knock loudly – I’m in the garden

In case any of my vast multitude of loyal followers had been wondering about the fate of my poor decrepit bay tree since I posted about it in March, well wonder no longer. It is dead. I tried my best: I watered it, I talked to it, I tried to enthuse it with a lust for life, but everything failed. All I can surmise from this experience is that some plants just don’t want to stick around. Which is a shame, since I really wanted this one to last. My cooking would be a great deal more flavoursome if it had done. But perhaps the bay tree sensed that I only wanted to cook with it. Maybe that’s why it gave up – it saw no point to its meagre existence. Anyhow, I’m over it now. Totally. So much so that I’ve removed the dead remains of the bay from its special nurturing pot, and planted lovage seeds therein instead. That was a couple of weeks ago, and now I’m beginning to suspect that my ‘special’ pot may in fact be a doomed pot, as I’ve not yet seen a single sign of life from those seeds.

However, all is definitely not lost in our garden, as my chief co-gardener is having a lot more success than me. See those little seedlings in the picture up there? They’re little baby beetroots! And we’ve got three whole pots of them so far. Actually I too have had some degree of success with plants, but only the kind that you buy ready-grown, when all you have to do is plant them out. I bought a nice, smallish clematis the other day, and within a week of planting it it had already roughly doubled in height. This makes me very happy indeed. And anyway, as you’ll soon see from the next picture, my poor track record has certainly not dampened my enthusiasm for gardening, ohhh no:

Somehow or other I appear to have gone all green-fingered over the past few weeks. I blame my absence from this blog on precisely this reason. I don’t know how it happened, though if I had to make a guess I would say my sister had something to do with it. When I last went home a few weeks ago and saw the astounding job she’s done of revamping our parents’ garden, I was filled with admiration and inspiration. Soon after that, I found myself lusting after nothing less than a mini greenhouse, in which I could grow a whole farm’s worth of seeds and thus, eventually, vegetables. Should I be ashamed? I can tell that this is more than mildly embarrassing in many respects. And yet, last week, I went out and bought one anyway. And very pleased with it I am to be sure (as you can no doubt tell)! So here is my first attempt at a crop of winter vegetables. So far, no sign of anything. But I am faithfully watering it all every day, and you’ll be the first to know if and when something starts to grow. I just hope I’m not the only one who finds this extraordinarily exciting. Watch this space!

catching up on contemporary craft

Yesterday I was lucky to be able to spend the afternoon at Collect, the annual Crafts Council fair for contemporary international craft. I think it would be true to say my mind was fairly blown by the array of beautiful works being shown, which revealed such a variety of skills and inspiration. There was quite a lot more jewellery and ceramics on show than textiles, but that said, I still found some stunning textile works to impress me. From large-scale felt (or at least I think it was felt) wall hangings:

to magnificent finely woven panels in gorgeous sunset colours:

through to fine handwoven silk ikat in subtle, natural shades:

Whilst seeing all of this work was immensely uplifting, and it filled me with optimism for life, creativity and so forth, I thought that the emphasis of the show on collecting and owning these pieces of art something of a drag. Now I’m not a hopeless dreamer, and I realise that artists have to make a living too, but normally at art shows there is more of a sense that you’re there to appreciate the art for its beauty, originality, wit, or whatever. There, however, the stress was definitely on buying the art purely in order to own it. Or am I just being overly romantic and a spoilsport?

I’m sure I don’t need to mention that buying anything at all was absolutely out of the question for me. Anyhow, this didn’t stop me from enjoying myself and admiring things regardless. Particularly these wonderfully characterful woodland creatures in paperclay. There was a deer, and a little spring lamb, too, all decorated with classic tile patterns, in a fun blend of different ceramic traditions.

I was a little taken aback when I spotted this bizarre taxidermy jewellery, though… I can appreciate the beauty of the bird and the pearls, and the sympathetic arrangement of the two together, but I couldn’t help feeling sad that such a beautiful bird has been turned into something as meaningless as a necklace. I don’t know. Maybe this is just the spoilsport coming out in me again. But it obviously struck me considerably in spite of these mixed feelings, as I was driven to take a photo of it.

