Teensy yarn spree

 I couldn't leave London on Friday without paying a teensy visit to a wonderful yarn shop in Islington called Loop. It's the kind of shop that is balm for a soul that is tired of winter grey and longing for some spring colour to make itself felt. Possibly it is just as well that this is not on my doorstep although they do have an online shop....!

It is smallish but on two floors and equipped with floor to ceiling shelves stacked with yarn in every weight and shade. There are lots of soft muted tones and a huge choice of jewel bright colours nesting like vivid birds of paradise in their white cubby holes; there are books and patterns for inspiration; there are exquisite hand-made buttons and accessories. And if you are purchasing yarn in those beautiful (but wickedly ensnaring for the unwary) skeins, you can get it wound into user-friendly balls before you leave the shop, on their winder and swift.

I didn't buy any books or accessories (restrained and frugal, well done, Mrs Tittlemouse!); I didn't buy any of the exquisite but very expensive buttons (still restrained and very frugal, well done again, Mrs T!) but I did buy some beautiful yarn, quite a lot of beautiful yarn actually; (not quite so restrained and not at all frugal, not quite so well done, Mrs T!) It was packed for me into two very full calico bags like this empty one. I am a sucker for shops that give away free calico bags. And I am afraid that despite the expense, I am not at all repentant, in fact I am just hoppity-skippity happy at my haul!

Here is a little peek of the new yarn basking in yesterday's afternoon sunshine. The brand is "Sublime" and it's a merino wool, silk and cashmere mix. It's exactly what it says on the label - sublime to the touch and sublime to the eye. I absolutely love these blossom colours and I already have a picture in my mind's eye of what they will become. A soft blossomy blanket full of spring and summer colour. 

From when I was four to seven years old, I went to a dear, old-fashioned school-in-a-house run by two elderly and slightly Victorian in outlook, sisters, known as Miss Bradley and Miss Sylvia who allowed us on our birthdays to choose the song to be sung in morning assembly. I always chose a song called "Summer has come from the sunny land." (My birthday is in June so this was not totally random!)  There was something about the words (which I now can't remember) and the melody (which I can) which made you think of deep-pink-and-rose and gold-and-cream scented wallflowers, breathing headily against a warm stone wall, of drowsy bees drunk on the flowery perfume, murmuring among the petals and of swallows dipping and calling against a blue summer sky.

This blanket will be my "Summer Has Come From The Sunny Land Blanket". I can't wait to start it although I haven't quite made up my mind whether to go for Granny Squares or another Ripple or even another Vintage Stripe. And there is just the little matter of finishing the Granny Stripe blanket still in progress...

I have been faithfully inching on with this although I got distracted with another sewing project, which I can't wait to show you but which is not quite ready to be unveiled. The Granny Stripe blanket is for H's room and matches the colours in his curtains. It would be nice to finish it in time for his birthday at the end of March. I have approximately another 24" to go, so if I keep focussed and don't hare off down other alleys it may be possible!

But the blossom colours have such siren voices...!

Shadows and Reflections

I had to go up to London for work yesterday. It's rare for me to do that so it feels strange even though I grew up in London and have lived most of my life there. I realise, on the odd occasions I do go, how much I miss it - the buzz and bustle, the fascination of people on the Tube and on the streets, (I love people-watching!), the aliveness of everything, which is perhaps a bit of a strange thing to say about an urban setting populated with buildings, busy roads and only the odd plane tree and a changeful sky above the horizon to hint at nature's life force.

I do like living in the country - the space, both inside and outside, that I never had in London, the proximity of the natural rhythm of the seasons, the fact that you can see the stars at night in a properly dark blue sky that is not artificially lightened by millions of electric light bulbs but I must admit that I do find the bustle of the city energising and even among the anonymity of complete strangers there is not the sense of isolation you can get in the country. I am content with my own company in the metropolis in a way that I am not always, when I am on my own, in what is now home. I fear that at heart I am not really a country person, or not yet anyway!

