cheviots

Snow fields

2012-02-12T02:52:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we went to the Cotswolds on our regular visit to my husband's step-mother. All down the M11 the information boards warned us of severe weather to come. We recalled the time we drove across the A66 just before the closing of the snow gates. I always felt that the words would not be out of place in a work of magic realism.

It was bitterly cold in Stratford - -8 outside, we were told. We stocked up with provisions - I even invested in two travel rugs - then ate the earliest possible lunch before setting out on the return journey. Not a flake of snow fell on us before we reached home, fortunately; but, by morning, Essex was transformed. This is a view across the fields to the village, some days later.

And here's my current project. I would like to say I am making progress, but this would not be true. The reason for being stuck lies in a shift of method in pattern-writing. Some years ago, I knitted a lovely blue cabled jumper for my husband from this Hayfield pamphlet.

It came out really well, so that when he wore it on our visit to the Aran Islands themselves, it drew comments.

However, in the intervening years, I have got used to reading charts of cabled patterns, so that returning to this one, where the picture is on one page and the instructions on two different pages, written out as panel patterns line by line, I find myself getting lost very easily. Can this be another example of the increasingly visual culture in which we live?

I also feel this may be more in the modern idiom with the neckline adapted to make it a gilet, instead of a Vee-neck waistcoat. We'll see.

Coronation

2012-01-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

This sampler from my little collection commemorates the coronation. Like many others, my parents arranged to visit a cousin who had just invested in a television for the occasion. We lived up on the edge of Cold Fell. Electricity was still some few years away from us, so we had a wireless, but no tv until I was ten. Last week we replaced our analogue tv with a digital model. Not only is this slim and a fraction of the weight, but it allows us to do amazing things such as linking the netbook to the monitor so we can see images on the big screen, or watch programmes we have missed through i-player or 4od. We are enjoying exploring the possibilities.

More detail on the drunk driver story: the self-employed painter and decorator who demolished our front wall had been paid for a big job that morning - one thousand pounds in cash. When arrested he had two pound coins on him. Apparently, he had already paid off a couple of people whose cars he had clipped before exiting the pub car-park. Of course, he was driving with no insurance, and in fact had a court case pending for a similar offence, although that one also involved an assault. When it came to trial he was sent down for three months.

We were initially very alarmed when the crash happened, as it looked as though we were under attack, and we had been woken from sleep. However, when it became clear what was happening, the whole thing took on a different character. The drunk himself was sitting in his white van which was at right angles across the street. With the other car still attached to the front. He was trying to reverse so as to drive away. The clockmaker who lives along the street from us managed to reason with him to hand over his keys and we all then waited for the police to arrive.

My husband took some amazing photographs which were published in the local paper along with the story. In order to walk down the street, it was necessary to climb through the white van, as the road was completely blocked. We spent a long weary night working with the county surveyor, the electricity board and emergency builders to ensure that the house was safe to go back into and secure. We were a little astonished to be asked to give an assurance to the listed buildings person that we would not convert the hall into a garage now that we had seen that a car would fit into it.

On a happier note, I received this cute card made for me by Pat in Alberta. Pat and I are about the same age, so her stories about the music of her younger days would be the same as mine. But in almost every other respect we seem to be complete opposites: Pat has seven children and a host of grandchildren who are clearly the love of her life.

I have made this card for Pat in return. I was impressed some years ago by the work of Margaret Talbot - silk embroideries rich in detail, using the inspiration of the flushwork patterns on East Anglian churches. These are patterns made by alternating flint with masonry and they are usually religious or heraldic symbols. Something about the reverse of this piece of silk, woven for the tie industry, suggested heraldic shields. My partner's family initial is M, so I used a piece of gold thread for that. Beneath is the card from my village, showing the National Trust merchant's house.

Samplers

2012-01-13T03:38:00.000-08:00

Recently, one of my very small collection of samplers was mentioned on a blog called Britsamplers, which seems to seek out all the various renderings for a specific occasion. That was a sampler commemorating the birth of Princess Anne, but this is for a quite different event: the abdication.

I love the homeliness of this piece. Imagine having worked up the sampler for the Coronation, no doubt from a pattern offered in a magazine.... all the detail of armed forces uniforms and the various royal palaces. All the flags of the Dominions - all that detail. Even applying the stamp for the new king... You have just got it all done when the announcement comes: a Nation's Disappointment, indeed.

Little wonder that the maker added this text along the sides.

Top half in detail:

and lower half

Over Christmas I unearthed this little sampler project. The notion originally was to use the miniature blocks to make a frame for a mirror for our hall. I remember choosing a sampler pack of silk in Sweet Pea colours from a trader called The Silk Route at a textiles fair. The colours would have just fitted in nicely with the deep burgundy flowers of the hall wall-paper.

I can date the abandonment of the project precisely to the moment when the wallpaper, indeed the wall itself, ceased to exist. It was past midnight when we were woken by an enormous crash from downstairs. In our hall was the front half of a car - how could this be? And more than that ... it was moving back and forwards - but with no driver in it. The stuff of nightmares? It was certainly surreal.

A self-employed painter and decorator had been paid in cash first thing that morning and had spent the day drinking, to the point where he was beyond drunk. He got in his white van, clipping a number of vehicles as he left the car-park, and arrived in our street unable to notice the line of parked cars. He hit the first one so hard that it shunted two others along before pivoting through our front wall, still attached to the front of his van. Then he tried to reverse out so as to drive away, hitting the shop opposite several times in the process.

Amazingly, although the damage to the cars in the street ran to thousands, no one was injured, not even the drunk. In our house the front wall was gone but ours is a very old house and the main timbers are some feet back from the frontage. We park down the street, so our cars were safe.

The only thing smashed was a large brown pottery jar, which at first seemed to have vanished. When we located all the shards my husband was able to reassemble the whole thing, so that no one would know it had happened - unless they looked closely.

Now, I am thinking that the silk blocks might be assembled into a cushion cover, with a little sashing.

Stately homes

2011-12-30T02:51:00.000-08:00

To Crewe Hall, Cheshire, for an overnight stay, courtesy of my elder sister and her family. Not that they live in this extraordinary mid-Victorian pile, of course; we were there for bed and breakfast on our way north to Cumbria.

This is an ornate interior, with every surface heavily encrusted with pattern and texture - a wonderful backdrop for weddings and big events.

A library, a Long Gallery, and its own chapel, not to mention an extensive conference centre built in the stable quarter.

Before we left home, a surprise. My younger sister is given to sending unusual vouchers as gifts, so I thought to return the compliment, ordering a selection of sausages and ham from a company called Dukeshill, to be delivered to her address on Monday, 19th December. All morning I imagined her surprise on receiving the parcel. Would she be able to fit it all into her freezer? Would that much sausage be a welcome addition to their diet?

Just after lunch there was knock on our door: a delivery man with a familiar looking box. Somehow the parcel had come to us, not to my sister, who lives in another part of the country. In sorting out this problem, the company very generously sent another box to my sister, leaving us to wonder whether we have room in our freezer for all that sausage. Not often that you get to give your sausage and eat it.

In Cumbria, a combination of drizzle and high winds. We did some of our regular walks under irregular conditions. Sale Fell, above Bassenthwaite, in very high winds. We thought it best to walk round the end of the fell and through the woodland, rather than going to the summit of even this modest fell.

Here, my husband at the site of the old Wythop church, a sheltered spot where we often eat our sandwiches.

And, finally another home - this time a deserted farmhouse, just beginning to lose its windows. We often speculate as to which of a combination of factors - access roads, mains services, ownership - proved crucial to its abandonment.

Ramblings

2011-12-20T07:53:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, we gave the allotment a miss, and set off around a network of lanes just north of here. It was sufficiently frosty to harden up the inevitable mud, at least on the way out.

There was still plenty of colour - here, an oak clinging on to its Autumn foliage.

And here, sloes, glowing surprisingly bright blue in a hedge.

Cascades of red berries - can they be honeysuckle? The red here may be a warning of poisonous intent as these are remarkably intact.

The gnarled bark of an ancient tree

And an even more fascinating stump, full of craters and caverns.

The most amazing sights have no pictures. Not far out, on a roadside property, we saw a male peacock in full display mode, facing out a guinea fowl which looked singularly unimpressed.

A blur of bird rose in front of my husband. Just then we met a keen photographer equipped with tripod who commented that we had "put up a woodcock." Not that we would have known.

Half way round our planned circuit it came on to snow heavily. We were glad of all our hats, hoods and scarves which had seemed excessive as we set off.

Penny pinching

2011-12-02T11:33:00.000-08:00

This week, a consultation with a financial advisor - a process I hate. He needs a clear idea of my regular expenditure in order to advise me. We run through what I spend on bills and petrol. He comes to "entertainment". I have nothing to say. How to explain to someone the pleasure to be had from popping across to the Coop and finding the week's meat at half-price, or snagging a bargain in a charity shop?

I went off shopping on Tuesday, thinking vaguely that a brown coat would be nice, brown with a fur collar like the one I had ten years ago. It would go well with my Autumn Leaves mittens. But shops almost never have the thing you are actually looking for, especially if the colour or style is not of the moment. But there, in a charity shop, was the exact coat I was thinking of. It was brand new, but had no sign of a label that I could see. It was lined with brown fur fabric and, curiously, had pockets on the inside too. But it was said to be a much smaller size than I need. However, it fitted like a glove.

Further inspection at home revealed that the label was in the pocket, because it was made to be reversible, so that the brown fur could be worn on the outside. Perhaps this is to allow for cold or rainy days. It explains the second set of pockets, too. All this for ten pounds!

At the top, my most recent bauble, this time fitted over a styrofoam ball, which gives a better shape. This is destined for the Secret Santa at my local Guild, where I suspect there will be more than a few interpretations of this idea.

Warped

2011-11-25T07:10:00.000-08:00

For my recent birthday my husband bought me a loom. When I say "bought", I mean he gave me some money for the Ashford Rigid Heddle loom I had already ordered from Forest Fibres. I find presents work best like this: no hassle for him and the thing I actually want for me.

At the last meeting of the Weavers, Spinners and Dyers guild we were shown how to warp up our looms in a process called direct warping. There were about fifiteen people in the workshop and every person then went on to weave a strip of fabric. There was an incredible variety of work in progress by the end, with one person actually finishing a complete muffler. I experimented with a variety of textured yarn in the same colour range, and was very pleased with the result. The dark grey warp tones down some of the cerise.

And this is the beast in question. I chose a 20inch version on the advice of an expert weaver - more flexibility in the long run. It fits neatly on a tabletop.

This is my second effort, in a more neutral palettte. This took only a couple of hours start to finish, but the result is disappointing. This seems to be down to the yarn, as it has an overly rigid handle. I liked the idea of stripes in subtle variations, using up odds and ends.

I was gifted some lovely tweed fabric by a friend in the Guild. Her mother had stashed it away some years ago. The labels for Strone House show that it came from the same merchants as my blue handwoven tweed from e-bay.

I like to highlight a colour in the tweed for my top, and so I was delighted to spot a ribbon knit cardigan in a charity shop. It was just the right shade, but had a loose floppy flounce all round. A few pulled threads and several feet of applied i-cord later and it should match up nicely. Now I am thinking: brown leather boots...

Baubles

2011-11-18T02:41:00.000-08:00

Is there no end to the possibilities for small knitted doo-dads? Going with the inspiration of that book by Arne and Carlos, which I haven't bought - yet - I found this bauble pattern on a blog called Moth Heaven. I use intarsia here because of the log gaps between the feet in the first row. This created a mess of ends, but may be the way to go as the fabric has more give than in the Fair Isle examples which follow. This is needed for the rounding of the ball shape when stuffing.

Two more baubles. Each one can be done in an evening, so it's a satisfying little project. For these, I used patterns from a leaflet I already own on the Selbu knitting tradition. The central section has sixty stitches so it is just a matter of spacing the motifs evenly.

I used some remnants of Shetland wool, although I doubt that either would meet the new Shetland standard for accreditation. I am not clear why the sheep have to be kept "organically" - whatever that means in relation to sheep as opposed to vegetables. Neither can I see why being spun in a mill on Shetland would be the deciding factor. If it is true that the main wool buyer on the islands is excluded, then it makes no sense at all.

Time Passing...

2011-11-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've had a significant birthday..

And, among my presents was this astonishing repousse pewter letter made especially for me by a clever lady called Sharon Dickinson. That's A is for Acorn, as a reference to the super-abundance of acorns this season.

My colleagues gave me this splendid bouquet of autumnal flowers, which is glowing in my living-room window.

It has been a wonderful season for colour. This vibrant shrub is in the arboretum at Mark's Hall, just north of our village.

Stunning red creeper on an old wall in St Albans. What can those mysterious steps signify?

Finally, my current knitting. Somehow, the season suggests mittens, and this is my third pair, utilising a richer palette of gingery colours. This pattern allows even small oddments to be turned to good account. These seem to glow, although I have avoided the wilder reaches of acid yellows seen everywhere in nature.

Autumn Leaves

2011-10-24T02:45:00.000-07:00

My box of Jamieson and Smith jumper weight yarns - how differently these appear in sunlight, or at least the heathered and tweeded colours do.

A pair of Newfoundland mittens, knitted to replace a pair for an old friend. What a joy to select the lovely colours, reminiscent of falling leaves, just as the weather turns to frosty mornings. I have found this pattern to be addictive before. This time, I could not resist making a second pair for myself after the first were in the post. Such a simple pattern, slipping two stitches for four rows to create this honeycomb effect. The bunching up of the rows makes this a very warm design.

Last week, our walk took us from Colne Engaine to Pebmarsh, where we were pleased to see a really lovely church. Behind the altar were three woven panels in deep blues and old gold. These had been woven by a local handweaver, and the tale of their constuction, from the sourcing of the fleecces to their weaving, was a fascinating one.

In the bright sunshine, red berries always lift my spirits. Here, garlands of red were threaded through the hedge.

Mud

2011-10-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

Another version of the Mary-Janes, this tine in a merino, silk and cashmere blend for a christening. Hunting out this one skein of Sublime yarn added focus to my trip to Alexandra Palace, where the abundance of Sale yarns has sometimes led to the sort of purchase one regrets sooner rather than later. This one pristine ball of yarn was a pure joy. The little mother of pearl button takes me back to the early 70's and a trip to the flea market at Place de Clignancourt. I bought five cards of these buttons - row after row of lovely buttons on silver foil cards. I have chosen them regularly to complete projects, but there are whole cards still to be used.