But the piece that wins the prize for being the best creation at the show (in my book at least) has to be this one. It’s aptly called ‘Monumental Fennel’. I love it. It’s pretty enormous, as you can see. There’s nothing I’d like better to grace my living room than a massive ceramic fennel bulb. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the price tag is totally prohibitive, however. But look – here I am lusting after ownership myself. Now I understand how these things work…

knitted helmets

To round off the weekend, here’s a brief but entertaining diversion for you to enjoy: a pocket-sized collection of knitting patterns for men’s helmets. This magnificent find comes thanks to my boyfriend’s mama, who has a real knack for finding oddball bits and pieces such as this in boot sales and auctions and the like (thanks to her, I also have in my possession a couple of old-school patterns for knitted swimsuits). Fortunately for the world, knitted ‘helmets’, as they’re grandly called, appear to have gone right out of fashion. Though I find myself wondering whether they ever really had a peak. I hope not, for the sake of the poor men who may have found themselves the proud owners of said helmets, lovingly knitted by their wives or girlfriends (I’m not trying to be sexist here, I just don’t see any self-respecting man knitting one of these for himself).

Possibly the funniest thing about this fine collection of snugly fitting knitted headgear is the earnest expressions of the models in the photographs. They all look terribly sincere and not at all self-conscious of their bizarre apparel. One of them even sports his knitted helmet along with a smart suit and tie, suggesting that these items can be worn alongside fairly formal attire. Oh the possibilities. Needless to say, this little style gem is staying firmly away from my knitting needles, to be enjoyed solely in this paper format, in charming black and white. If anyone wants to borrow the patterns, you know where to find me… but I recommend you check out the latest issue of Vogue beforehand, just for a quick reminder of contemporary knitwear trends.

how to survive a glut of bananas

When everyone in the house goes out independently and buys bananas, and a large quantity of bananas at that (just to be on the safe side), then the household finds itself in a sticky situation (quite literally, if they’re not careful!). So what on earth’s a girl to do with such an excess of bananas?

The answer: banana blondies. (Or ‘blondings’, if you follow the logic of the Greek man who used to excitedly tell us about his delicious ‘brownings’.) Thanks to Mr Lepard and his super new baking book, Short & Sweet, what I got for Christmas, I knew exactly what to do with a surfeit of bananas. Although actually, it wasn’t all that easy, as I still had to choose between the blondies and a butterscotch banana cake, which was pretty tough.

So earlier on this evening, I found myself faced with a tray of sticky caramelised walnuts, and a bowl full of melted butter and white chocolate. What a tasty scene! So much for the gold-stars-for-good-behaviour (i.e. no extravagant cakes or second helpings) routine; today’s gold star went out the window long ago.

And since I already knew there was no hope, why stop at mere banana blondies on their own? We ate them with clotted cream ice cream, and they were marvellous. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the same thing to anyone else facing a devastating banana glut.

coming over all domestic

I don’t know what it is about the spring sun, but it’s making me terribly domestically-inclined. Every time it moves a little, so that the light shifts in the house and plays on the walls in a different way, it makes me reach for my camera with the desire to capture something of its brilliance and optimism. I had been innocently sitting at the kitchen table, working at my laptop, when all of a sudden I noticed how awesome my knitting looked, heaped up in its chunky pink felt basket, bathed in all that sunlight. It was due to the increased sunshine, I think, that I emerged, a few weeks back, from my wintery slumber of low knitting levels, and began to pick up projects that I’d started before it got cold and subsequently abandoned.