 I certainly appreciate, far more now than when it was on my doorstep all the time, the buzzy momentum and activity that is palpable when I step off the train at Paddington. These things are a bit of a question of light and shade of course.  It's good to experience the contrast and to be aware of the shadow-side of both as well as the light-reflecting side of both. After all, I remind myself, isolation is alive and well in most cities and what is buzzy and energising today can easily become frenetic and stifling tomorrow, just as space and quiet in the country can be recreative and healing tomorrow as well as lonely today.

I have been thinking about shadows and reflections a lot this week. The way they show something that one doesn't always notice otherwise. I love John Henry Newman's epitaph for this reason - "Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem" - "Out of shadows and illusions into the truth". I love the sense that it gives of a life of quest and discovery and everything along the way being part of that. The "into" is important; it denotes a journey, a process, a becoming. Sometimes the shadows themselves help to show us the way to that becoming.

Here are a few pics snapped yesterday in Great Portland Street which play a bit with shadows and reflections. The first three are not double exposures although they look like it. They are simply taken in front of a plate glass window where I was meeting someone and the glass held the reflection from the pavement and across the road. The plate glass window belongs to Villandry - their cakes and patisserie, as you can see, are mouth-watering! I particularly liked the pink swirled meringue that you can't see very clearly in the third pic. It was beautifully marbled and has given me Ideas!

I like the way these pics somehow remind me that I am both someone who likes the cosmopolitan and the homely. And it doesn't have to be "either or". One can be at peace with being both a town mouse and a country mouse and grateful for what both settings can give.

 The next three were taken in the same place, seeing the welcome spring sunshine cast friendly shadows of passers-by on the plain canvas of the pavement. People just going about their business at lunchtime. Some on their own, some with others. The fact that the shadows lingered fractionally after a person had passed by, intensified that sense of companionability that I had just from being among others doing their own thing while I did mine. And the new brightness of the sunshine, seen in the clarity of the shadows, is a reminder that, wherever we find ourselves, the long days of winter are fading fast now and Spring is just around the corner. City-dwelling or country-living this is universally Good News!

Happy Weekend ...

wherever you are and whatever your preferred habitat!

Pancakes and Brown Sugar Ice Cream ...

... and maple syrup as well because you can't have pancakes in my book without it!

I know everyone has their own pancake recipe but I'm going to give you mine in case anyone had the trouble I had when I first started making pancakes for serious consumption. The first pancake in any batch is always supposed to be a runt that should be fed to any passing hungry teenager or the dog but I found most of my pancakes carried on being runts. There was no chance of dropping the pancake on the floor, if you wanted to toss it, because it was so firmly stuck on, it wouldn't have left the pan in a month of Sundays. The pan was supposed to be non-stick but you could have fooled me and I didn't want to keep adding masses of extra butter or oil to the pan every time I added batter, to make sure the non-stick pan would do what it was supposed to do, without!

For a while I gave up but what goes around, comes around and some time later I tried again and experimented a bit with the batter, with, I have to say, pretty satisfactory results. This is what I came up with:

What you need:

2 large eggs (or 4 bantam eggs)
1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup plain white flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
2 - 3 tbsps oil (I use almond oil which is very fine and light - you can get it from Sainsbury's - but you could use any other light, mild-tasting oil)

What you do:

Whizz all the above ingredients in a blender and pour into a jug.

Heat a small non-stick pancake pan until, when you throw in a few drops of cold water, they sizzle to nothing in a second or two.

For each pancake add just enough batter to cover the pan when you swirl it around. You don't need to add any extra fat at all. Cook until bubbles are appearing on the top surface and it looks dry rather than wet. If you are feeling adventurous, loosen the pancake with a wooden spatula and toss. If not, and I am afraid this is me, just use your wooden spatula to flip the pancake over and cook the other side for a minute or so until beginning to brown. Stack the finished pancakes on a clean tea towel and fold the tea towel over the top each time you add one, so that they don't dry out.