This Sunday to Maldon, where my husband had spotted the opportunity to walk across the causeway to Northey Island, the first landing place for theVikings, prior to the Battle of Maldon. All I can say is that they can't have minded mud, those Vikings. Holding a battle just here must have been a slow and messy business.

Lots of atmospheric shipping, including Thames barges.

Along with hundreds of others, we walked over to the island and around the circuit. In World War 2 the owner of the island was on a list of German targets, presumably because of the strange structure of the house, like a military lookout post. It must be very bleak here when the mist rolls in.

We crossed back to the mainland well before dark, but this picture was taken facing the sun, which explains the strange effect.

"Out through the fields and the woods..."

2011-10-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

First, some actual knitting: a pair of tiny shoes from the mary-jane pattern by Lucie Sinkler . These are two and a half inches long - perhaps too small for the intended recipient, but sooo cute. A second pair, a little larger, is already on the needles.

On Friday, we decided to set out early from Earl's Colne, a noble- sounding village some four miles to the North of us. The main village is nineteenth century, built around a once-thriving iron foundry. All along the valley small iron-working enterprises have been set up by those who have learnt their trade in the now defunct works.

This fine memorial, in wrought iron, marks the site of the old priory. It was based on a design from Constantinople. Our walk took us out past the church, its tower showing elaborate flush work borders above the flint.

In many of the villages on the Essex/Suffolk border, the churches are larger and finer than the village now would warrant. These tend to be "Wool Churches" - financed by wealth from the wool trade in the late medieval period. Thus Lavenham and Long Melford, Stoke by Nayland and our village church at Coggeshall.

Harvests

2011-09-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

The potato harvest was quite exceptional this year - and whoever thought one would write such a sentence? Here, the two largest with a standard apple for comparison. One of these weighs nearly two pounds, and is much more than we would need at one meal.

An enormous beetroot, grown by Angelo, our Italian neighbour on the allotments, who has green fingers. This one is even now being rendered down into soup - beetroot and ginger, eaten with the addition of some crumbly white cheese.

Courgette soup, made simply with the addition of a potato and onion and blended. Even the largest of the courgettes can be turned into this. It needs lots of black pepper but is a lovely creamy soup.

Finally, that rare thing: a new taste. This is sorrel soup, using sorrel grown from seed on our plot. It has a distinctly sharp taste, lemony, but not actually lemon. I had never tasted it before, but it is delicious.

Last Sunday, I whiled away the afternoon picking out debris from a raw Norfolk Horn fleece, in preparation for spinning. It is to be handwoven and will end up on display in this spectacular medieval barn in Coggeshall. The barn was the grange for the Cistercian monastery and the fleece is to be turned into a replica habit - Cistercians wore white habits.

Finally, two very fine farm carts from the National Trust collection, now housed in the barn. I was prompted to reread Adam Thorpe's book "Ulverton", in which, inter alia, he mourns the passing of the farm cart as a symbol of the historic relationship of man to the land he farmed.

Finished Objects

2011-08-31T07:02:00.000-07:00

First, my husband's latest production: this unusual mirror for our living-room. Many years ago we saw a mirror in a Keswick gallery with small squares of Lakeland slate inset into the frame. Such a simple idea; we loved it. Our slate was purchased at the Honister slate quarry, on a day when a howling gale was blowing. My husband had already bought the mirror and worked up the frame, with its distinctive peg joints in the Art and Crafts style. It certainly changes the look of the room.

Secondly, the craftsman himself, wearing the brown Shetland jumper which I have finished at last. It is a very dark brown silvered all over with lighter fibres. So plain and understated that it looks like an old favourite already and fits like a glove. It is 4-ply weight, so should be more wearable than some of the heavier jumpers I have made for him in the past.

This last week we took the little train from Bures to Sudbury in order to tackle the first stretch of the Stour Valley walk. Here, the fascinating litle church at Great Henny. Like other wooden-steepled Essex churches, it is plagued by woodpeckers which are causing expensive damage.

At Lamarsh, we were surprised to see that even attempting to open the church door would trigger an alarm, so had to content ouselves by taking photographs of the exterior.

Next, we loaded our bikes into the car and parked at Bures again. This time we were cycling to Nayland and Stoke by Nayland. Both of these villages have superb wool churches and a fascinating collection of ancient buildings, many of them called things like"The Old Bakery." There was little evidence of actual functioning food shops in either. We were struck once more by the convenience of our own village, which has three foodstores, as well as a proper butchers, Post Office and newsagent.

But the churches: Nayland, interior.

A set of panels from an early rood-screen.

Stoke by Nayland, from across the fields.

The fantastic Jesse tree on the door of Stoke by Nayland.

The exterior of the church, showing what an impressive building this is, and also how dark and chill the weather had turned by this point. We counted ourselves lucky to finish our ride without being soaked.

Under Milk Wood

2011-08-26T01:28:00.000-07:00

On our way down to the cottage in Pembrokeshire, we chanced to stop off at Laugharne, a serendipidous visit. First, a spectacular ruined castle stands over the estuary. We were amazed to see a heron in residence mid-stream.

A short walk along a promenade brings you to the boathouse, once home to Dylan Thomas, and his wife Caitlin. Here, the shed used as a study. The view acoss the estuary must have been endlessly beguiling.

Round at the cottage itself, we enjoyed both Welsh cakes and bara brith, and proper tea in proper cups. This set the standard for other teas on this holiday, many of which fell sadly short.

I find myself tempted by the idea of another cabled throw, knitted in strips. The one made for Kate Davies on Needled is the inspiration. I have started with the central motif cable from Alice Starmore's St Brigid, which is nowhere near as complex as it looks. The yarn is a heavy Aran, and I just wonder whether itis producing too rigid a fabric. We'll see.

Sightseeing

2011-08-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

The coastal path kept drawing us back, but we did spend some time visiting towns. First, a trip to St Davids, where the cathedral and, more especially, the ruined bishop's palace, lived up to expectations. The fantastic variety of colours in the stonework still endures.

St David's Cathedral

I know no one in this part of Wales so I was disconcerted when a woman came hurrying purposefully towards me. I have had this experience before, in the Pass of Glencoe - the very north of Scotanld - where a pupil and her family were holidaying. Here, it turned out to be a former colleague who had moved to Wales with her family some years ago . It was still quite a shock, as I would never have recognised her in a passing crowd.

Another day saw us in Pembroke, where the castle is very impressive. The main sections were built by William Marshall, a man who, according to my husband, knew all the kings of England reigning from 1135 to 1272: Stephen, Henry 11, Richard 1, John, and Henry111. This is the sort of thing my husband just knows. Apparently, as a child, Marshall played "knights" with King Stephen, while he was a hostage for his own father's good behaviour. In his old age he lived to be Regent for the infant King Henry 111. Generally regarded as one of the "flowers of chivalry", whatever that might mean, he is buried in the Temple church in London.

Pembroke Castle

From there, we moved on to Tenby, a seside town which has certainly seen better days. We were hoping for a trip around Caldey Island, but the blustery weather drove the hundreds of visitors into the centre of town and the trip was cancelled. Instead we visited the National Trust's merchants' house and admired the many Georgian buildings.

Sea Air

2011-08-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

A week in Pembrokeshire, and we are blessed with fine weather. It is our first visit, so everything - the single-track lanes, the yachties, the oil refineries - is all new to us. Rosemoor is a small country estate where the stable block has been converted into self-catering cottages. Very nicely converted with every convenience to hand. There is even a private nature reserve on site, with its own lake.

We had four glorious days walking the coastal path, which runs for 186 miles. First we walked from Broad Haven to Druidston and back across the fields. Then we caught the bus from Little Haven to St Brides and walked back along the path. Then we walked all the way round St Ann's Head, and finally along the headland to Martin's Haven.

The path runs along the cliff edge, often dizzyingly close to dramatic drops. Sometimes only a determined focus on the landward side of the path will do.

For long stretches, though, the path is edged on both sides by blackthorn and gorse, thus creating a sheltered haven for a wonderful variety of wild flowers and more butterflies than we have ever seen:

Burnet moths

Common blue

Small copper

wall butterfly, meadow brown, hedge brown, common blue, small copper, peacock, comma, red admiral and grayling - this last distinguished by the mottling of its underwing. My husband even saw burnet moths, iridescent green with scarlet spots.

The real joy of this path is its linear nature: no need to consult the map or choose between confusing options: the path just keeps unrolling before you. On a balmy summer day, with a light sea breeze, it is just heavenly.

Knitting wise, I am pressing on with the dark Shetland jumper for my husband. I can knit it in my sleep, or certainly with my eyes closed, the only downside being odd stray stitches which are not discernible until it is too late.

New Tricks

2011-07-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

It's our wedding anniversary this week. Given a strong hint, my husband did his research on You-tube and then turned up this niddy-noddy for me. It should yield a two metre skein of the new spun yarn, a skill which I am practising in order to improve. He used some leftovers of beech from when he made his own work-bench some years ago. Fotunately he has a shed for all his craft activities.

Meanwhile, I have been adding an applied i-cord edging to this throw. It is knitted from scraps of sock yarns from the idea on Mason-Dixon Knitting. I had never tried the i-cord edging before but it made a neat finish. One of those mindless repetitive tasks in which knitting induces a meditative trance.

My back problem seems to have resolved itself into a pulled muscle, rather than anything more serious. It is certainly inconvenient as well as uncomfortable.

Finally - it's that time of year again: a bumper crop of pears, from the warm dry spring we were lucky enough to enjoy. Very different from the fixed grey cloud hanging over us at present.

Archive Footage

2011-07-21T04:55:00.000-07:00

Last week someone posted a link to these photographs on a forum called "Design Addicts", and, as a result, many people have checked out my blog page where it originally appeared. This is a hand-beaten stainless steel bowl made by Lakeland Rural Industries in Borrowdale - a kind of last hurrah for the Arts and Crafts movement. When I saw it at a boot fair for a pound or two, I just had to have it.

The curious yellow stains on its surface are in fact reflections of the stained glass panels in our patio door, which is where I tend to take my photos, as it gives the best light.

We think the glass is early twentieth century: it certainly has an Art Nouveau influence to it.

Last week my husband went off to his biennial conference on legal history, held this year at Clare College, Cambridge. While the cat's away, I thought, as I set myself the project of digging out a fourth strawberry bed. I must have reckoned without the solidifying effect of a water table which is now much nearer the surface since the field drains became blocked in the snow and the spring appeared at the corner of our plot.

Suddenly, I felt something shift in my lower back, and not in a good way. I have spent the week hobbling about, with something like a permanent fold in the middle. Not a good look, and particularly annoying in the last week of term, when I am looking forward to being more active in the holidays.

Knitting your own Dog

2011-07-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

Last week to the annual gathering of my husband's mother's family. Much has happened in the year, as usual most obviously to the youngest and oldest in the group. Thus the babe in arms at last year's event is now a confident toddler, while my husband's uncle is recovering from a bout of debilitating illness.

I am a great believer in the therapeutic powers of craft work. A close friend was once given a complete knitted Nativity scene, made as therapy by someone whose husband had decided to release his inner teen and leave her with three young children. Choosing suitable yarns and creating the figures had taken the edge off the long evenings for her.

So it has been for my husband's aunt: knitting these cute doggy figures helping to while away the hours of anxiety and concern. These are all worked from the book "Knit Your Own Dog."

I was not at all surprised to hear that the work in progress is a German shepherd, knit from yarn spun from the dog's own hair clippings - though it would not be my fibre of choice! For the dog-owner it will be a curiosity at least.

More craft work by the same hand. Last year I came across a collection of crochet cottons in a charity shop and passed them on. It is hard to believe that 50p worth of odds and ends can be turned into something so airy and delicate. This is tatting, not crochet.

And so is this: a handkerchief edged with lace made by tatting. There is something so crisp and perfect about the tiny picots bristling along the curves of this. Hard to imagine blowing one's nose on it!

About Messing

2011-07-07T04:17:00.000-07:00

This week we set off to walk across country to Messing, a village near Tiptree. This is a ten mile circular walk. We are trying to build up our mileage in order to be able to contemplate some of the many alluring long-distance footpaths on offer in England: the Ridgeway, the Cotswold Way, Offa's Dyke, Hadrian's Wall and so on.

First we went out across fields planted up with row upon row of blackcurrant bushes - ours are just ready to harvest.

We were pleased to see the contractors just about to start the harvest, using a giant machine which straddled the bushes. Brushes made of many rubber fingers would knock off the berries into a conveyor of rubber dishes. Then the debris would be blown off and they would be crated up. All of these were destined for Ribena.

Our own bushes have been heavy with fruit this year. I love the sense of storing the vitamins for the depths of winter. We have many jars of last year's jam still to eat, so I am freezing these down for later.

We sat down to eat lunch at the edge of a small copse. Sitting silently on what passes for a hill in Esssex, we were pleased to see a huge hare venture out, lolloping across the rows of sweetcarn. He was quite unaware of us. At the turn of the field path, my husband spotted a young fox on patrol. Let's hope that these two did not meet.

Messing is a very ancient settlement. At first glance, the church looks fairly ordinary, with a nineteenth century tower. Built into the structure, however, are pieces of masonry from a nearby Roman villa. Inside is the real treasure: a stained glass winow dating from the early seventeenth century. There too is an ancient wooden coffer. The glass survived the Civil War because it was dismantled, packed into the coffer and stored in the crypt. And here it sits, all these centuries later.

At the top of the village, just opposite the church, the village hall. A blue plaque records that it has been in turn a workhouse, almshouses and a school before its present use.

Knitting-wise, I am embarked on an un-photogenic project. The yarn is lovely: dark-brown Shetland from sheep on a local nature reserve.

The pattern is one I have used before, with a plain stocking stitch back. This is proving ideal for working while reading the sub-titles on the Danish version of "The Killing". But it doesn't take a very good picture.

Abberton Reservoir

2011-07-02T01:04:00.000-07:00

This week, by bicycle to Abberton Reservoir, a body of water renowned for its flocks of water-fowl. As we watched the swan rose out of the water, wings beating strenuously. We also saw curiously patterned Egyptian ducks.

The second lobe of the reservoir revealed the effects of the drought, with low water levels. Some kind of major engineering works are in progress, and it was hardly a haven of peace. Neither was the Visitor Centre as we mistimed our visit to coincide with that of a junior school trip.