Last weekend I even got as far as venturing out to the still-fairly-new wool shop, just down the road from our house in Cambridge, The Sheep Shop. I’d managed to stay away until then – an attempt at saving my pennies – but having made the trip, naturally I had to bring back something as a souvenir. Hence that luscious looking skein of Malabrigo lace yarn in sunset shades, peeping out of my wool basket. Now I’m faced with that terrible affliction that troubles all fickle types like myself, where my natural inclination is to ignore whatever project I was working on until I obtained New Exciting Wool, and start knitting with that instead. So far so good: all I’ve done so far is stroke and fondle the new wool, and imagine what it will one day become.

On that same domestic note, I recently became the proud owner of a little pot of sourdough! It was a gift from my mother, who packed me off home with it when last I visited. It was only a very small pot, and so I immediately re-housed it when I got home, into an old Bonne Maman jam jar, in which it could be merry and grow. Then I made bread with it, not terribly successfully (it didn’t rise satisfactorily, and it came out a bit doughy in the middle), and realised that the jam jar wasn’t big enough, as it didn’t allow for enough sourdough to bake with and still have some left over for next time. So I re-housed it again, this time into an ex-gherkin jar (which at the time was not yet ex, which meant we had to rapidly eat the remaining gherkins on Saturday morning before breakfast), and that seems to suit it just fine. So we fed it up with lots of tasty flour and water, and left it to bubble, and went back to our reading and knitting, and forgot all about it… until late in the afternoon, when the deputy bread baker went to check on it. The lid SPRANG off at his touch, and before we knew it there was sourdough all over the kitchen. On the bright side though, sourdough bread round two was vastly more successful, and not doughy at all. Most delicious in fact. So at least we know what to do for next time. Minus the dough explosion…

Sadly, though, it would seem that my (haphazard) domestic touch doesn’t extend quite as far as I’d like. Here is my poor sad bay tree, a pitiable thing. Having left it in the weedy little plastic pot it arrived in last September for months, first it flourished, excitedly sprouting new shiny green leaves before Christmas. And then the actual winter hit, and rather took it by surprise. All its new leaves turned orangey-yellow, and suddenly it looked a far sadder bay tree altogether. I tried to coax it back from its depression, by buying it a brand new spacious pot to live in, with plenty of yummy new compost, but I fear I got there too late, as now its remaining green leaves are turning brownish, and starting to point downwards. The poor dear. Clearly my pink, duck-shaped watering can is not enough to make it smile. What can I do? Is this the end for little bay? We’ll have to wait for the next breathtaking instalment of Gardening with Agnes to find out!

a fishy, on a little dishy

To fill what has become something of a large void around these parts of late, I present to you exactly what it says on the sardine tin. A fishy, on a little dishy. Fortunately (and unlike in the song) I didn’t have to wait for the boat to come in for this little fishy. I may have been left waiting a long time for a fishing boat on the River Cam. Or, even worse, I may have had to resort to eating fen eels. Eugh.

Anyhow, this pastry beauty was brought to you (or rather, to me) by none other than my lovely assistant and partner in crime. I can’t even claim a fingersworth of creative genius. All I did was make empty promises of fish-shaped fish for dinner, and then make mushroom risotto instead.

Feast your eyes on this, my lovelies. And go forth and make pastry fish yourselves.

a trio of eastern finds

In recent weeks, I’ve made several interesting discoveries around East Anglia (no, I wasn’t really talking about the Orient). Beginning with a brief trip to the North Norfolk coast, where I discovered Sheringham. Or to be more precise (as I had been to Sheringham before), I discovered the old steam train station at Sheringham, and isn’t it lovely? Someone clearly puts an awful lot of love and care into looking after this place. I find myself longing for the good old days whenever I come across a nice steam train or a well-preserved old station. Apparently you can have dinner on a steam train from Sheringham now, though the line is so short these days that you have to go up and down it repeatedly to last the duration of a meal. And talking of having meals on trains, on Friday night I saw the Torbay Express, just chilling out alongside a platform at Kings Cross. It looked like it would be the finest train dining experience I’ve ever encountered (not that I’ve ever actually had dinner on a train – I’ve just dreamt about it).