The first pancake may be a runt but the rest will not be! The presence of the oil dispersed through the batter means that they Will Not Stick! Overall this means using a lot less fat than adding it to the pan before cooking each one. Stir the batter before you pour into the pan each time and keep the pan good and hot and you can't go wrong.

Here is the pile I made yesterday evening:

Now your only dilemma is how to serve them.

Some like them with fat wedges of lemon to squeeze over and caster (never the coarseness of granulated!) sugar to sprinkle on top to add a delicious lemon-soaked crunch. I like them very much like this  - it's how we always had them as children.

Others like them wrapped round a filling of banana or other fruit, either fresh or stewed, perhaps with a spoonful of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream to finish.

I like them best sitting in, what has to be said, is a bit of an ocean of maple syrup and yesterday I made some Brown Sugar Ice Cream to sit alongside. The recipe comes from Caroline Liddell and Robin Weir's book, "Ices - The Definitive Guide". It is amazing. And the interesting thing is that the dark brown sugar in this ice cream works, not so much as a sweetening, but as a flavour in its own right. It marries perfectly with the slight nuttiness of the wholemeal flour in the pancakes (and the maple syrup that I consider obligatory!)

I will not tell you just how much maple syrup was consumed in this house last night and this morning with the leftover pancakes for breakfast. I am afraid it was way over the RDA!

But, as you may already have gathered from elsewhere in my blog, I find intense sweetness on my plate, in the colder months of the year, a major facilitator in keeping winter blues firmly at bay. It works every time so I make no apology although I don't suggest you necessarily consume the quantities of maple syrup I do! 

Thames Riverscapes

I managed to find time for twenty minutes walking beside the Thames, at Moulsford, yesterday. It was beautiful, in an austere February way. Everything is still in that winter palette of neutral colours - greys, from blue pewter to silver lead, browns, from pale buff to greeny bronze, charcoal blacks that are not quite black and off-whites that are not quite white, with just a touch of mossy, green luminosity on the branches of the trees. Somehow it makes architectural shapes and patterns, especially in the reflections in the water, stand out very effectively. Here are a few pics so you can see what I'm talking about.

February Landscapes

This has been going round in my head in jumbled form for a week or two. Today I scribbled it down and pics of some of the things that made me think of it are in the mosaic.

February Landscapes

Melt-water skies still shroud the landscape,
chalky and opaque,
but there are days when the heavy grey,
empties into translucent blue,
the slow trickle of the thaw sings a counterpoint
against newly questioning bird-song
and quiet cascades of loosening snow
whisper change among the hedgerows.

The trees are still fretted silhouettes against the sky
but now with a drift of slender wands that wear a crimson haze.
Early snowdrops, surprised by the returning cold,
tremble numbly,
where a mild month ago they first danced in bloom.
Jagged shards of ice still fragment the paths and ruts,
glassy in the hollows, that the sun has not yet fingered.

But the leaden winter mornings, darkly settled for so long,
bleakly resisting the sunrise,
are now in different mood
 - readier to depart,
open to dissolving into earlier dawns of rose and cream and gold.

Frost still risks its fragile artistry on the ivy leaves,
knowing its creative nights are numbered,
but the owls again are noisy,
silent-winged, swift-calling among the fir trees,
searching for a Valentine.

We too begin to stir
among the Wednesday ashes of our colder days
and seek out newness and a quickened spirit,
seeing the tight vice of winter give,
against an emerging world that on the horizon
has glimpsed the Spring.

Belgian Bantams

I thought perhaps it was time to introduce you to our six Belgian Bantams. Belgian Millefleurs Barbu D' Uccle bantams to be exact. They are very pretty and full of character. They are also extremely hard to photograph! Not because they are camera-shy, on the contrary, they are only too willing to come over and investigate the camera, Close Up. But when a speculative peck reveals that this is not the in-flight restaurant service, serving pre-dinner bar snacks of mealworms or other delicacies, their interest fades and they are off, bustling about in the undergrowth and even when bribed with sunflower seeds they won't stay still. (I am afraid I jib at offering mealworms (even dried ones) in my hand so attempted bribery of this kind is vegetarian only!)