This is Layer de la Haye church. We passed several intriguing large houses on the way, some clearly very extensive manor houses.

Our dining room has gained the mellow ticking of this fine clock, its battered face speaking volumes. It is the clock from the pharmacy run by my husband's grandfather and father. Once it was a fitment in the Edwardian mahogany interior, before becoming unreliable and being replaced by an electric version. Then my husband had made a simple wooden case for it. Later he had another go, making this traditional round case. When the mechanism was renovated by a clockmaker, my husband was mortified to learn that the dimensions he had used were typical of German clock-cases. He brought the case home and reconstructed the little door to English specifications. Strange, but true.

Now, of course, it looks exactly as if made by a professional clock maker in the nineteenth century. The clock man who lives across the road from us, who carried out its latest sevice, commented that at one time he saw a lot of this type of clock as every railway station had one and he had the contract. It is a sign of the times - and of Essex - that he now earns his main living driving stretch limos for proms.

Finally, my version of the Mitred Crosses throw, knitted in 4-ply Shetland and scraps of sock-yarn. I've decided it need not be any larger. I am pondering how to edge it, and leaning towards a flat cable to suggest a band of quilting. We will see.

Alma Mater

2011-06-23T02:53:00.000-07:00

This week to my old Oxford college, for a School Teachers' Networking Day. Nearly forty years I have waited for this invitation, but here it is at last.

As one of the former women's colleges, Somerville now finds itself having to take candidates from the general pool, as many of the more clued up entrants - male and female - opt for the big name colleges with the spectacular buildings. I blame J.K. Rowling for this.

The day began on the 10.18 from Paddington. Already in the carriage were two females, each sporting a fascinator and clearly off to the races at Ascot. One was demurely dressed in a maxi, but the other one appeared to be wearing a 50s swimsuit. As she touched up the blood red varnish on her toe-nails, she squawked into her phone that she was entitled to a day out, and would get drunk if she felt like it....

No greater contrast could be imagined to these two than the hippy couple who were forced to sit next to them as the carriage filled up. Both clutched grease-soaked brown paper bags containing cheese pasties, which they ate with relish. Every item of their clothing was well-worn and made of some form of hairy natural fibre. The two sporting ladies had no choice but to budge up for them.

So to the Margeret Thatcher Conference Centre - she read chemistry here. We met current undergraduates who looked about twelve; we networked; we watched mock interviews and made notes; we ate lunch in Hall, or rather, in what was once the college bar. Amazingly, shortly after the admission of men to the college in 94 the bar was reinstated as a Reading Room.

Eventually, we were released into the rain. I made first for this place of pilgrimage: the Annabelinda shop. They specialise in fabulous couture clothing in velvets and Liberty prints. Recently they have begun to take in their own creations from the past to resell as vintage and the shop is full to bursting with wonderful, well-loved items. One could have spent a fortune.

Finally,this week's bear for the appeal. A different and hopefully less fierce head-shape. This owes a lot to Little Cotton Rabbits, where I notice that the bear head is similar to the rabbit, but with a different ear shape. I was very pleased with the conceit of the eye-brow which I introduced. It is probably invisible to anyone but me.

Winchcombe

2011-06-16T01:29:00.000-07:00

This week to the little ancient town of Winchcombe, in the Cotswolds, en route to the duty visit. Winchcombe is on the Cotswold Way and we planned to test out our walking muscles on a steep uphill. We climbed up out of Winchcombe, looking back at the 14th Century St Peter's Church.

Up through fields with a distictly equine flavour, until we came across these lovely young animals who completely ignored us.

At the top we reached a prehistoric barrow, Belas Knap. In this long mound were four burial chambers containing the bones of thirty-eight people. The grand entrance is also a trick - there is no way into the tomb at this point, We were very impressed by the Cotswold stone walls, with stone the depth of roofing tiles giving a fine finish.

Down through woodlands said to be the inspiration for Tolkien, we had a splendid view of Sudeley castle. We were entranced by the poppies at this field edge.

Winchcombe itself contains many ancient relics. It had an abbey, established in the ninth century, of which nothing now remains. What it did not have was a functioning tea shop. There were pubs, and there were closed tea shops, but we had to resort to a deli for an actual cup of tea.

And what is this? It's a Trauma Teddy, or my take on the idea. We finally had a wet Sunday - whoever thought that this would be a rarity? Someone at work is handing out project bags with a view to making 500 of these toys. Knitting toys is often a revelation, as the body shape emerges from the various increases and decreases. And customising the face is always fun - does it have life to its expression? I recall a great pattern for Kipper the dog.

However, the Trauma teddy pattern is for beginners - one long strip knitting the front and back just by changing colours, and then stitching up the sides and stuffing it. I moved the seams, and then knitted the head on dpns, using increases and grafting to create the snout. Looks a tad dog-like, and possibly rather grumpy. Maybe not ideal for cheering up a child in distress...

Berries

2011-06-09T03:56:00.000-07:00

This dramatic picture, taken two weeks ago, shows the effects of the drought on local field paths. That is a very deep two-inch crack running all along the path. Also shown are my trusty Ecco walking shoes, the most expensive shoes I have ever bought, but worth every penny.

We have now moved on to cycling, enjoying a round trip to Bures last Saturday. The main routes in Essex are frighteningly busy, but there are many lanes which make for pleasant cycling. Over the years we have been on holidays run by Headwater, where the idea was to cycle to the next place on the route on alternate days. We went to Burgundy some years ago, and more recently to Tuscany. The route used the strada bianchi, or small, unmetalled lanes, where these were available. Going down a steep hill on one of these, where the surface was loose gravel, was a hair-raising experience.

Most memorable was our trip to Norway where we hired bikes to extend our range from Geilo, a ski resort we were visiting in the summer. From there we took the train to the highest point, Finse, where patches of snow still lay about - in August. Here we off-loaded the bikes and used the rallerwegn, or cycle path made out of the railway construction road, to cover the forty km to Geilo. It was all downhill, and one just need a firm grip and nerves of steel.

While in Cumbria, I of course visited Linton Tweeds. I suspect this may become a habit. Off the roll, I bought this brilliant, lightweight tweed, described as viscose, but handling like silk. It is also available from Linton On-line at £22 a metre.

Then, I explored their remnants and bought these two skirt lengths from the £5 bin. I can see the first one with a black top and cardigan. The russet one fairly gleams in the light. Three skirts for about twentyfive pounds - can't argue with that.

Next, my first efforts at the spinning wheel. These are best described as "rustic," with every fault that spun yarn can have - thick and thin sections, over and under-spinning. I'm hoping it will improve with practice. I was certainly very pleased to master the art of treadling the wheel while drafting the fibre.

Finally, a bowl of our homegrown strawberries. We have tried to manage the weed issues on our strawberry bed by planting up two beds through black membrane. This seems to have done the trick.

Allonby

2011-06-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Just five miles north of Maryport is the little seaside village of Allonby, one of my favourite places for an evening stroll. This dream-like view of Criffel across the Solway Firth is the result of sea mist, and, on a bad day, the Scotch Hills can be invisible. With the tide out, the bay stretches for miles of golden sand, graded gravel and shingle banks.

Like many places along this Cumbrian coastline, its heyday seems to have been in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Now there are at least five caravan parks stretching back from the street frontage. Then, it seems to have been a fishing village and a spa, with some elegant buildings. Here we have The Baths:

Front and rear views, now a private house. The upper room was used as a ball-room. The side with the columns faces into The Square, but this cobbled area was once also the main road through the village.

This lovely house, with its charming inscription over the lintel, also speaks of better days.

Even earlier is this non-conformist chapel.

With its inscription:

It stands right next to a former Quaker meeting house.

More prominent, and for many years a distressing ruin, is the old Reading Room, designed by the architect who designed the Natural History Museum, and built after a fund-raising effort in the 1860s. The story goes that the most recent owner owned the building but not the access across a stip of land about four feet wide to the road. This delayed matters while the building fell into decay. Now, it has been made weather-proof but never seems to move any further. The unimpeded views from its huge windows must be superb.

Finally, a nest of eggs - possibly an oyster-catcher's? They were hidden in plain sight right out on the shingle beach.

Chimneys

2011-05-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

Continuing the theme of the longer walk, my husband and I set out to walk to Stisted, a nearby village. First we walked along the River Blackwater to Dick Nunn's Bridge. This was, until recently, the turning point on our longest walk.

Dick Nunn was a local blacksmith, in the nineteenth century. He was stout-hearted and possessed of a sense of social justice, to the extent that, seeing tumbledown cottage up near the church, he helped it to tumble down completely, thus shaming the landlord into action. Which was fortunate as, otherwise, the tenant would have been homeless. The bridge has an iron frame - made by Dick himself? - and wooden slats.

We walked along the ridge then dropped to the river again. Here we were amazed to find boggy sections even in this unprecedented dry spell. Borage, alive with bees, towers over the presumed path.

Passing a trout farm and Blackwater Alpacas, where eight fine animals were sunning themselves, we came to the gravel extraction pits. All this while the noise of heavy traffic on the A120 was in our ears, but nothing prepares you for the experience of walking on the path alongside the road. Fortunately, this stretch did not last and we were soon through a hedge into quiet fields.

And this is where we were headed: Stisted. This is an ancient village much developed in the nineteenth century. Note the ornamental brickwork on the chimneys.

We stopped for lunch on a bench outside the Montefiore Reading Room and my husband was able to sample the beer from the Onley Arms. Unlike our village, Stisted has no shops, even for basic supplies. It has only a tea-shop and a pub.

Then we headed home over the fields, including crossing an interminable field of oilseed rape where the crop was as tall as I am. It was like walking through the bristles of a broom, although, at ground level, the path was perfectly clear.

Saturday was the meeting of the Mid Essex Guild of Spinners and Weavers. Somehow I find myself in possession of a spinning wheel, without being able to spin. I am poring over Sue Macniven's You-Tube videos, and have learned a lot already.

This is an absolutely standard Ashford wheel, which means that spare bobbins should be easy to come by.

Finally, a swatch of a four-ply Shetland yarn from sheep grazing on a local nature reserve. someone at the Guild processes the fleece and sends it off to be spun in Devon. The result is a lovely cosy sample - lofty is the term, I believe. I am contemplating a jumper for my husband's birthday in August and this looks just the ticket.

Great Monk's Wood

2011-05-19T02:57:00.000-07:00

In a normal year, we would consider walking the field paths or a stretch of the Essex Way and we would be stymied by the sticky mud, the long, wet grass and the occasional downright quagmire. But not this year. This is the year of the drought as far as Essex is concerned. Six weeks without significant rain; a few millimetres in April. The field paths are bone-dry and those across arable land have fissures two inches wide running along them. The crops will be early and meagre. Like the snow in December, it is a situation beyond our control.

My husband and I, not being farmers, have been able to enjoy longer walks this year. Last week we set out for Greenstead Green, a village with a farm shop and cafe, some four miles distant. To get there meant traversing Great Monk's Wood, something I have wanted to do for some time. In fact, stretches of coppiced woodland characterise this part of Essex. Last week we came across charcoal burning in a clearing.

Once the whole of Essex was designated as Royal hunting forest. My husband informs me that when Charles the First was unable to raise taxes as he had suspended parliament, he tried to tax those who had encroached on crown lands. I wonder what he would think of some of the palatial converted farmhouses here now. One has a sizable private fishing lake where we actually saw cormorants circling.

Knitting:

This is the progress so far on the Mitred Crosses throw, knit in 4-ply Shetland and scraps of sock yarn. I am pondering whether to put solid squares as spacers, and, if so, whether to knit them in bright sock yarn or a faded blue Shetland. Alternatively, I could just knit twenty-five of these squares: there is probably enough cream for that.

Fans

2011-05-12T05:15:00.000-07:00

Last week to the "Cult of Beauty" exhibition at the V & A. Maybe it was just me, but there was a lack of something to the whole event. How many pictures of Janey Morris does one need to see? As I went round, I was struck bythe indolence of the whole thing. Endless paintings of women looking very bored and half-asleep. The Twentieth Century couldn't come soon enough for these girls. Some Whistler drawings of quayside warehouses were a positive relief. And there were a couple of absolutely lovely costume items: a cape and a medieval style velvet dress - which were pure Annabelinda c.1970

"Antiques Roadshow" - I suddenly remembered how awful my last experience of this was. When you see the queues waiting patiently, you don't realise that they can be there for three hours before being seen. So what would I have taken?

Many years ago I was given an antique white fan for my birthday, by my first serious boyfriend. How romantic, you might be thinking, and, indeed, this is what I thought too. That was until I realised that he expected me to buy him a car radio for his birthday, in return. I learned a great deal from that relationship, all of it useful in the long run.

Some years later, I bought myself a black lace fan which was sold in this fan box, but is not necessarily by the maker on the box. You may be able to see the dragonfly outlined in sequins in the second picture. This one cost fifteen pounds, no strings attached.

We have taken to extending the range of our walks locally. This is feasible this year because of the dryness of the season.
It is a disaster for arable farmers, but it does mean that the footpaths are dry, where they can be ankle deep in mud.

We walked North, towards Great Monk Wood. We went behind Holfield grange where the map had us cross a meadow. Here we were surprsed to see the remnant of an ancient tree, almost eight feet in diameter, looking like a small henge. It will have been an oak like the one in the picture following. At this size it must have been hundreds of years old. The dendrochronologists told us that the oak for the historic houses of our village - including our house - came from Monks' Wood. One can't help wondering whether this tree was already standing in 1635.

Finally, some dogroses seen alongide the path.

Lanthwaite woods.

2011-05-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

Our second walk this Easter began in Lanthwaite woods, a lovely, shady patch of mixed woodlands. From there we walked through lanes and across fields to the foot of Crummock water where there is a pebble beach.

We happily ate an early lunch here, basking in the sunshine and remembering other visits when it was windy and cold. It was hazy in the distance, but the views were spectacular.

Round the end of the lake, past some sluices where we saw these elegant dogs chilling out. Back up through woodland and out on to the road to the car. We followed this by a trip to the tearooms in Lorton where my husband indulged in ginger cake and cream.

More progress on the Mitred Crosses squares. I love the way that the cream shetland makes these saturated colours sing.