Just to reassure you, though, not all of my recent discoveries have been train-related! I promise I am not about to reinvent this site as some kind of geeky, train-lovers’ paradise. No, it is going to remain resolutely a geeky, wool-lovers’ paradise. No question about it. Last weekend’s discovery was the Mill Road Winter Fair. I don’t know how, but this was the first year I remember hearing about it. I suppose every other winter that I’ve lived in Cambridge, I’ve been much further away from Mill Road, so maybe it’s just that news of the fair doesn’t carry across the city?! Unlikely. Anyhow, it’s quite a lively event. I saw mostly the beginning of the day, but there were musical acts going on until late. Someone was missing a trick though, as although I was very tempted to purchase four partridges at the bargain price of £10 (is it a bargain? I admit I’ve never bought partridges before), nowhere could I find a helpful retailer of pear trees to counter this. So I left the partridges where they were.

There was the biggest mountain of fresh bread I’ve seen in a while. It was quite inspiring, as although I’ve been cheerfully baking all my own bread for the last three months and feeling very pleased with myself, this rather put my efforts into perspective. I’ve been musing for some time now how I ought to experiment with different types of bread. Only when my kitchen looks like this, though, will I know I’ve succeeded:

To round off the trio, my most recent find, yesterday, was the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology. Another place I’m not sure how I managed to avoid for so many years. It’s a nice place; though, as with many museums, a bit of a time warp in many respects. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I like the look of the old displays and labels, most of which don’t appear to have been updated or modified for several decades, at least. A lot of them are very appealingly composed, with artistic arrangements of colours and shapes, like the scallop shells below. They remind me of old botanical illustration plates, which I really love. (On that note, combining my two loves of old scientific plates and woolly crafts, you should really check out this amazing blog – especially note the crocheted tardigrade, it’s fantastic.)

But the downside to this now antiquated series of displays is that there is frequently very little in the way of explanation. Maybe I’ve just got used to always going round museums with scientists these days, who are more than capable of explaining things to me? (It was certainly quite a shift, yesterday, going round this collection with an economist instead of the usual earth scientists – the conversation was a lot more speculative, and more along the lines of ‘ooh, isn’t that a pretty coloured shell?’.) But these sorts of displays strike me as effectively preaching to the converted. They’re aimed at people who already know all the science behind them, and who just want to see examples of what they’ve read about.

Thinking about this, it struck me what a huge amount of work there is to be done around the country, and around the world, to update all the museums everywhere. It’s a bit overwhelming. I’ve probably just gone off on a complete tangent there, when what I was meant to be writing about was interesting places I’ve found. So I’ll stop there – I recommend you make a visit to the Zoology Museum, and take a friendly scientist along with you. Otherwise, just enjoy their collections of pretty shells.

first steps in spinning

If you’ve ever read my ‘About me’ page, you’ll know that my main aim in life for quite some time has been to learn how to spin. It was right bang in the middle of my finals that I decided to take decisive steps towards acquiring this skill (I have always been a dreadfully impatient girl), and so I ordered a spindle and a large quantity of undyed Corriedale wool fibre. The problem was always a fundamental one: that as hard as I tried, I could never make a continuous yarn. In fact I couldn’t make any yarn at all. It was a complete flop, and awfully disappointing. So I decided at that point that the only way I would ever learn to spin would be with the help of a fairy godmother, and at that point I resolved to sit tight and wait for one to turn up.

A couple of years down the line, what do you know, but up popped my fairy godmother and asked if I would like to go on a spinning course for my birthday! Naturally I said yes please, and thank you very much, and rubbed my little hands with glee! So a couple of weeks ago, off I went to the Handweavers’ Gallery for the day to learn all about the gentle art of spinning. We started off playing with spindles in the morning, and then moved on to wheels in the afternoon. I couldn’t believe it when I had a go on my spindle and all of a sudden I was producing a continuous yarn! I think I had convinced myself by that point that I was truly a failure and would never spin a yarn in my life. But I think the problem was just that my first spindle wasn’t very easy to use. I chose a top-whorl spindle, as I reasoned that I wanted to spin quite fine yarns, not chunky ones, but perhaps that’s just not a clever way to start off? This new spindle was a bottom-whorl one, and it worked a dream – well, that’s not to say I underwent a spontaneous transformation into a master spinner straightaway, but at last I was actually producing something!

