lots of "stuff" in it. I lifted it down to sort through it all and an unopened bag of plaster of paris fell to the floor and split. Powder everywhere - in things, around things, behind things, everywhere! First the dustpan and brush, then the vacuum cleaner were pressed into service. But then I noticed that as fast as I cleaned one bit, I was leaving footprints everywhere else. Vacuuming the soles of my feet was really the only solution.

woad 2

2008-06-10T13:31:00.005+01:00

I thought I was going to have to call this post "oh woad is me" (and it may come to that eventually). After sowing the seeds in great excitement and watching them germinate and sprout, they just seemed to stop and enter a period of stasis. After a few weeks the leaves started to get a bit bigger, but the little stems didn’t get any bigger and don’t look strong enough to hold up the plants.
Anyway, Stu and I decided we just had to go for it. We went up to the allotment and took the plastic sheeting off a patch of earth. We dug over the top layer and pulled out the couch grass and raked and levelled and then planted the little seedlings. (When I say "we", it was mostly Stu doing the heavy stuff and me getting to do the fun bits – but Iris helped as well).
The plastic collars are supposed to give them some protection from slugs, but really they’ve just got to take their chances – after all it was a weed originally!

continuity

2008-06-09T19:04:00.008+01:00

Whenever I have a workshop clear-out I come across this.

It's a canvas-work rug that my mother started in the sixties. She spent quite a lot of time on it, but never finished it. When she died in 1992 I took it on, intending to finish it myself. Clearly, this hasn't yet happened. I have done some work on it, but the wool is very fibrous and makes my eyes itch. It's never going to be a rug now as one of the wool colours has virtually run out, but I think I could just about even off the ends and turn it into a big fat floor cushion. One day!

work in progress

2008-03-30T14:08:00.009+01:00

Around this time of year I start to panic that I won’t have any work to show when we open our doors for the SouthBank Arts Trail. One of my reasons for starting this blog was to record my work and reassure myself that I am, in fact, doing something even though it may be quite slow.

These are two almost finished pieces. Just that tricky decision – is it finished or not? Then I need to think of a way of presenting them. Current thinking is spraymounted onto board, but I need to do some experiments before I commit to something that may ruin them!
I trudged into town yesterday to buy some machine embroidery thread. (Bristol is oddly ill-supplied with creative needlework materials.)
I have been playing around with stitching into plastic carrier bags. I like the idea of recycling plastic bags and, you never know, they may soon be a scarce resource! Maybe in fifty years time plastic carrier bags will be exhibited in museums as cultural artefacts, monuments to the prolific foolishness of the twentieth century. Of course, they will have to store them carefully in acid-free tissue paper to stop them from fading and degrading in the light.

mistake

2008-03-27T17:40:00.003Z

This is a mistake.
A lot of knitters seemed to be talking about Noro Kureyon and the pattern of choice seemed to be the Lizard Ridge Afghan. I thought I’d give it a try and bought a couple of balls of yarn. Rather more muted colours than the other examples, but I didn’t want to just COPY, I had to introduce my own twist. Anyway, I’ve knitted up a square and I hate it. I didn’t enjoy using the yarn which is rough and knobbly and makes the complicated picking up of wrapped stitches in the short rows pattern very hard to see. The finished result just reminds me of hippy seventies sweaters. At my age that doesn’t look retro and cute; after all I can actually remember all those earnest young men in their corduroy flares and baggy jumpers – reader, I married one!

blocking

2008-03-25T15:38:00.006Z

This is what I’ve had on my needles over the past couple of months. It’s a vintage-inspired cardigan for me. All the knitting sites I’ve been looking at are obviously having an effect because I’ve blocked all the pieces before sewing up, which is something I’ve never really bothered with before. Can’t believe how grown up and patient I’m becoming – it’s a fiddly, time-consuming job and I thought I was going to run out of pins!
By the way, did you notice my lovely cactus pin cushion? Thank you gift from the aforementioned Si (who has already had more name-checks than anyone else on my blog!). It caused a great deal of cactus envy from daughters 1 and 2.

The cardigan has to go back on the needles after blocking to knit up the front bands and little shawl collar. It’s been frustrating because I have already had to go back to Get Knitted for an extra ball of wool and I’m worried that I still won’t have quite enough to finish it. They’re holding an extra ball in the right dye lot for me just in case, but I won’t be able to get out there until my next "car day".

woad

2008-03-21T14:53:00.003Z

I was given some woad seeds for Christmas by lovely friends who know my passion for indigo. Woad is a similar plant to indigo, but native to Europe whereas indigo came originally from Asia (and gradually superseded the local product). I’ve only ever bought and used synthetic indigo so far, so I’m very excited about growing and producing my own dye.