I am trying not to think how many squares will be needed for a throw which will be a useful size - twenty, perhaps? All these so far are blues and turquoises but I plan to mix in some other colours to give that scrappy quilt look.

Tomorrow to the V & A for the Aesthetic Movement exhibition. Next week, Antiques Roadshow is filming near to us on a Thursday: my day off. Do I go, and if so, what do I take?

Walk in the park

2011-04-28T06:20:00.000-07:00

My new knitting project: a throw based on Mitred Crosses for Japan by Mason-Dixon Knitting. This is in sock yarn on a cream Wendy Shetland base. I do not have the pattern so have made up what I think must be the numbers needed.

It is ideal travel knitting - interesting enough but not too fussy.

We were blessed with glorious weather on our trip to Cumbria. Our favourite valley walk is a circuit around Low Lorton and Boonbeck. We prefer to be away from the crowds. This walk offers little streams and shady bridges

It passes interesting houses - here, one is for sale. What can be the purpose of the steps?

We saw mamy sheep with lambs at foot, and drystone walls.

Spring flowers - primroses and wood violets - were just everwhere.

And all along the way, the accompaniment of birdsong. My husband saw a redpoll, a pied flycatcher, a reed bunting...and many others.

Finally, my commemorative sampler for the birth of the Princess Royal. The atttribution of the verse to Patience Strong suggests the source of the design.

Macclesfield Silks

2011-04-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

En route for Cumbria, we spend two days visiting Macclesfield, known by locals as "Macc". Macclesfield began as a centre for the production of silk covered buttons and from there developed "Throwing" mills for silk - "throwing" meaning plying to make thread. With French silk no longer available, the early 1800s were boom years for Macclesfield.

From the Town centre, the hills leading up to the Cat and Fiddle Inn and Wildboarclough are constantly in view. Wonderful Venetian windows remain on buildings in the town centre.

Once there were 120 silk mills in Macclesfield; now there is only one, although the mill buildings are everywhere, being used as offices and kitchen showrooms and apartments. We visited the Heritage Centre, once a Sunday School for 2000 children, and built on exactly the same lines as a mill.

We had a guided tour of Paradise Mill, with Jaquard weaving looms for woven silk. We were shown how the silk fibre is produced and the various processes preparing it for weaving. Children as young as three would wind the little spools, or perns, which fit into the shuttles, using this wheel. I had only ever seen that word in Yeats' poetry, and I had no idea what it meant.

Winding a pern

Once the pern was in the shuttle, the thread was sucked though an aperture, hence the name "kissing shuttle". Later, we would learn how this process spread tuberculosis and meant that cotton weavers inhaled the fibres.

We were shown the design sheets, coloured in blocks of eight so that the holes could be punched on the Jacquard machine. All that ingenuity to produce motifs on woven silk. We also saw the Design school where students learnt their trade. What we did not see were the four two up, two down cottages which were found to be housing 140 people - perhaps on a shift system - with only "the remains of a privy" between them. That would be in the mid-nineteenth century. We did hear a lot about how weavers rented their looms from the factory owner often paying over most of their earnings, and how five was the starting age but a tall three year old might be set on to work.

All in all, it was a fascinating place to visit.

Forget me nots

2011-04-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

After my father's death, sixteen years ago, I was helping my mother to tidy the garden. I dug up a clump of forget me nots and brought them south to my own garden. Never was a flower better named. For several springs after that, they engulfed the whole garden. Now, I have them tamed to specific areas, where they drown out all rivals.

This is certainly an amazing season for blossom. Here, the two espaliered pears facing each other in our walled garden. At the base of this one a clematis, Madame Grange, is making another bid for life. The harsh winter seems to have kick-started everything rather than killing it off.

A viburnum in full flower, threaded through with a clematis Montana. the second picture shows some of the many insects attracted by its heady scent.

Finally, an image of our allotment plate. As a child, I lived in a farmhouse which had been in my father's family for more than one generation. My great-grandfather, who was described in his obituary as a "dalesman of the old school," was bookish, perhaps because he had crippled himself as a yourng man. The story was that he was scything the grass in the orchard when he cut his own Achilles' tendon. There being no doctor to hand, his mother sewed him up with a sewing needle and thread. Thereafter he walked with two sticks. The attic at our farm was full of books which he had collected, and which amazed us as children.

Also up there were two plates made by embedding fragments of broken china into cement on a tin plate base. When we kept finding pieces on our allotment, it occurred to me that I could make such a plate myself - this is the result.

Stately Home

2011-04-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend to the Cotswolds to visit my father-in-law's widow. We try to stay over in Stratford as it's a long day's driving otherwise. This, the revamped Shakespeare Memorial theatre, with the curious tower, somewhat like a medieval Italian city state. In the foreground, a glorious magnolia, dripping with blooms.

A further sample of my husband's craft, this tea caddy was made for his mother's sixtieth birthday, more than twenty years ago. He was very pleased to be able to shade the marquetry using hot sand heated in a metal tray to singe the individual pieces.

On our way, we called at Upton house, home of the Samuels family, of Shell Oil. The ambience is that of a house party in the thirties, although the collection of pictures is quite impressive, and worth millions. We were able to view the paintings without the inevitable press of people in the National Galleries.

In the billiard room, we were surprised to see an item of "kit" that we recognised: we have one in our dining-room. I asked if we could see the interior and we were very entertained to see the room steward don a pair of white gloves before opening it up for us. We will have to get a pair to use with ours!

This is a "Star" record cabinet - ours. Note the Art Deco shaping to the lower edge. My husband inherited it and set about converting it to hold a tuner and a turntable on which he plays his 78s. The lid lifts up on a hinge to allow this. Who knew it was the choice of millionaires?

Pansies and pear blossom in the garden. Such cheerful flowers, pansies, with their curious markings, and in such brilliant combinations of colours. We encouraged the buying and planting of trays of these in the Cotswold garden too.

Spun yarn

2011-03-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

A second royal sampler, this time simpler in its sentiments, but dense with symbolism. Note the orb and sceptre, along with the symbols for the various nations, and the abbey itself - quite an ambitious design. Given how old this already is, the lightness and brightness of the colours is quite surprising. Does it capture the optimistic mood of the 1950s? Well, certainly there was a less cynical view of the monarchy just then than there is now. A case of too much information, perhaps.

This may not look like much, but it is the first yarn I have ever spun, using a drop spindle and knitted as singles. I was quite surprised by how even the finished piece looked, given the unevenness of the yarn. The lighter colour is part of the Suffolk fleece I bought some years ago, while the dark is a Shetland sample.

And here, two skirts, made from the Linton tweed fabric bought from the factory shop in Carlisle in February. I have already worn the black and white one which is light and airy. I still think it looks like tower blocks as seen from a ring road. The speckled section is a raffia type yarn, with lots of protruding ends forming a pile. Consequently some of the bands were less stable than others in the sewing, although it made up easily enough. I imagine wearing this with black tights and a solid colour jacket.

The red has been made up for my elder sister, at her request. It is a mix of black and red threads to give a rich deep red, but it is loosely woven. I could envisage it snagging quite easily in wear. Did Chanel worry about issue like these, I wonder?

Today, to the allotment, to plant leeks and parsnips, our onions already in. Such a bright sunny day that we were able to eat lunch on the patio, as we were on Friday. In between, Saturday was raw and cold again. Watching Mike Leigh's "Another Year" last night gave a whole new layer of meaning to the allotment visit.

Commemorations

2011-03-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, to the funeral of my husband's father; a bitingly cold day with a grey mist. A small gathering of family and representatives of the public life he once led: a dignified end, a quality which serious illness often erodes.

In our garden, though, flowers of different kinds are in full bloom. The lovely, clear mid-blue of grape hyacinths.

Daffodils, against a background of budding pear branches. If Wordsworth were to visit Essex he would be overwhelmed by the jocund company: thousands of daffodils in every public space and road verge.

And the pure white of a hellebore, gifted to us by our neighbour.

The approaching Royal Wedding is bringing with it the usual odd range of souvenirs. I have a small collection of samplers from different periods. Imagine the feelings of the embroidress in this case. The design must have been from a magazine, intended for the coronation of Edward V111. Notice the stamp appliqued to the fabric, and the row of flags of the Empire. Then the shock of the Abdication - what to do? So she ( one can only imagine it was a she) added her own text to the border. A nation's disappointment, indeed.

Spring...

2011-03-11T07:13:00.000-08:00

Ever thought how nice it would be to have a little stream running at the bottom of your garden? The gurgling noises, the constant movement, moisture feeding your plants without you lifting a hand?

This little spring popped up about a month ago just at the corner of our allotment - that is our seedbed in the picture, or it would be were it not waterlogged.

Quite a little stream is running along the channel cut for it. Apparently the drainage ditch must be blocked, the water table has risen to within a spade's depth of the surface and the spring has made itself visible for the first time in many years. All the upper half of our plot is soggy, which is probably doing our blackcurrant bushes no good at all.

New growth on our rhubarb, grown from seed three years ago, one of a block of eight. We are still eating rhubarb frozen from the crops last year. We also have two of a different variety which cooks to red rather than green, which we bought from a charity stall in Ludlow some years ago.

Brilliant blue skies and the fresh green of a weeping tree over the river. Is this a willow? I'm not sure. On the other side of the bridge there certainly are willow plantations, planted by Surridges, for making cricket bats. The uncle of a friend of mine spent his working life at the company based in Witham.

An interesting comparison. On the left, Regia sock yarn designed by Kaffe Fassett. Lovely clear blues in shimmering patterns, set off by a curious khaki splodge. Cost:over eight pounds for a pair. On the left, sock yarn by King Cole: same sort of turquoise and a purply colour, distributed more mechanically across the piece. Cost: about half what the Regia costs. It will be interesting to see how they wear, but also, given that I generally wear socks with black trousers and clogs, whether I continue to be aware of the difference in daily use.

This week's words, following alphabetically from "Clarty" - dirty or sticky. "Clatting" meant telling tales or grassing someone up, as Essex would have it. "Clab" could be either a noun or a verb, meaning something plastered on, as in butter on bread, or at least, I think that is what it meant. I haven't heard some of these words in forty years. My parents were not really dialect speakers themselves and they certainly did not think speaking broad would bring with it any advantages for their children, so it was discouraged. Now, I find these words have all the charm of the endangered or newly extinct specimen in nature.

Signs of Spring

2011-03-03T04:58:00.000-08:00

For those of you still under several feet or inches of snow, some green shoots, the first a delphinium which may live - or die - to regret this spurt of new growth.

More promising are these buds on the espaliered pear, although the blossom needs to wait a while. This, in a week when the temperature has fallen again, so that it is actually painful to be outdoors without mittens.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will know that I enjoy a bargain almost above anything. Clothes for which I have paid the full price almost never become my favourites, while something picked up at Oxfam will be never off my back.

Here a little treasure trove of items acquired over the years in Essex, some three hundred and fifty miles from Cumbria. First, the woven mohair scarf, in such wonderful deep-dyed colours. Someone obviously found it too tickly to wear next to the skin. It was brand-new when I found it in a charity shop.

Then, this little dish made in Borrowdale by Lakeland Rural Industries. Once there was a thriving art metalwork industry based at Keaswick. Even in the early Seventies, items made in stainless steel were on sale. This is descibed as Hand-beaten and bears the characteristic markings of that process.

Finally, the larger bowl by John Harrison, a craftsman in metal based at Penrith. Again, this was in a charity shop in Essex. It has a mirror finish, so shiny that you can see our stained glass windows reflected in the surface.

This week's words: My younger sister gave us a Voucher for Christmas. It's a voucher for meat from Heritage Meats at Yew Tree Farm, Coniston. The web-site offers cuts of pork, beef and Herdwick lamb and mutton, using the word "Hogget". My father kept a flock of sheep on our small fell-farm, but he chose Cheviots, on the grounds that they are larger animals with light coloured wool. No one ever suggested processing the wool at home; fleeces went into a large wool-sack and off to the Wool Board. Even the daggets were bought by the travelling scrap metal merchants.
So there is a repertoire of words for sheep: hogg, gimmer, wether, twinter, yow, tip. "Smit" was the red marking pigment, used to identify the sheep as ours: two pops on one side. "Ratch" is a verb, meaning to go in search of forage. In our house it was also used for looking in drawers or cupboards which were not one's own!

If the Hat fits....

2011-02-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

Finally, a hat which I feel comfortable with. This is Crystal Palace Mini Mochi, in a very lively colourway. It looks like a thin lopi yarn without much twist and is a little splitty, but it certainly feels luxurious. The key to fitting my over-sized head seems to lie in the ribbing, which has plenty of give. I started on 3.25 needles and increased to 4.mm, also increasing for the cables. Perhaps I have come to the end of a run of hats, just as the weather becomes spring-like and the first sharp greens appear on the trees.

More images of Maryport, this time of Fleming Square. Maryport was not developed until the end of the eighteenth century, when it became a major port for the export of coal and then iron ore. Fleming Square is a lovely open space surrounded by impressive Georgian houses.

Here the cobbles of the square and the central obelisk can be seen. Just yards from here are unparalleled views over the Solway to the Scotch hills, and a Roman Museum full of world-class Roman artefacts from the mile fort at the top of the hill.

A curious little group of statues down by the harbour, and, just visible, a new venue called the Wave centre, hosting concerts and community events. These things are clear evidence of regeneration, whether they are quite to one's taste or not. Like much of West Cumbria, Maryport has gone though a long decline with prominent high street properties standing empty. Once it was possible to walk clear across the harbour on the decks of the herring boats, an old lady in the nursing-home told me. Those days are long past.

More Cumbrian dialect: many words seem onomatopoeic: "scrow", for example. The high incidence of words with that initial sound is apparently due to Norse influences. Thus "scop" - throw and "scree" - loose stones on a steep slope. And "scratting" and "scraffling", both of which I recall used in the context of struggling to make a living. Interesting how they evoke a whole way of life.

A taste of Cumbria

2011-02-22T04:12:00.000-08:00

To West Cumbria, to visit family. First, to Carlisle, and more wonderful Georgian houses. Here a whole street with perfectly preserved fan-lights and door pilasters. I particularly love the chequered brickwork - and the way the car matches the door! However, though this looks smart as paint, the street adjoins one of those seriously run-down areas that blight northern towns.