After lunch, to my even greater amazement, I discovered that spinning on a wheel is yet more satisfying still than spinning on a spindle. It goes so fast, so smoothly, and you don’t have to keep stopping to wind the yarn on or to give it another spin. And so suddenly, my life’s aim was right there, within reach, and completely achievable! How often can you say that? Admittedly, I was still the slowest in the group to get the hang of it all, but even so, I choose to see that day as a great success. First I spun one yarn (in a mixture of natural-coloured Wensleydale and Blue-faced Leicester, I think), and then another (in a minty-blue merino); and then I plied them together to make a weird, mis-matched hotch potch of a yarn, which you can see in the picture above. It’s wonky, and has thick bits and thin bits, but that’s just how one’s first attempt at spinning is supposed to turn out, isn’t it? Wonky is just my style. I left the course feeling very chuffed indeed.

On the strength of that morning’s success with the spindle, though, on my way out I bought myself a new one, this time with a bottom-whorl, to see if I could repeat my newly learnt tricks at home. As luck would have it, this one worked perfectly too, so I was able to amuse my housemates by spindling around the living room in all kinds of strange contortions. (I’m sure it’s just a question of getting used to the action and adopting a suitable pose to fit it, but currently my spindling involves sitting down, standing up, bending over, feeding the fibre from over my shoulder…you name it.) And then, shortly after that, the bad idea bears piped up in my ears, as they always do in these situations, and in no time at all I became considerably less rich, and the proud owner of one of these:

I had to exercise the greatest restraint in the world, as I bought this wheel untreated, and so had to first oil the whole shebang before I put it together. Plus I had to go away for the weekend and leave it in the box before I even got to oil it! I amaze even myself, sometimes. But at long last, my darling wheel (I feel sure it – she? – needs a name) is lovingly oiled and assembled (thanks to considerable help from a kindly housemate) and stands proudly in the living room. In fact it’s probably just a downright nuisance to my poor housemates, as it’s a rather unwieldy object and currently stands right in the middle of the floor… I don’t regret it for one moment, though, as it’s a dream to spin with, and a million times more fun and satisfying than spinning with a spindle. There. I’ve justified myself. As usual.

the wind-up sheep in iceland

It’s been a shameful length of time since I last posted anything new, for which I offer my most grovelling apologies. Anyone who came looking for lovely pictures of what I’ve been up to of late, and witty entertainment in general, must have left again feeling sorely disappointed. But I’m back, and I intend to make amends.

At least a teeny part of the reason for my long absence was due to the fact that I sidled off to Iceland for ten days in August, to admire the landscape and the sheep. It was quite a trip, both in terms of landscape and sheepy goodness. I was terribly impressed that for once, the country’s so-called traditional clothing that is pressed upon tourists in every place they visit, in this case genuinely did appear to be worn by Icelanders as well as tourists. On my first night in Reykjavik, I was pleasantly surprised to see hordes of Icelanders out and about in huge chunky traditional knitwear: lopi jumpers, hats and mittens. In fact, while perusing the knitting patterns for sale in a wool shop, I even came across this:

I’m sad to say that in all my adventures around Iceland during that trip, I failed to see a single horse in one of these. But maybe I just went out of season; it was August, after all. I’m sure each and every Icelandic horse deserves a lopi jumper of its own, as even at the height of summer I was pretty frozen, sleeping in a tent (though that’s probably where I went wrong – I should have napped in geothermally-heated pools instead).