By day they roam the garden (and occasionally, but not often, other people's gardens), by night they live in a palatial residence that has (so far) proved fox-proof. I hope I do not tempt fate by writing that.

They Do Not Like The Snow and a lot of complaints have been voiced about the white stuff we've had recently although one or two did start laying again during that very cold week. I think they decided it was cosier in the nest box than anywhere else and laying an egg gave them an excuse to hog the only warm spot around!

Emerging from the Chicken Palace to find snow a couple of weeks ago. 

Not Happy despite our favourite mealworms for breakfast!

This week when it's been warmer they have been much happier and as H has been around for half term I had a photographic assistant which meant that not all my photos were of the back of half of a hen, vanishing out of the frame!

Here they are happily bustling about in the rose beds yesterday:

... and obligingly gathering together to be photographed fed!

As I say, they are laying again which is good news after quite a long break over the winter. Bantam eggs are about half the size of a large hen's egg although they don't scale down exactly - the yolks are almost as big as you would find in a large hen's egg while the whites are quite a bit smaller. I tend to use two bantam eggs though where recipes specify one large egg and it seems to work OK. The flavour (and colour) is unbeatable. 

Today's egg haul. Not all of these were laid today, some are from yesterday or the day before, but the top ones are today's. I think it's fascinating the way that the shell of a new-laid egg subtly changes its colour over a day or two. I haven't quite worked out what it is that changes but you can always tell a new-laid egg from an egg that is a day or two old.

There may even be enough for a sponge cake .... !

Edited to add:

There were enough eggs for a sponge cake!

As you can see from the evidence.

But not quite enough to make lemon curd as well with which to sandwich the cake together. I did peer into the nest box hopefully this morning humming "Chick, chick, chick, chicken, lay a little egg for me" because I only needed one more but there was nothing doing, so it had to be last summer's strawberry jam and crème fraîche instead. No complaints so far though!

 

Needles & Natter Conversation 1

Tomorrow is Thursday and Thursdays, as you may have gathered from my previous post, are my Needles & Natter mornings at Rosie's Tea Room - laughter-filled, inspiration-packed and creative energy-releasing. As a way of sharing some of that a bit more widely, I am hoping to have an intermittent series of posts that will be conversations with some of the Needles & Natter group members so you can join in. Hopefully you will share 100% in the inspiration, encouragement and some of the laughter, although I fear the cake won't be more than virtual!

This is the first conversation. The questions will be the same for all the conversations but of course what people say in response is entirely unpredictable! 

The N&Ners are a talented bunch and so much fun to be with. I hope you enjoy sharing a natter with some of them.

Hello to .... Sarah!

Sarah is in her forties, living in Oxfordshire. At the moment she's a housewife, but in a previous existence she was a high-flying TV producer. She was in Hong Kong covering the handover, in Paris covering the death of the PoW and has had the chance to look deep into Tom Cruise's eyes! (verdict on the latter - "scarily intense"!) 

Now a dedicated countryphile, she loves baking - her scones are to die for - and along with her husband and son she shares her home with five chickens, a cute West Highland terrier and a cat. More of them later!

What type are your needles of choice? "Knitting and crochet"

Tell us about your current WIP. "My current WIP is a Japanese flower scarf which I am making in the gorgeous Debbie Bliss Andes alpaca / silk mix yarn as featured by Lucy on Attic24. When I spotted this on Lucy's blog here, I just had to make it! It was calling to me! I then discovered you were making the same pattern which was great because it saved me the pain of trying to work out the pattern from first principles."