Visiting Linton Tweeds, I find myself drawn to this graphic black and white weave - suggestive of high-rise blocks. I am also drawn to the two for one offer on skirt lengths. That is two different metres of tweed for fifteen pounds. Linton have an interesting client base, having supplied Chanel herself. Check them out at Linton on-line

Then to Maryport, where my mother has lived for many years in a nursing-home. A view first of Mote Hill with the flood plain awash and then of the harbour from Mote Hill. Ancient peoples used the hill as a strategic lookout over the River Ellen, long before the arrival of the Romans.

These views show the tide in and high water. It is quite a different scene at low water, with acres of mud.

Some ten miles north of Maryport is Beckfoot, where I took my shore walk. Looking north, an uninterrupted view of the Solway, with not another person in sight.

Amazingly, Enid from Wigan left a comment to say that she knew my mother's expression - "like a padding-can," for an untidy room. I am fascinated by the incidence of very broad Cumbrian - for example, a checkout girl using "Yan" for "one" to another worker. I do feel the curators of the British Library exhibition might easily have located some more vivid samples by not interviewing the people, but by eavesdropping on conversations between native speakers. Another common Cumbrian expression: "clarty" - sticky.

Some knitting: a little hat in J&S jumper-weight, owing something to Kate Davies' most recent design, largely because I was in Cumbria and my reference book in Essex. It fits me, but again suggests a swimming hat more than anything.

Finally, this week's culinary offering. I like nothing better than to go into my kitchen and put together something tasty from almost nothing. This is what comes of combining two stale hot cross buns, buttered and lightly spread with orange marmalade, with two eggs beaten with a little milk and sugar. Baked for about 35 minutes, it rises to a light, orange flavoured pudding, which is lovely with a blob of vanilla ice-cream.

A Bit of Culture

2011-02-11T06:48:00.000-08:00

This week to the British Library, to meet my sister for lunch and to visit the exhibition on the English Language. I would like to say that this was fascinating, and they had certainly tried hard, with original early books and artefacts, alongside recordings of various types of speech. However, nothing quite matched that shock of the raw one sometimes happens upon in hearing English actually spoken in its regional variations within England. One time in a Lake District pub, overhearing three hound-trailing supporters discussing the relative merits of various dogs - there's a little world with its own language. Another time, going just that bit further up the A1 and finding ourselves unexpectedly at sea in a service station, asking the girl on the till to repeat things because we had no idea what she had said.

At the end of the exhibition there was the chance to contribute a sample of one's own English, choosing a word we used. My sister chose "Slarky", which means "Smeared, as in a window, or windscreen." I chose my mother's expression "like a padding-can." This meant an untidy room or a scrow. I have never heard anyone else say this, so I am not sure if it is Cumbrian dialect.

After lunch, I took the opportunity of popping in to the British Museum, with a view to seeing some of the 100 Objects, and indeed I did see a couple of them: the stone belt weighing five stones which was part of a ritualised ball game, and a carved stone pipe in the shape of an otter.

What caught my eye, however, was a golden funerary wreath from the Hellenistic art section, its delicate oak leaves and acorns as abundant and shiny as when it was made.

And this carved panel:

from Hadrian's villa at Tivoli.

Finally, an Anglo-Saxon cross in red sandstone, from Lowther in Cumbria.

This week's knitting: another version of Knotty but Nice from Knitty Winter 2009. I knitted this flat in DK, adding one extra pattern and fudging the cable by turning one back on itself at the edge. This fits very closely and will be ideal for cycling, although it has to be said that it looks a bit like a swimming cap in wear. I did use a larger needle for the cable section, but it still pulls in dramatically.

This week's recipe: recently, I harvested most of our leeks. Trim the leeks but keep whole. Boil until tender. Meanwhile make a cheese sauce with butter, flour, milk and grated cheese, adding a teaspoonful of English mustard to add piquancy. Wrap each leek in a slice of cooked ham and place two of these per person in a shallow dish. Pour over the cheese sauce. Reheat in the oven. This was particularly frugal since we live a few yards from the Coop supermarket who pride themselves on discarding a minimum of food as waste. To this end, they discount items heavily as they approach their sell-by date. Packs of perfectly good ham were 20p, having started at £3. That's what I call discounting.

Spring Fever

2011-02-03T12:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, a thin wind, blowing right through you, but today, a blue sky, sun and the urge to inspect all the shoots of Spring in the garden. I like the idea of getting going on the allotment, but I know that it is folly. Potatoes planted too early have a tendency to have their tops frosted; last years earlies never recovered.

And where is this? Occasionally, I enjoy a little light shopping and grazing in Cambridge, an easy hour's drive from here with a good Park and Ride. In another lifetime, I was invited to entrance interviews at Newnham. I had left my home in Cumbria earlier in the week to go to Oxford for interview, but then had to take the coach across country to Cambridge. I recall pottering around the open market in the middle of Cambridge with another interviewee feeling like a seasoned traveller and completely at home.

I still prefer the spaciousness of Cambridge, and the lovely little details which surprise at every turn. Of Newnham, I remember only the very long corridors, more like a hospital than anything else.

And King' College Chapel, lovely in the sunlight. I like to lunch at Michaeljohn, a dual use church with a great cafe at one end.

More hat-work. My husband was taken with my new titfer and requested a cycling hat for himself. This cabled hat is Knotty but Nice from Knitty, Winter 2009. He prefers plain colours and this needs to chime with a dull green scarf he has. A number of people have commented on the swatch of J&S I posted. It often surprises me how their colours blend together so well, even those without the same dyed fibres within the mix. "Peerie" patterns are the small patterns lasting a few rows each. I suppose that I was aiming at a wave effect and something fern-like for the green. All I did was choose them from the book, though. I suspect the swatch would make a perfectly acceptable hat, but there is not really enough "Pop" in the colours.

Food for cold weather: one of my favourite supper dishes is a casserole of pork-chops, first served to me by my elder sister. Dice and gently fry two onions in a little oil. Press both sides of two pork chops into some dried sage and onion stuffing mix and brown them in the frying pan. Place them in the casserole with the onion. Add some stock and cook for about forty minutes in a moderate oven. Braised like this, the stuffing swells and the seasoning is so nicely balanced no other ingredients are needed. Serve with potato and greens. Very tasty.

Living off the Fat of the Land

2011-01-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

So, if I was swatching in muted colours of J&S jumperweight, how is it possible that the finished hat looks like this?

On Saturday I went to the AGM of the Mid-Essex Spinners' and Weavers' Guild. Someone brought in two large crates of yarn which she wanted to clear out. I picked out a ball in this deep periwinkle blue, and another in cream, in roughly the same weight. Another ball, this time a laceweight, in the same periwinkle - 50p, said the person on the sales table, for the three. Working on the principle that it is better to use random harvests straight away, I made a swatch. It was odd yarn, varying in thickness, but looking mostly like a 4 ply. The cream was a little heavier, but that just seemed to add texture to the motifs.

Making up the pattern as I went along, I found it helpful to pull all the stitches off the needles a couple of times to try the piece around my head. Then I thought a touch of red would lift the design, and I found instructions for the little braid. It was new to me. The main motifs are from Sheila Mcgregor's "Traditional Fair Isle Knitting", which I come back to every time. I was pretty sure that it would be too tight after the main motif, but in fact it is an exact fit and the ribbing provides a snug covering for the ears.

So what did I need a new hat for? My husband and I are not overly keen on exercise, certainly not on sport, but we enjoy cycling and walking. We have taken to including a cycle round some of the network of lanes which can be found in this part of Essex - traffic free, through rolling countryside, and providing that glow of well-being and self-righteousness which calls for a hearty lunch.

My husband, on his bike outside Great Tey church., a curious structure in which the tower dates from the12th Century, one wing from the 13th and the other from the 14th. On our first ride this year we were astonished to see a herd of twenty wild deer standing right in the middle of an open field very near to this church. Essex is a very heavily populated county, its major roads often congested, yet the lanes are deeply rural still.

Arriving home from our rides, we have really enjoyed the home-made soup we had left on the hob, ready to reheat. I was shown how to make this by my younger sister five years ago, and since then we have eaten gallons of it. Using one onion, two carrots, a potato, plus whatever else you have - some stalks of celery, a slice of swede - and a vegetable stock cube, it is also very thifty. The secret is to sweat the diced vegetables in a tablespoonful of oil before adding the stock, then mash the soup with a potato masher after it has simmered for about thirty minutes. Recently I have added a small amount of mixed lentils with the stock, which seems to add body to the mix. It is always the same, but always different.

And this is a skein of laceweight cashmere, bought from Hip-knits on a sale day. It was an insipid pale blue, so I have over-dyed it with a cold water dye. Much improved, I feel.

Swatches

2011-01-20T02:09:00.000-08:00

So many people seem to be able to design their own patterns - not just start and see how it works out, as has usually been my way if I am not using a published pattern. I do find it hard to visualise on graph paper, for example, but adapting a basic shape by using different combinations of colours must be within my capacity.

Above is my stock of J& S jumper weight, all of it dating from before 1990 or thereabouts. I remember sitting on a train travelling to Cumbria and using the shade card to select a batch of colours for a new project. I was hoping to replicate the brown Kaffe Fassett Jagged Tooth waistcoat which I had knit for my mother.

I sent off the order full of enthusiasm, but was amazed by what was sent. One of the blue tweed yarns had solid flecks of colour rather than the blended mix I was hoping for. Some of the muted browns were muddy, not just muted. There was something lifeless about them which I had not noted as a feature of my previous purchases from J&S. Of course, it was also still fantastically cheap, so I was not unduly concerned, but I did not send for any more and abandoned the project.

In 2000 we visited Orkney and Shetland on our honeymoon. We certainly realised why tightly knit woollies were popular - and this was August. We had each taken a thin jumper and a thicker, walking jumper but, on the first morning, we put both on topped with anoraks before we went to explore Jarlshof. I bought only a few ounces of laceweight from J&S.

However, now I look at this box of yarn and think that there must be the wherewithal for a hat in here. Some of the muted browns are a blend of brown with blue or brown with green, so perhaps the lighter shade could be picked out?

So, definitely light and dark stripes, but perhaps a different peerie pattern? or vertical stripes? There is always the danger that the finished item will say "tea cosy", rather than "hat." Add to that the fact that I only wear a hat for practical purposes, since I look ten years older without my hair showing. I'm clearly not there yet on the design issue.

This is what I have actually been knitting: some more scratch mittens in subtly larger sizes.

And a pair of socks in Regia by Kaffe Fassett. Very cheering on a dark day.

Arts and Crafts

2011-01-13T04:40:00.000-08:00

These are miniature scratch mittens which fit the tiny hands of the latest arrival. The 10p coin is for scale. The pattern was on a preemie site as I had no concept how small to aim for, although the baby is not unusually small, just new-born.

This is not all the knitting I have done since finishing my shawl, but it feels like it. I am itching to start a big project, or possibly more than one, so that I have something challenging and something soothing.

Here is another Eleanor Cowl pre-blocking. It certainly became quicker to knit on the second and third times, when the logic of the pattern became more evident. I cast off before the last half-pattern on this one.

This is my husband's most ambitious project to date. We use it as a sideboard, hence the drinks. It was designed to echo the other significant piece of furniture in our dining-room, an Arts and Crafts sideboard.

We bought this some years ago as a dresser - the glazed top acts as a china cabinet in another room. We understood it to have been in a conventWhich was closing down in a neighbouring village. the convent building was in the Arts and Crafts style so the dresser may well have been in there since it opened. It has no maker's mark, but shows the distinctive features one would expect of the period.

Below, the dresser , and above, my husband's work, with that distinctive curve. The shape of the panels, the profile of the beading and the routing on the edge pieces all echo the original.

Below, the original metalwork handles, and, above, the handles I sourced in Homebase - a remarkable find.

The inside of the cabinet, showing its real purpose. It is lined with green baize and contains some of my husband's collection of 78rpm records, alongside some more later LPs.

A Thing of Beauty

2011-01-08T03:41:00.000-08:00

These are my two finished Eleanor cowls from Knitty 2010 - to save you searching if you have come across from Jean's blog. The top one is in Yarnsmith's Pure Alchemy, a hand-dyed yarn produced by Becky who belongs to the Mid-Essex Spinners and Weavers. That sharp, acid green goes very well over navy or black, as I used it before for a Swallowtail Shawl.

The pink one is in Jaeger merino 4ply and I increased the stitch count to allow one more pattern repeat. I don't think that the fit of a cowl is crucial but it should not be too snug or it would be impossible to get on.

This is my new shawl blocking.

And here it is being worn. Unfortunately, no willowy young person was available for the photoshoot.

This is the Aeolian Shawl from Knitty 2009, designed by Elisabeth Freeman and made in laceweight silk in a colourway called Riverrun. I am very pleased with how this has turned out.

Cabin fever

2011-01-06T05:26:00.000-08:00

This is my husband's largest piece of woodwork, and also one of the earliest examples we have. He made it while still a bachelor, constructing one single bed, but buying the wood for the other half, so that it would make a very large double. He was clearly someone who thought long-term.

Now he is considering removing the foot-boards, which serve no structural purpose, but make changing the sheets an athletic enterprise.

Behind the bed can be seen some more of our beams, including the broader one which excited the historic buildings people. This beam is "jowled", which means that it shows evidence of having had a cross-piece jointed into it at one time.

At last I have finished the Aeolian Shawl, seen here in its pre-blocked state. I certainly take my hat off to the designer, Elisabeth Freeman, but also to those who have knitted it more than once and incorporated the beads, which I omitted. The early parts went well, but the very deep edging was taking at least half an hour per row, and there were about fifty rows. Simply casting off took several hours. That said, it did take the edge off some long car journeys. Listening on my new MP3 player to "The History of the World in 100 Objects," while knitting this, brought on a trance-like state.

Here it is being blocked. The silk has less give in it than wool, but the transformation is still astonishing. Below is the skein of yarn, purchased at the i-knit Weekender in September.

In the interests of full disclosure, these were the scarves I knitted for various unsuspecting family and friends this year. This is Starlight Revue by Austermann, bought in a fit of enthusiasm at Ally Pally this year. It's a ladder yarn with a metallic thread, and in the right light it glistens in a jewel-like manner. It does look festive on a plain black top, or I hope that is what the giftees felt. As a knitting experience it is not pleasant - big needles, scratchy, unrelenting yarn, no skill involved.

Finally, what looks like a sign of Spring. Odd to think that this succulent decided to flower as temperatures dropped to their lowest levels.