However, I’m sure I saw enough wool on my travels to knit thousands of horse outfits with. Every place we stopped, no matter how small or remote, had a plentiful supply of the stuff. Every single supermarket had a dedicated wool section, with yarn of all weights and colours, needles of all sizes, and patterns galore. It was quite an experience when coming from a country where a wool shop is a fairly rare and glorious sight. Somehow or other, I managed to come away from the one below with only a very modest quantity of wool.

The most exciting thing I bought was a little stack of discs of Plötulopi (the yarn on the bottom shelves on the left) with which to knit myself a woolly winter dress, in the style of the traditional lopapeysa. I was fascinated by this yarn, as it is not spun, and I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it when I first set eyes on it. Fortunately, though, on my last day in Iceland I was treated to a detailed explanation by a very helpful American lady – thank you whoever you are! – who encouraged me to try it out, and told me that she finds it a pleasure to knit with. I haven’t tried it yet, so let’s hope it really is…

Aside from the endless knitting opportunities afforded by every inch of Iceland (there really are a lot of sheep; all shaggy and curly-horned), I also enjoyed my visit to the open-air museum in Reykjavik, Árbæjarsafn (my Icelandic pronunciation is almost certainly laughable). It is actually IN Reykjavik, as well – it’s surrounded on three sides by the only motorway in Iceland, which feels quite odd when you’re in the midst of lots of old wooden buildings with turf roofs and people in traditional costume. I suppose the city must have grown up around and beyond the museum over time. There were all kinds of interesting textiles, and particularly woven ones.

My favourite building of all was the original Árbær farm, which was the starting point for the museum when it opened in 1957. This was a farm, and a house and an inn, all in one long building. The sheep’s quarters were attached to one side of the house, so you could go directly from the hall into a small barn full of spinning and fleece-processing equipment, then through a tiny corridor into a room full of sheep pens. I bet it would have been the snuggest place for sheep to live in all of Iceland.

Then above the rest of the house there were two lovely bedrooms like the one above. All the beds had beautiful woven bedspreads on, and were enough to make me want to move in straightaway. Though I have no doubt that if I tried to last the winter there, I would probably be a very sad girl indeed. In spite of it being a house of sheep-heaven, complete with its very own buttery… So yes, Iceland = wool paradise, just a little chilly for my liking.

un embarras de choix

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m coming to realise that by far the most exciting and enjoyable part of the process of making things is the bit in between finishing the last one and starting the new one. It’s the time when you can get out ALL the books, and ALL the wool/fabric/thread, pile them high on the table, and just gawp at them. And all the while, your imagination is going into overdrive, zipping through ALL the possibilities of what you could make out of the different combinations. I’m sure it’s my favourite moment, however much I enjoy actually making the things I eventually decide on.

For instance, I was driven to take these photos one sunny Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, when, having completed the whole armadillo collection, I was free to start something new – whatever I liked! Oh the freedom! It occurred to me that as I am moving into a new house at the start of September, I could justify making something nice for myself and the house – probably the kitchen. So I got out a couple of snazzy vintage tea towels that I bought in a cool little shop in Paris last year that sells all kinds of unused vintage items, from school exercise books to tablecloths, plus a leftover piece of linen (the same as what I used to make the pumpkin), plus ALL my favourite cross stitch and embroidery books, and set about the plotting process.

Of course, what I ended up doing most was just looking, and stroking, and rearranging, and photographing, and pondering… Not actually making anything at all. But oh how happy I was! (And how strange is human nature – or at least mine, anyway.)

Then today this feeling was reinforced when, having recently regained my knitting mojo after a longish break (which is a cause for great rejoicing in itself!), I started to go into overdrive thinking about all the possibilities for knitting a lace scarf out of some nice, soft, colour-changing sock wool. And as if I needed to fuel this thought process further, I wandered off upstairs with the vague idea of looking for some appropriate wool – and before I knew it, I was totally engrossed in fondling skein after skein of delicious scarf potential; thinking all the while what good choices of wool I had made in the past, whilst becoming further and further removed from my original aim… And, would you know it, I haven’t knitted a single stitch tonight 🙂 But at least this goes to show just how easy it is to make me happy…