(Ed: The besetting problem with this pattern is that the original is in Japanese and for copyright reasons can't be reproduced. But we have found instructions for something pretty similar here on Revlie's blog.)

"The yarn is unfortunately, extremely expensive and purchasing, therefore not easy to get past the household financial authorities! I needed nine 50g skeins which, at more than £7 per skein in the first shop I tried, was a bit eye-watering. Internet shopping proved a better bet (£6 per skein), although one of the colours I wanted was out of stock. Waiting for a fortnight for this and unable to start without it gave rise to a spot of "wool rage" (Ed: what a fab phrase!) but it was worth the wait. Annoyingly though now, I discover I have run out of yarn with only a few flowers left to go. Good news has been recently discovering a local shop supplying the Debbie Bliss Andes at £6 per skein; bad news is that their suppliers are hiking the price up to £8 per skein - ouch! The pattern looks complicated but is actually really easy to do. Everyone loves it including the boys in the house! And in spite of the spiralling cost of the yarn, the scarf gets oohs and aahs of admiration whenever I am working on it. I hope it will eventually become a family heirloom."

Can we have a peek?

Ed: Fab isn't it?

What projects are you most proud of completing and why? "Completing?! Ha ha!! Most things remain WIPs including a jumper for my husband that's taken almost twenty years to finish!! It's a big Norwegian sweater - I had to finish it having spent £80 on the wool! The project I'm most proud of is a cable knit Aran sweater for my father which I made without a pattern 25 years ago. He still wears it all the time and it looks as good as new. My Japanese scarf, once it's finished, will also be on my list of woolly highs."

Can you give us a twirl of some finished projects?

The Aran sweater Sarah made for her Dad over 20 years ago 

and still going strong

Alpaca scarf from Erika Knight's "Men's Knits

Baby's hat. Pattern from Debbie Bliss Cashmerino 2
in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran

Norwegian sweater - finally finished after 20 years!

What's in the pipeline next? "Might be another shawl - I've made a few recently and I want to make a lightweight lacy, cotton one for my SIL who lives in French Guyana. Unlike her brother she shouldn't have to wait more than twenty years for it because the knitting bug has bitten and now I can't stop! The family are really happy about this because they all benefit from scarves, hats etc!

What top tips would you give someone starting out with their needles? "Don't drink too many glasses of wine while knitting! And you can forget trying to watch subtitled TV programmes. Also it's a mistake to knit with a kitten in the room! Join a club like the Needles & Natter group because knitting can be a solitary thing. I've made some great friends through N&N. Don't feel you have to be an expert to join such a group - there is always someone delighted to help if you get stuck and learning how to do new things from someone who can actually show you is great. When I first joined this group I'd been struggling with a pattern for some baby socks for eight months and in the very first session a lovely lady showed me where I was going wrong and the socks were finished within the hour."

Tell us about what's in your yarn stash! "Well, not infrequently, one dog and one cat!!"

"But underneath there is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran - great for baby-clothes - and some Rowan Super Chunky which knits up really quickly. I also have a supply of Katia Astrakan which made a really cosy scarf that everyone thought was a sheep! Baby Alpaca is also a favourite. I've recently discovered the Scandinavian yarn company Drops - they have lovely colours and are very reasonably priced. Their website has hundreds of free patterns for knitting and crochet. I love wool shops and I'm the archetypal embarrassing cutomer who has to squeeze every single ball of yarn in the place!"

What are your favourite sources of inspiration? "Three books at the moment. "Men's Knits - New Direction" by Erika Knight, "Best In Show - Knit Your Own Dog", (sic!), by Sally Muir & Joanna Osborne and "Home" by Debbie Bliss." 

Needles & Natter sessions are always accompanied by a nibble or two! What's your favourite homemade nibble? "Scones! Or Victoria sponge."

Ed: I can confirm that these were just as delicious as they look!

Thank you, Sarah, for sharing your needles and nattering on my blog,
as well as on Thursday mornings!

See you tomorrow!