Table Turning

2010-12-22T07:28:00.000-08:00

Like most of the UK, our holiday plans have been radically altered by the severe weather. Watching the scenes of traffic benighted on the M6, we decided to stay put, rescheduling some of our visits for next week. After all, it is seven hour's drive to Cumbria, through bands of snow and freezing fog - seven hours on a good day.

Earlier in the year I had suggested to my husband that he motivate himself to work through a tedious patch of his big project by setting himself a deadline - why not have it ready for Christmas? He has spent some long hours in his shed this week and yesterday moved to the assembly phase.

The table in our dining-room was second-hand when I bought it for £15 in 1984. It had seen hard service, but had the advantage of an extra leaf which could be put in for bigger parties. It is so old, it had almost become a fashionable item - solid wood, with a g-plan vibe to the design. However, the top was badly marked, and the legs not totally steady.

Unlike the replacement. This is the result of much research into Arts and Crafts models, the Gordon Russell Museum in Broadway, Blackwell in the Lake District - every joint carefully checked out. No glue has been used in the construction, and screws only in fixing the top.

Oak table

Note the pegs at the top of the legs, and the button on the cross bar.

Pegged joints

This is several hundred pounds worth of English oak. It can be taken down, which is fortunate as it is too big to move through the doorway of the room and had to be assembled in situ.

I love it. We will be christening it on Christmas Day.

Another Eleanor cowl from Knitty. Such a satisfying piece of lace to knit, with different sized needles to give the flare at the bottom. This was a merino 4-ply, so I added an extra pattern repeat. It used almost all of one 50 gram ball.

Woad, Weld and Madder

2010-12-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

Sounds like a firm of solicitors, but in fact these are three of the dyes a member of the Mid-Essex Guild of Spinners and Weavers used in the making of the gift I received from the Secret Santa. She had done a demonstration dyeing session at West Stow Anglo Saxon Village and had a pile of small amounts of yarn in interesting colours. This is what she made of some of it - it's a pot-holder.

The red is madder, the orange turmeric, the blue woad and the green weld overdyed with woad.

At rthe event, the wrapping was meant to be as creative as the gift. To wrap the cowl I made, I put together a bag made of silk patchwork scraps, with a little pocket of tie silk which happenened to have Christmas trees all over it. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture before I gifted it. The parcel I got was tied with green ribbon with this madder-dyed flower attched.

This little group of miniatures were not made by my husband, but by my father. In his retirement, he derived much pleasure from retreating to his garage where he had a work-bench set up. Two of these items have huge symbolic meaning.

The small box is a sailor's "Diddy-box". In 1939, my father, who had already left Cumbria to work in Northampton, decided to "join up" for seven years. He chose the Navy because his Uncle Nat had served in the Navy. He sent my mother a postcard with a drawing of a pair of bell-bottom trousers on it - she was supposed to work out the significance of this for herself. They married in 1940, but it was 1947 before they were able to set up home together.

Soon, they were able to buy the farm of the same Uncle Nat, who was just ready to retire. They bought it "Lock, stock and barrel", and I don't doubt that a barrow just like the one above was part of the equipment included. My father certainly "mucked out" with a barrow each morning for many years. The muck was shifted out to the midden where it stayed until he loaded it by hand onto a cart, and put it out in heaps on the fields. Then, again by hand, he spread each heap out. Whenever we do this, as a leisure activity, on our allotment, I think of the toil which went into making a living. Now, of course, farmers use mechanical scrapers and slurry tanks

Icy Blast

2010-12-10T02:53:00.000-08:00

Cold weather gear. Every year this padded jacket, christened by my husband "The Yak-Herder", comes into its own. It was bought from a tiny boutique in Maldon but is made by Phool. When I bought it, along with a heavy black cardigan with a double front, I remember thinking that I might not actually get much wear out of either of them. But, both have been reliable companions.

Similarly, this merino Nordic knit. It was there waiting for me in a charity shop, Brand New With Tags, as they say on e-bay. Someone clearly thought it OTT in the cold light of day once back in Essex. But I just love those reindeer trooping around the top and bottom, and the merino lived up to its reputation, smooth and snuggly.

I was fascinated by the comments left on my last entry. I always used to think of our house as already standing at the time of Shakespeare, indeed, at the time of Chaucer. This used to amaze and thrill me. It is possible that the space we live in was already in occupation as the central section between two cross-wings. It would have had an external stair-turret and the fireplace would not have been where it is today; instead, there would have been a central, open fire. Our roof timbers are said to be smoke-blackened. It would have been open floor to ceiling with a lower roof-line than currently. So then, later, the roof would have been raised in order to divide the space into two floors.

Alternatively, it is possible that there were two houses with a space between, and that in, say, 1635, the space was roofed over to make a third house. However, what is certain is that timber framed properties can be stripped down to the timbers and completely reconstructed and reconfigured, so who knows?

This is the Eleanor Cowl from Knitty Deep Fall 2010, and a very satisfying knit it has proved. I'm not completely convinced of the utility of a cowl, but they seem to be everywhere. This one is destined for the Secret Santa at the Spinners' and Weavers' Guild. It is knitted from Yarnsmith's Pure Alchemy, the same colourway as my Swallowtail shawl.

Snow Days

2010-12-04T06:59:00.000-08:00

Snow day: school closed!! Oh, wait...It's my day off anyway. But somehow, the insane excitement of sledges and snowballs fills the air - after all, I don't have to struggle through the traffic to work today.

Last week, to a big public meeting on the project organised by the village Heritage society. This project aims to establish the dates of properties in the centre of Coggeshall. Our house is part of that centre. The project has some very well-qualified people giving up their time in early retirement, and has secured funds from the Lottery to employ a dendrochronologist, to date timbers. Our house has been selected.

Dating timbers is a tricky business. Elm will not date. Oak has to be of a certain girth and, preferably, with the bark attached. The timbers have to be accessible and boreable. North of the village is Monks' Wood, and it is thought that much of the timber for the village centre came from there, so there is oak rather than elm.

When our house was surveyed, we began to look at details with new eyes. We had always enjoyed the exposed timber in our dining-room, but had never thought of it as belonging to the house next door.

The large capital at the head of this upright has some moulding to it. This, we learn is Jacobean, rather than late mediaeval.

In fact, the part of our house which arouses most interest is the loft, which is unconverted, although it has ancient floor-boards. Timbers which can be dendroed were found, along with evidence of a previous large bay-window. Was the roof lifted, and original timbers reused? Or were these timbers formerly in another property? Always the question is: had this been the central section of a hall-house, with the neighbouring properties all part of the same structure?

The survey seemed to raise questions rather than answer them. However, timber in another house just along the street was dated to 1386, the earliest in the village so far. It seems odd to say this, but we were actually disappointed to discover that our roof timber dated to 1635, the summer of 1635. We were very pleased to be included in the project, nonetheless.

E. Z.'s Niece

2010-11-25T06:45:00.000-08:00

The Baby Surprise Jacket and the Adult Surprise Jacket - immediately recognisable across a room. Last Saturday, to the meeting of the Mid-Essex Guild of Spinners and Weavers, although I weave not, neither do I spin. Instead, I drool over the inventive pieces being worked by my fellow guild members.

This time we had Tricia Holman, the daughter of Elisabeth Zimmerman's sister, giving a talk and running a workshop.

Tricia Holman

In front of her was a table laden with knitted items, all engineered in the E. Z. manner. She told stories abou E.Z.'s life and made a brave attempt at demystifying the percentage system. We were intrigued to learn that E.Z.'s grandfather was a builder involved in the building of the Houses of Parliament and that Arnold was a brewer but left Germany carrying only a backpack after he had criticised a Nazi Building as looking like a public convenience.

She encouraged people to knit steeks and cut their knitting, showing us a work in progress, steeks stitches clearly visible centre front.

Everywhere the shaping, inventive construction and patterns echoed those in "Woolgathering". This striking sweater was said to be an interpretation of South American patterns.

A stocking cap with a variety of fairisle patterns.

And a lace stole.

Last week I made this year's crop of blackcurrants into jam. Who would have guessed that five pounds of currants would produce so much jam? I ran out of jars by the end, but I was glad to free up space in the freezer.

Finally, some more examples of my husband's craft: turned bowls, the light one in holly and the darker one turned from a slice of yew.

Tokens

2010-11-18T06:31:00.000-08:00

Last Friday to London, and first, a visit to the mothership, on the grounds that press reports speak of a much increased haberdashery department. And I actually need a 3mm circular.
I find Christmas in full swing, am amazed that classic blouses in Liberty prints now cost £85, and check out the construction of plaid skirts by Vivienne Westwood. I buy only the 3mm circular and leave.

I am meeting my younger sister at the Foundling Museum, to visit the Threads of Feeling Exhibition, as suggested by Colleen from Rus in Urbis. Two clear signs of ageing: I am delighted to find a leaflet at the railway station offering a two for one deal at the very museum I am visiting anyway, and taken aback when a younger woman offers me her seat on the train.

The exhibition is of tokens left with babies handed in at the orphanage, many of which are small fragments of textile: an embroidered baby sleeve, or a bunch of ribbons. These are survivors of eighteenth century fabrics of the poorer kind and form a unique archive.

Sadder and more shocking, though, are the accounts of how many infants were turned away, presumably to die in the streets. Very moving, too, is the little display of contemporary items: a letter and a T-shirt, expressing the mother's love of the child she cannot keep.

A very civilised space, the Foundling Museum, with a good cafe.

We move on through Russell Square to visit the shop of Margot Selby where woven items make us drool.

A different kind of token: my husband's piece de resistance, dating from the early nineties. In the great storm of '87, an old apple tree in my garden was lost. My husband helped me save some other, younger trees which had just blown over - we put guy ropes all round one, like a tent. But this one had had it. We saved the bole, which had a burr.

Some five years later, my husband had retreated to his workshop in late October. He came in after dusk one day clutching his hand: copious amounts of blood were pouring from it and continued to soak through bandages. He had no choice but to defer work on this very special box.

It is built on a plywood carcase, and is made of applewood veneer in oysters, hand-cut by my husband. The darker stringing is mahogany and the lighter a pale exotic called ramin. The colouring of the veneers is a lovely golden tortoiseshell.

Finally: knitting. I plod on with the Aeolian Shawl. the rows are now very long and there are many different charts, so I can only cope with this in daylight. Meanwhile, it being the season, stealth projects are afoot.

Colour Therapy

2010-11-11T02:46:00.000-08:00

First, knitting. In Sudbury, a little Suffolk market town about ten miles north of here, are several working silk mills. Stephen Walters, a firm with historic origins in Spitalfields, has a mill shop, and I find myself drawn to it as a moth to a candle. They weave silk to commission: their Christmas display, which was being assembled, featured fabulous brocade with rich metallic threads. "Altar-cloth, woven for a customer who sells vestments," I was told.

I try to resist the bags of patchwork pieces, since I have a few at home already. But I am powerless when it comes to linen thread on cone - four cones for a pound, admittedly only small quantities of each. The swatch on a size twelve needle suggests that lace, possibly of the table-centre variety, will suit the blond cones. but what of the lovely subtle green, or the denim blue?

On Sunday, to Marks Hall, an arboretum just a mile or so north of our village. This has a curious history: Early in the twentieth century, Thomas Price, owner of the estate wrote to Kew gardens asking for advice on how best to preserve the timber on the estste.

He was an older man married to a younger wife, and clearly could not have foreseen that the mansion itself, in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style, would not long survive its use an airbase during the Second World War. His wife did not die until the sixties but it was decades before the Trust developed the estate into this fascinating and beautiful arboretum, with collections from different parts of the world.

In the distance, you can see clusters of mistletoe hanging in the tallest trees.

Finally: another example of my husband's handiwork. This was a birthday present from the mid-80s. The frame is mahogany, but the drawer fronts feature burr elm veneer, and a very rich colour it is too.

Celebrations

2010-11-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

A brillant, cheery bouquet, sent to me by an old friend.

Blogger thinks that this is my hundredth post, but I know better. In the early days, I inadvertently posted an empty title and then the post in a second try. However, It was my birthday this week - the sort of birthday which makes you think: "Where has all that time gone?" Then you have to ward off your Larkinesque tendencies; "Life is first boredom and then fear"etc...

A new topic: My husband's woodwork. This miniature chest of drawers was made for me some twenty-five years ago. It is of the genre sometimes called "prentice pieces", but his skills were already pretty well honed when he made this.

It is of mahogany and veneered in mahogany to make a feature of the flaming on the front. a

Note the full-sized chair legs behind.

The top opens to access the upper drawers: who would not be charmed irresistibly to find their initial inside?

The lower drawers work as drawers. Here, the dovetails are in evidence - he always checks the dovetails on old furniture; they are a mark of quality.

In fact, the only things which have not worn well are the handles, and he didn't make those.

This is last week's skirt, in that heavy, felted fabric. The selvedges had this unusual feature: it is on a knitted base which has a two-way stretch, so turning it sideways should not cause an issue. I am very pleased with this, although it is so thick it will be for cold days.

This year's present from my husband: Fiskars' dress-making scissors. I chose these because they do actually fit my hand, an ergonomic design. He is at work on a long-term woodwork project, on a larger scale.

Finally, an autumnal bouquet from my niece; all the lovely rich colours of the autumn.

Home Ground

2010-10-29T02:52:00.000-07:00

Half-term and I feel as though I am "nivver off t'road", as my mother used to say. First, we visit the in-laws in the Cotswolds on a bitterly cold weekend. Somehow, freezing fog seems to gather over Stratford-upon-Avon.

Next, by train to this northern city, Carlisle, its streets studded with Georgian treasures like this one.

Georgian street in Carlisle.

To Wigton, birthplace of Melvyn Bragg, the very essence of a run-down and depressed small town, although this memorial looks bright enough. Sample"crack" in the charity shop I visited:

"How come he had a 36 inch flat-screen telly when he was burgled and he's nivver had a job in his life?"

"Mebbe somebody was just pinching it back."

Highly edifying, but if one was planning a slice-of-life drama set in the north...

Wigton, Cumbria

To Caldbeck, where John Peel has his grave, and where the Wool Clip, and the cafe above it at the Priest's Mill, is a place of pilgrimage:

Caldbeck Church

Click the picture to read the date over the door on this cottage.

It was wet and windy while I was in Cumbria, but weather like that creates the most dramatic lighting effects. Here, the play of light over the fells as seen from the A596.