Stu has agreed to let me have a little bit of space to grow it on the allotment, and Good Friday seems an appropriate day for sowing. The directions on the packet are a bit sparse so I have found some interesting stuff on the internet about growing and using woad.

Just got to sit back now and wait for the little shoots to appear!

embargo lifted!

2008-03-15T16:48:00.008Z

Now that she has received her birthday present I can reveal the small part I played in the creation of Sue’s quilt!
Si had the lovely idea of asking friends to contribute patches to a quilt for Sue’s 40th birthday, so that she could "wrap herself in her friends’ affection". Their friend Emily was main-craftswoman, responsible for planning and putting the quilt together and I had the privilege of creating a border for the quilt.
The background fabric of the quilt was restricted to two different blue fabrics and unbleached calico so I decided to introduce a mix of complementary colours (red/orange/pink) to create some visual excitement and emphasise the blue-ness. This was all done at a distance - they’re in Leeds; I’m in Bristol - so it was pretty much fingers crossed that I’d interpreted what was required correctly.
Anyway, all is now revealed and it has come together beautifully. I especially love the central motifs of the quilt which include little figures of the family in blue and white Leicester City colours!
Here’s one of my photos of the border before I sent it off (all 7 metres of it!):
And here’s the square I contributed:

Lent

2008-02-12T13:19:00.002Z

A few years ago I was asked to take part in an Easter exhibition/ creative worship type thing. It gave me the impetus to make something that had been kicking around in my head for a while and I produced this.

It’s taken from a 16th century painting of Christ, Man of Sorrows. It is stitched on a large wire fence panel using torn fabric and heavyweight wool. I wanted to explore the hard vs. soft contrast: Christ, the all-powerful son of God is the man of sorrows, beaten and bruised; traditional image, traditional technique vs unconventional materials. I worked on it during Lent and thought that it would be an opportunity for reflection and meditation as I worked – romantic fool that I am!
In the event it was actually a very stressful process, both physically (working into that wire, bent over the dining room table left me with raw fingers and a very painful back) and emotionally (we were preparing to move house and having some essential repairs done which kept threatening disaster and the dissolution of all our plans, but I had the Easter deadline to keep). I don’t think I did any meditating or reflecting except in choosing what fabric to use next or wondering why everything always happens at once.
I was reminded of this process last week when I used Si Smith’s brilliant 40 CD again at a service. It always strikes me what a long time 40 days and nights is. I think we often have warm fuzzy ideas about retreat and withdrawal from the world (especially when life is busy and we feel hard-pressed) and visions of rapturous communion with God, but the reality can be a deeply painful confrontation with oneself.
I suppose I can’t leave this on such a negative note. For Christ of course, his forty days in the desert equipped him for his ministry. (As Si’s minimal text says, "for my thirtieth birthday I gave myself some time away from it all. And now I’m back". For me, the process of work on my piece was painful, but the completion was a very satisfying outworking of what had been in my head and I also have the pleasure of knowing that the piece has been used in worship by the mayBe community.
I obviously still have warm and fuzzy ideas about retreat, since I have just booked a four-day walking retreat on Dartmoor in May. I’m braced for aching joints and muscles, blisters, insect bites, dehydration, hypothermia; but please can I skip the meeting me bit and just get to the communion with God bit.

where to start?

2008-01-13T15:56:00.001Z

I don't think I'm a natural blogger. I have resisted this for a long time. Have kept diaries in the past and always been keenly depressed by re-reading them.

However, I have recently been inspired by the vast numbers of creative blogs out there - notably knitting, but other things too and thought it might be a good way of reviewing my work and encouraging myself that I have actually done something.

So, just to get me started:

In 2007:
I finished a quilt I had been working on since moving to Bristol

I did quite a bit of knitting for babies.

At the end of the summer I did some indigo dyeing and now have a pile of fabrics I need to do something else with:

For Christmas I was given two skeins of silk cashmere from SkeinQueen (Thanks M&J) which I have knitted into a pretty scarf.

This has taken me so long to get into anything like a format I am prepared to publish that I don't know how long it will take me to come back, but I think I'm just going to have to post as it is and tweak later.