Finally, knitting. I travelled up by train and entered the usual conversation with a lady of a similar age to me, as I showed her my progress on the Aeolian shawl in the lovely Cascade silk. Why is it that people imagine you could sell hand-knitted items at a profit, or that you would want to?

This last, a cushion made from a failed attempt at a Starmore sweater, which was impossibly bulky. The buttons are Icelandic reindeer horn, gifted to me by my sister.

Period Details

2010-10-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

A brilliantly sunny day last Sunday: so wonderful I cannot bear to be indoors. We took down our bean row and began the last of the heavy digging on the allotment. Courgettes, beans, leeks, swede and the two butternut sqashes -all gathered in.

A walk up Church Street takes you past some fascinating period details. Bow-windows with bulls-eye glass:

Full timbered houses, some of which have been shops at one time:

Carved bressumers:

And woodwork revealing previous use as a butcher's shop;

A quaint, country inn:

And a clothing warehouse, last remnant of the trade that built the wealth of the area over the centuries:

At last to the church, St Peter ad Vincula, with its "flinty, fifteenth-century tower", as Betjeman has it, although, in this case, war damage necessitated a rebuild at that end.

I don't think that this is the brass of Thos. Paycocke and his wife, but it is of the right period.

Finally, this week's tweed. I can't tell you how happy this fabric makes me. It's a jersey base, with the other threads felted on to the surface. At Ally Pally, I saw a commercial stall selling a coat with panels of this fabric. I plan to make the usual basic skirt, the only dilemma being whether to feature the plain edges as the hem.

Old Beams

2010-10-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

I'm currently embarked upon an Aeolian shawl, using this glorious laceweight silk, bought at the i-knit Weekender. What really strikes me about this, apart from the lovely colour mix, is the label. This must be an American import but the silk is said to be from Switzerland. So this yarn has crossed the Atlantic twice, at the very least. Henry's Attic and Cherry Tree Hill both appear on the label, leaving me not much wiser. Since I try not to buy air-freighted veg, it does seem that we might need to invent the concept of yarn-miles.

Last week the Clock Tower and now the National Trust property in the village: Paycockes' house. This is a wonderful mediaeval merchant's house, the exterior covered in very intricately carved beams. It is an astonishing survival, since less than twenty years ago, the main A120 thundered past it, bringing huge lorries through from Harwich. Houses lining the route were blackened with road dirt, and it was not unusual for buildings to be nudged when two juggernauts met.

The lovely linen-fold panelling on the doors guarded by these mysterious figures.

Every small section bears its elaborate decoration; it's a treasure-trove of detailed imagery, and a constant delight, as every time you look, there's something more to see.

And what might these be? They are Pocket Book Slippers - see Ravelry . You insert your foot into one side and the ribbing stretches to become a Mary Jane type slipper. Not a very substantial slipper granted, but one for indoors on a cold night, or for hotel rooms.

These were knit from two skeins of Art Yarns sent to me as a reward for knitting little hats for the Innocent Smoothies campaign, by someone called Amelia. It is lovely smooth hand-painted yarn, but each skein is unique, as can actually be seen here, in the more yellowed and muted colours of the left hand slipper.

Markets

2010-10-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

We are blessed to be living in a village with a long history - the clock tower dating from Victoria's Jubilee - and yet which still has an excellent butcher, a Spar and a Co-op which are open until late, and at least five functioning hostelries within walking distance.

But it's only now, when one of my free days coincides with market day, that we can really take advantage of the goodies on offer. A well-stocked fruit and veg stall....

a huge array of artisan loaves and cakes...

and, best of all, fresh fish and a cheese stall offering about fifty different cheeses. One could spend a fortune, and some do.

This week's tweed, now a skirt. Some many years ago, my mother's eldest sister died and, in the clearing of her house, a box of textile items was set aside for me. Last week, rummaging through our loft for a quite different piece of fabric, I lit upon this. A quick soak in Wool Wash and an hour or two on the line and there was a yard of tweed in colours which were doubtless biding their time for this season. The zip, lining and petersham together came to about four pounds, so I am well-pleased with this.

Today, to Ally Pally, to a market of a quite different nature. The heat, the crowds, the over-whelming range of choices on offer - each year I vow "Never again" and each year I forget the discomfort enough to venture forth again.

After Apple-picking

2010-09-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

Two apples from our cordoned Bramley. These two were from one spur: one pound two ounces and thirteen ounces.

Some time ago, I tried to install a site-meter, and was dismayed to find that it e-mailed each week to inform me that no one had visited - again.. How could this be, when I have two sisters and at least one colleague known to follow my blog?

Last week, I discovered the Stats section of Blogger for the first time and was astonished to find that someone in Turkey has visited many times, along with visitors from India, Greece, Switzerland, Thailand.... I hope that they were not disappointed.

Now, I have four followers, which I find very flattering, as I only follow two blogs and have a number of others on my Favourites list.

Recent posts have touched on the Celtic knotwork of the early 90s in knitting. This quilt which is on the bed in our spare room, has a long history. Some twenty-three years ago we had a snow-day - a rarity for us. I intended to make it memorable and spent it cutting out the pieces for this Dresden plate patchwork, not thinking of it as a quilt.

Once the blocks were completed and assembled, I thought to add wadding and backing. Then I tried some simple outline quilting and discovered the template for the cabled sashing.

The navy valances needed some support from quilting. Never one to be underambitious, I tried the feathered ring, without grasping how to place the template accurately.

At that time, I realised two things: the wadding I had chosen was much too thick for hand-quilting and I didn't like getting my fingers needled so often.

I bought some Celtic quilting patterns from Ally Pally and I improvised some others by photocopying and enlarging, in one case a ceramic keyfob. Celtic knotwork was in vogue at the time, on brooches and scarves. I repeated patterns up each side.

Eventually, I had completed all but one roundel. At this point Christmas visitors were expected, so I finished the edges without doing the final block. That's how it remains, because that is the most complex block.

Random Harvests

2010-09-24T05:22:00.000-07:00

Opal Socks

A pair of socks knitted in an Opal yarn I had not seen before. Curiously, each colourway has the name of a Prince or Princess. They are lovely colour combinations, richer in the yarn than in the photo. In Selestat, in Alsace, I saw some yarn which produced a chequer board pattern. These don't do that but they are more subtle than some self-patterning yarns.

The blue version has very small pink sections. I chose to make the heel speckled, by selecting some from further though the ball. The yarn has very clear colour repeats.

This week's dress-making features a lovely piece of tweed with a mid-brown base and pale blue and purple checks. I bought this skirt-length in a sale in Stratford some years ago: two lengths for £10. This skirt has a pleat in the back to allow a bit more leg room - essential for getting into the car. I am really enjoying getting back into sewing but it will take a while to build up my repertoire again.

As a teenager, I made all my clothes using the hand sewing machine belonging to my mother. She had bought it second-hand for thirty shillings - that is £1.50. On it she made all our childhood dresses. I recently came across the notebook in which my friend and I kept a record of what we made and where the fabric came from. In the 60s it was still possible to buy fabric and all the notions more cheaply than you could buy ready-made clothes. This would be a challenge today. Fortunately, I have a stock of lovely fabric to work through.

Today was our shared day off, so my husband and I went up to our allotment. Harvesting carrots, swede, leeks and using our own potatoes and onions I made soup for lunch. Simple pleasures.

Handwoven

2010-09-17T01:52:00.000-07:00

My knitted sample from Alice Starmore's class. I had taken a spare ball from my throw and knitted a few rows before the class in anticipation. Alice kept repeating "Read your knitting," as a kind of mantra, and of course it makes sense. I always need a clear picture of the end product in sight, so that the chart comes alive, and not all patterns provide clear images.

Some more views of my throw. I designed it for a specific location, where I already have a blue and white strippy Aran sampler throw.

My original intention was to adapt knotwork patterns from the Viking crosses found in West Cumbria, specifically the one at Gosforth. There is a modern replica of this at Aspatria, where the knotwork is much crisper.

However, I had reckoned without my inexperience in writing stitch patterns, so instead I used the knotwork patterns from Starmore's Cromarty sweater as the blue stripes. Then I put together two Aran elements from Barbara Walker's "Treasury" for the cream stripes, which I felt needed vertical continuity.

The only element where I actually managed to do it myself is in the central panel. Viking knotwork panels often turn out to be serpents or dragons with heads and tails. I havered over the heads for some time, but, while on a long car journey, it came to me just to fudge it: I opened up the cable I was knitting and made the outline of the head. I then enhanced the mouth and added the ear and eye in embroidery. I am more pleased with the device of having the heads face each other. This would have been beyond me, so instead I knitted two strips and grafted them together - this is evident at the edge where I have not mastered grafting in moss stitch.

I am very pleased with it - so pleased that it is now in daily use in our living room, where it does not go with anything else colour-wise.

On a different note, I spent yesterday reliving my teenage years, knocking up a new item of clothing from a bargain length of fabric. Some weeks ago, I bought two tweed skirt lengths from e-bay, for less than ten pounds the pair. I would love to know what was going through the mind of the original owner who appears to have sent away for about five pieces of tweed from Strone House, Argyllshire, each autumn, but then never used any of them. All these years later, I paid very little more than she did, perhaps because the seller suggested they might be slightly musty. I know from musty, as the Americans have it, and these were completely free of must.

The hem is often the giveaway on homemade items, so I made use of the selvedges which provided a little fringe. Keeping the orientation of the tweed while doing this procedure cost me some thought but I managed it.

Handwoven tweed, in lovely colours, and the knee-length skirt once more a wearable item in fashion terms.- - what more can one desire?

Starstruck

2010-09-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

Friday, and a day off, so I make my way to the i-knit London Weekender, getting off at St James's Park and walking over a few streets.

I'd booked the class on Celtic Knotwork by Alice Starmore, whose work I have admired since I first saw "The Celtic Collection"

I don't know what I had imagined - she has a ferocious reputation - but she was charming, friendly and helpful, patient with those having troubles. Her accent has that Gaelic lilt, quite different from Scots but with the odd trans-Atlantic nuance. In the picture you can see the wonderful purple cardigan she was wearing, the shaping achieved alongside the Celtic braids and cables. It is a lightweight Aran and certainly looked quite different from the boxy affairs in Celtic Knitting", especially on her svelte figure. She was wearing Westwood - either that or her tartan skirt had got caught up in her underwear, but no - it was Westwood.

This was my first ever knitting class, so what did I learn? To be fair, other people all around me were having lightbulb moments, as they realised how those closed motifs are started and ended. And I did grasp for the first time what was meant to happen at a crucial point in the manoeuvre. But I had basically got my head round the method when I started my throw, or at least by the time I had finished it some eighteen months later.

No, what I learned was how to make use of an OHT without someone using the dreaded word "PowerPoint." I learned something about how she began to design knots and a little about their life on a croft. I also learned that she will be seen using natural dyes on an episode of "Coast" some time in the future, using a cauldron they unearthed in the garden of their croft, which sounds remarkably like the one I have standing in the centre of my garden which came from my parents' Cumbrian farm.

Sadly, I didn't learn how to translate source material from Viking crosses into knitting patterns. But it was worth every penny to have Alice Starmore declare my knitting sample excellent.

What we did on our Holidays Part Two...

2010-09-04T00:27:00.000-07:00

Strasbourg Cathedral

From Colmar, we moved on to Strasbourg - that's about fifty miles, but we were intent on making stress-free journeys this time. Strasbourg cathedral has to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. We admired it in the sunlight...

And at night, at a wonderful son et lumiere presentation orchestrating dramatic lighting effects to Russian music. Just a tiny part of me thought this was a terribly populist way to treat such an impressive and important building.

We climbed the tower - all 338 steps of it - and looked out across the ancient town....

and we spent ages looking at all the intricate detailing, from gothic statuary -

to ancient and extremely fine graffiti...

We did our best to sample the local cuisine, although choucroute and three types of sausage did not suit us. The local tourte flambee - a very thin type of pizza - was more to our taste, and when we saw a version with apple slices bathed in blue flames from the Calvados poured over it, we knew we had to try it.

What we Did on Our Holidays...

2010-08-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

Over the years we have tried a few well-known areas of France: Britanny, the Loire valley, the Dordogne, the Auvergne... This year we were in Alsace, and once again it could hardly be said to be an undiscovered little corner

as almost all the images will testify.

A typical street in Colmar, Alsace.

We chose to travel by Eurostar, thinking to minimise some of the more obvious stress factors of recent holidays: Swedish road-signs, switch-back roads in the Allier gorges, parking at the edge of a precipice on the Pas de Peyrol in the Auvergne - and it's certainly true that the travel arrangements were very smooth. Just very long walks between stages of the journey; even the platforms feel long when carrying the wrong kind of suitcase.

Colmar, some forty miles south of Strasbourg, is a small town with many half-timbered buildings and quaint corners - as well as about three hundred weinstubs, bars, salons de the and other eating opportunities. We sampled as many as we could while there. The local cuisine reveals the tangled history of the region, with pickled cabbage and varied cheap cuts of pork at the top of the list. However, we enjoy our food, and several of the meals we had were memorable, not least the one which started at eight and finished with petits fours at gone eleven.

We were charmed by the stork's nest on the wheel atop the cathedral in Colmar..

but totally gobsmacked by the colony of storks on the townhall in Munster. We counted twelve pairs on one building -

And these are huge birds.

The little walk we took into the countryside above Munster was a highlight of the whole trip; opening views of the town, mixed woodland paths and the oddest little vegetable plot we had ever seen, set down inexplicably in the middle of a meadow, not next to the road or to any house that we could see.

Above Munster, Alsace

Finally, an image of textile interest: a sign, suggesting that not so long ago linen was on sale here.

Family Gathering

2010-07-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

It's a tradition of my husband's mother's family to have an annual get-together, and it was our pleasure to host the event this year. Present on Saturday were Auntie Gladys, aged ninety-two and Chloe, aged six weeks.

Gladys, a testament to the power of good genes, took up swimming at the age of eighty, even learning to dive, after a lifetime of fearing water. More recently she has embarked on piano lessons, sustained by the occasional glass of red wine. Sadly, she is only related to my husband by marriage.

The last few months have been a flurry of DIY and small repair jobs - all those pesky little tasks which have been in the queue for years, suddenly getting done under the deadline of the family do. Now the house is so clean and tidy we barely recognise it.

Then, the testing of new dishes for the feast. I only have a limited repertoire and bread and butter pudding hardly meets the requirements of the buffet lunch. So my husband and I were eating Delia's Key Lime pie at every meal for a while. Very delicious it is too; simplicity itself to make and available on Delia's website. Even simpler was the Banoffee Pie recipe offered as part of a dinner party menu in the "Times" by no less a personage than Katie Price. A "Heart attack" menu, as she said. But the pie, the main ingredient of which was a can of condensed milk boiled for four hours, was actually very lovely.

Tatting

This week sees our tenth wedding anniverary, celebrated here by this beautiful card hand-made for us by my husband's aunt, Hilda Tye. This is tatting in variegated crochet cottons. One can't help but feel that a little rebranding of this craft might bring it new fans, since the results are so spectacular.

Mr Wabbit

2010-07-03T06:24:00.000-07:00

Big drama in our village last week as smoke poured out of the roof of the centrally placed pub, The Cricketers. Soon we were part of the gawping crowd as the gallant fire brigade used a massive cherry picker to access the roof-tiles. Flames were seen at various points on the roof, breaking out in one section even as the hoses deluged another.

Word had it that the electrics were dodgy, which they might well have been, but now the local paper reports that arson has been confirmed. The village is currently conducting a dating survey - of roof-timbers, not of social habits. This pub, once the site of the House of Correction to which all unmarried mothers in Essex were sent, was said to contain some of the most historic beams, inaccessible in its loft. What remains of them will be easy to dendro now, no doubt.

Itty-Bitty Toys

A blankie in chequerboard pattern and a white rabbit from Susan B. Anderson's book "Itty-bitty Toys." Both of these are for a colleague's infant. Recently, I was surprised to see another babe in arms, at five weeks, dressed in denim jeans and a brown kaftan top.

So much for the matinee jacket and all that knitted lace once de rigueur for babies of either sex.

I thought to err on the side of plainness here, although I can't decide whether Mr Wabbit looks cute or like a rather sickly elderly gent.

We've taken some lovely walks recently, some along the reaches of the Essex Way around Good Easter. Green lanes, field paths, jam and honey for sale in the village, and cream teas accompanied by a flautist in the church. The head of Tesco may believe that village England is finished, but Good Easter would disagree.

Today, to the Boot Fair, in search of garden plants, notably two Gauras, one pink, one white. But the lure of the boot fair is the serendipitous, and so it proved. Two pounds for a Record Album containing eight 78s, previously owned by a person of very discriminating taste: Kathleen Ferrier, Peter Pears, Paul Robeson, Myra Hess and Pablo Casals. My husband was in hogs' heaven.

Full Bloom

2010-05-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

Wisteria in full bloom in our garden, strangely paler than we remember it from other years. The hot weather saw us eating lunch at the bottom of our garden where the trees provide shade. Although our house is in the middle of a village at the front, the back is one house away from open country. We are watching with amazement as a pair of blackbirds attempt to rear a brood in a rambling rose, in full view of hungry, prowling cats.

A third Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clarke, this time in laceweight. In fact, I started this one first, then lost heart as it seemed to take forever and I was concerned that it would be too small to be of any use. It is knit in cashmere laceweight from Devon Fibres who were doing brisk trade at the i-knit London wool fair. Now it is complete, it has a lovely drape to it and the extra repeats make it more than just a shoulder shawl.

Last, a blaze of glory from the laburnum at the end of the garden, above my husband's workshop. It is doubly precious to him as his mother raised it from a seedling at their old family home.

Spring Greens

2010-05-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Second Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clarke. This one was very enjoyable to knit as the pattern now made sense, on this second try. This yarn, from Yarnsmith, is dyed in a virulent mix of acid green and yellow, which somehow works better for the pattern than the Pankhurst colourway, as it reads as a semi-solid. It looks very dramatic over black. Two weeks of desultory knitting, one £7 skein...what more could one ask?

Last Sunday it was wet early on so I made up a batch of jam from the last of the blackcurrants in the freezer. Nothing like fresh jam to give that intense fruit flavour. I use my mother's jampan, always thinking of the top shelf full of jam she kept going. Curiously, I don't remember it tasting different as it aged, but I'm sure it must have done.

On the allotment, many weeks of dry weather have allowed us to get everything planted: potatoes, onions, leeks, parsnips, carrots, swede, lettuce. The rhubarb we grew from seed is now well-established, but, curiously, has decided to flower. I don't ever recall seeing rhubarb in flower before. This year's new project is to establish some raised strawberry beds, using black membrane to suppress the rampant mare's tail. One box is already in place; the second, in progress. The big success has been the purple sprouting, which we had never grown before. After almost a year it is in full production, and very sweet and delicious it is too.

Border Country

2010-04-18T08:01:00.000-07:00

A Swallowtail shawl by Evelyn Clark, knitted in Yarnsmith's Pure Alchemy in a colourway called Pankhurst, since it uses the suffragette colours. This took only one skein of yarn and was an easy knit once I had mastered the nature of the pattern sections and realised how the nupps worked. In this double knitting weight yarn on 4mm needles it moved along nicely. I can see a few more of these in my future.

Plain socks for my husband in Regia Silk. These have already seen some wear, although I was not very happy with the Kitchenering of the toe. I feel it may prove a weak point.

How about these three? We saw lambs in all stages of development on our recent trip north, but none so cute as these, on our stroll around the Howk at Caldbeck. My husband even had a turn as the Good Shepherd, rescuing a lamb which had got itself trapped on a ledge under a bridge. He did turn a bit pale when I explained to him the meaning of the word "scour", but he agreed that it had to be lifted out of its predicament.

We also saw plenty of ruined abbeys: Jedburgh, Dryburgh, Kelso...but Melrose took the prize for most interesting remains.

Lots of intact masonry, carved capitals, statues, structures...much more than elsewhere.

Each day we tried to fit in a walk. One, through muddy woodland, was to the Waterloo Tower, which had fantastic views. - from the base, as the tower isn't open.

Next on the list was Smailholm Tower, a pele tower just outside Selkirk. Here there was a delightful surprise: a collection of brilliant costumed figure, too dramatic to be called dolls, by a maker called Anne Carrick. Each tableau encted a scene from the old Scots ballads, "Sir Patrick Spens", "The Wife of Usher's Well", "Tam Lin". The tower was on the land of a farm where Sir Walter Scott had recuperated from his chilhood illness, hence the link with the ballads. The wonderful detail of the figures and the use of fabric in the costumes was an unexpected treat for me.

Finally, to our base on the Solway coast where unexpectedly good weather awaited us. Lovely walks in the clear air, and magical sunsets.

Global Warming

2010-04-02T02:56:00.000-07:00

My husband, wearing the cover sweater from Alice Starmore's "Sweaters for Men." I knitted this about five years ago, but it has seen minimal wear since then. This is because I made it after a particularly bitter walk around Buttermere at Christmas, and it is intended to be worn over another smaller jumper. It has taken this year's inclement weather to bring it out of the cupboard.

It has a lovely soft handle and drape, but it does look as if it belongs to someone bigger than my husband.

In 2000, we got married after many years together. We both dislike hot weather so we booked a holiday in Shetland, after our August wedding. We knew to pack warm clothes, but had reckoned without the wind-chill factor. We each had a summer jumper and a heavier walking jumper with us. On the first morning, which was bright and sunny, we found ourselves needing both jumpers at once, as layers. Starmore seems to have that climate in mind in this sweter.

I have been very pleased with the comments on my Celtic Throw. It is knit in strips, with the blue ones measuring seven inches and the cream ones five and a half inches. This makes it abour five foot by forty-eight inches. Knitting it in strips made it ideal for long journeys in the car and for traffic jams in particular. Family commitments have meant that we have seen a lot of these this year.

Last week. we were able to plant our onions and two rows of early potatoes. We were pleased to find the soil light to work and friable. Whether this is the result of frost and snow on autumn-dug earth, or of worm action in response to the FYM we spread on it, is hard to tell. Whichever, it is certainly more enjoyable than our first year on this plot when it was so waterlogged and heavy the soil would not drop off the spade when dug, then baked into bricks before it could be worked.

Cromarty Throw

2010-02-27T07:12:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, I summoned the resolve to finish the final inches of my Celtic Throw. This has been on the needles since July 2008, before we went to Sweden on holiday. I had been much taken by Elsebeth Lavold's "Viking Knits", where she translates the interlaced patterns from the borders of Viking picture stones into knitting. How hard could this be? I thought. What's more, I had some Viking inspiration in mind, thinking of the cross at Gosforth, and the gravestones in the church at Dearham, in West Cumbria.

The answer turned out to be, more challenging than you would think, even when some of the interlacing is identical to very simple cabling. But, of course, Alice Starmore's St Enda provided most of the solution.

Then there are the animal heads. When not just used as a border, the cabling is often the body of a grotesque serpent or dragon. But even Lavold hesitates to offer a pattern for the animal head on her design, Bryha.

Then I realised that I had committed myself to knitting two of each panel, as the eye seems to seek rhythm and symmetry. So then, would the unique central panel look out of place?

The yarn was the least of my concerns. The cream is knit double from a charity shop cone marked 100% wool. The duck -egg blue was bought as a batch from Kerrie's yarn mountain at £1.00 a ball. Probably the whole thing cost no more than £20.00, a fact which will always enhance its value in my eyes.

Both the repeated cable patterns come from Alice Starmore's "Celtic Knitting". The bodies of the snakes are from her book "Fishermen's Sweaters," where they appear as elements in other designs.

The cables on the cream panels are from Barbara Walker's "Treasury": a partial cable and a Jacob's ladder. I included these to give a vertical continuity to the design, and to contrast with the elaboration of the blue panels.

Only the animal heads are my own design. I just opened out a cable, made it up as I went along and then embroidered on some extra details. I was rather proud of the conceit of making the second serpent face the other way. It took me a longish while to figure out how to do this, but I am pleased with the result. As you may imagine, I had plenty of time to think about each of these design issues as I knit these panels.

Celtic dragons

Winter Sunshine

2010-01-31T05:07:00.000-08:00

A quick knit, this simple scarf in Jaeger Merino Aran. The double moss stitch gives a nice tweedy fabric which doesn't curl and the five fifty gram balls knit up to the length my husband needs to provide a loop of face coverage in the frosty weather. Very satisfying to have the right amount af a suitable colour in the stash, instead of having to buy more yarn. Also in evidence is the taupe sweater I was knitting when I started this blog. This has a simple geometric texture, but somehow looks modern because of a tiny design feature - garter stitch for a couple of rounds after picking up for the neck-band.

Home-made marmalade. One of those seasonal tasks as the year turns, storing the fruits of the season in the old way. It never ceases to amaze me how so few oranges can produce so much marmalade. In terms of effort this is quite unlike the blackcurrant jam I made some weeks ago from our own frozen currants. Each one picked by hand, then topped and tailed by hand. But both preserves have that unmistakable intense flavour of fruit. I remember being given blackcurrant tea for a cold when I was little - just blackcurrant jam diluted with boiling water. So the belief lingers that it is a health food - and I suppose it probably is rich in vitamin C.

Snow Days

2010-01-17T04:56:00.000-08:00

Ah, the pleasure of the unexpected snow day! Aside from coaching my IB students by e-mail, and mugging up on their next text - "A Doll's House" - I settled in to a regime of cooking, sewing and knitting.

First, I re-covered this little stool with some classic William Morris fabric. Then, and less photogenically, I made thermal linings for the living-room and bedroom curtains. One forgets how much physical strength is needed to wrastle lengths of fabric into position. Then, the horror of realisation, as it becomes obvious that you have sewn it together back to front or upside down. Very easy to do with white fabric with no obvious grain. But curtain linings are very forgiving - no one will see them, after all.

Next, another pair of gents' mitts, this time in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, lovely to handle, but oddly splitty. These are in single moss stitch which made for a firm fabric.

Then, my husband requested a long scarf, long enough to wind around the face at least once. This need has never arisen before, but it certainly did on our winter snow walks this year. What a pleasure to be able to locate a suitably manly yarn in one's existing stash. This is a Jaeger Merino Aran, bought from Kerrie of Hipknits after she and her partner acquired the complete stock of a yarn-shop. They were in Essex and the shop in Scotland, but nothing seemed to daunt them and the yarn mountain had to be seen to be believed.

Some years ago, my mother-in -law passed away, and I inherited her sewing-box. This fine piece of cabinet work had been made especially for her as a gift from a great-aunt, and, over the years, her unrivalled collection of Hooks and eyes and other notions has been very useful. however, I'd never emptied it right out until now. What meanings do we read into this item, still in a paper wrapper with her own mother's writing on it, so clearly a present of some kind?

Inside, against multi-coloured foils, are sixty sewing needles, all in pristine condition. Whoever would need sixty needles, no matter how keen a sewer they were? She did teach housecraft, but this is very much a personal piece of kit. Since there were many other packs of needles elsewhere, I will never need to disturb this collection either, yet what a fantastic resource.

Does the road wind uphill all the way?

2010-01-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

Wintry walk up Sale Fell in Cumbria. At the snicket leading to the fell we were met by a rugged-looking chap with a young collie dog. He was wearing crampons. It was treacherous up there, he said, and we should put on our crampons if we had them. We pondered on this for a moment or two, then gave it a go. Packed snow on the paths had turned to ice, but we were fine on all but the lonning at the back of the

hill where water was running over the ice.

Another day;another frosty scene. Bitterly cold wind and a white frost in the sunlight, even at noon. This is the remains of a salt-pan at Crosscanonby, just below the Roman Fort.

Finally, some knitting. The last strip of my cabled throw is now half-done. I summoned the resolve to experiment by opening up the cables to produce the serpent's head, then embellishing with a few embroidered details to add the eye, ear and lip. I'm still wondering about fangs. The serpent is to be imagined chasing the two bodied beast ahead of it. These are all very simple cable designs, but copied directly from details of the Viking Cross at Gosforth. Cumbria. This new spell of snow and enforced idleness

should see this project complete.

Winter Wonderland

2009-12-20T10:52:00.000-08:00

My back garden, under snow.

The quaintest of the five pubs in the village: The Woolpack.

The village church.

And the little chapel by the old abbey on our favourite short walk. Just a pity that it is painfully cold and treacherous underfoot. Ah, to be six again, when snow was an unalloyed pleasure.