Out and about and back home again

I suppose it's inevitable but I am gradually turning into my mother. I used to think it was terrible when she refused to watch news on TV or read the newspapers. She said she couldn't cope with all the horrors and unhappiness. I'm beginning to feel that way myself - it seems that everyday there's yet another tale of child neglect and abuse, of terrorism and disaster. Our society seems to be broken and beyond repair. And then, without being trite about such things, we have a day out at a National Trust property and order is restored. The people you meet are so civilised, the food in the restaurant is local and organic and all of a sudden all is right with the world. I honestly think I could live in a National Trust shop - it's so wholesome and worthy. It may not be the real world but in many ways it's preferable!

This is the front facade of the house at Baddesley Clinton. It has had many additions since it started out as a farmstead.

Much of the present house was built in 1500 and is surrounded on all sides by a moat.

And there are several tranquil fishponds dating back to the 1400s when they would have been a useful source of food. Although it looks so peaceful now it has had its share of drama - home to 12 generations of one family for 500 years, the house was a sanctuary for persecuted Catholics in the 1500s and a number of secret hiding places still exist today.

After such a lovely day out, and with faith in human nature somewhat restored, I felt more positive and it was time to get to work back home. I have made a decision to paint all the birds that visit my garden. Not every individual bird you understand - just one of each variety. In preparation I started work on the wooden panels and why would anyone paint one when you can paint four or five almost as quickly? The paint is out and the brush is wet after all!  Now they've had their undercoat of red acrylic paint  they'll have two layers of gold metallic next. The red under layer glows through the gold to give lots of warmth to the areas around the birds. I've made a list of birds and it's a long enough list to keep me busy for quite a while.

If you're already a DMTV member you'll recognise the Banjara inspired quilt above. I'm pleased with how authentic it looks sitting on top of my old pine box. This was so enjoyable to stitch I will certainly make more. In fact I've already found out the fabrics I'll use for the next one. I warn you, it's compulsive!

It's very satisfying to finish something isn't it? I'm not the only one being productive though - Anne has recently finished her Creative Sketchbooks course with us and was kind enough to let me share a few images of her hand made sketchbooks with you.

She's produced some beautiful prints and put them to great use as pages and book covers.

Thank you Anne!

It's good to get out and about to recharge the batteries from time to time and this last week Laura and I also escaped the office to visit the current exhibition at Bilston Craft Gallery. If you'd like to see a few pictures please drop by her blog.

I'll write with more news soon. Thanks for reading - Linda

Mellow fruitfulness

The damson harvest is upon us but it may take a little longer than usual this year.

You can never start them helping too early can you?

Getting her to relinquish the fruit and throw it in the bag wasn't so easy though!

This was what we were after - lovely purply blue damsons and a few little red plums.

Never one to hang about, here's the pot bubbling away just minutes later. I simmer the fruit until it's soft enough to push through a sieve. I hate the stones and the skin! When I have a smooth puree I add sugar and boil until setting point is reached. Using a thermometer takes all the guess work away and makes sure I get a lovely concentrated jelly to eat with cheese. Bring on the Brie!!

There will be lots more damsons to deal with this year and then all I have to do is find a few recipes to make the most of these beauties! They have grown out through the fence and into the neighbouring field!!

Thanks for visiting today. I'm off now to do a bit of quilting while the jelly cools down enough to taste.

Talk again soon - Linda

Time to celebrate

It's hard to believe but baby Amelie has had her first birthday this week. We seem to have been celebrating for quite a few days, with a big, noisy family party as well as a day in Birmingham at the Sealife Centre. Laura posted some lovely baby photos a few days ago on her blog if you'd like to see more.

Birmingham hasn't enjoyed a great reputation for its architecture and probably with good reason but the canal area around Brindley Place is really attractive with a fascinating mix of old and new. That's where the Sealife centre is as well as The Ikon Gallery, Symphony Hall and the NIA concert hall.

The latest addition to the city centre is the fantastic new library. You may have seen it featured on the BBC's Culture Show this week. Our friend Steph Redfern has been to visit and she has some amazing photos over on her blog. I've added it to my list of things I must do.

There are loads of restaurants around the canal basin too. We opted for Cafe Rouge - who'd have thought Amelie could read French already!

Back home it's getting harder and harder to keep up any pretence of sophistication. We are gradually being taken over by everything plastic and gaudy. Why does it have to be so pink!!

Amongst the partying and days out I have been making time for a bit of painting. This little guy only has his first few brush strokes of colour. I shall be adding much finer feather detail when I have a minute to spare. I'm planning to paint all the birds we see in our garden - that penpal challenge has a lot to answer for!

I've also rescued this quilt top from the 'to do' pile. Now that the text has been added I'm excited to start the quilting but!!!! When I was searching through a crate of hand dyed fabrics for something completely unrelated to this quilt I found a glorious piece of fabric that could have been made to order!

Here's a close up that I think shows why I have to add it to the quilt in some way. I hadn't intended for the quilt to be very big but it seems it will be have to be a bit bigger!

As DMTV members will already know, the words on this piece are a quote from Ernest Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. It's all about hot, white beaches - well I can dream can't I?

When Laura and Jamie printed the old boat image for me I commissioned this one too. It's also going to have text from the same book. This one will say, 'In his dreams he heard the surf roar'. I think as autumn has arrived so abruptly this week I shall enjoy working on these beach and fishing boat inspired pieces. Maybe memories of the hot sun and the white sand will shorten the miserable winter months for me!

Thanks for visiting - I love to know you're out there! Linda

Not more food please!

Last week I catered for Laura's Txt Message workshop at our local Village Hall. The students seemed to enjoy their lunch and asked for recipes so I promised I'd post them here. I can't take any credit for being original - I just find a great recipe and follow it! The bread I make most regularly is from a book called Dough by Richard Bertinet. I would urge you to track a copy down if you're serious about making your own bread. I make mine at least twice a week and it never fails. It also freezes perfectly so I can simply double up on the quantities to keep us in toast and sandwiches for the whole week. The ingredients are fairly straightforward but it's the kneading process that is quite different to the way I was taught at school. Luckily Richard's book includes a DVD showing his technique.

Our everyday bread is his Olive Bread recipe. For this you take;
500g strong white flour
20g semolina
15g instant yeast
10g salt
320g water
50g olive oil

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl and pour in the water and oil. Mix to a wet dough. It is very wet so don't panic! Tip the mix onto a clean worktop and bring together as well as you can - it will stick to your fingers and the worktop - that's normal. With both hands cupped under the mixture lift the dough and fling it down bringing the end you are holding back over the rest. Continue doing this until the dough behaves itself.

It's always difficult to explain a technique which is so easy to understand when you see it demonstrated which is why you probably need to buy the book. Basically he lifts the really wet dough with both hands up above the worktop and slaps it down and over on itself so the air is trapped at every fling. At first it's really sticky but in a matter of minutes it begins to firm up and soon becomes smooth and elastic. I usually do this flinging stage for 8 to 10 minutes whilst listening to the Archers on Sunday morning! At this point, shape it into a ball and place in an oiled bowl until doubled in size - usually about an hour. When it's ready, remove carefully from the bowl and shape for a single large or two medium sized loaves. Give the loaves some tension on the top by stretching the sides to the middle and place the untidy join underneath for baking.  I place the loaves onto tins sprinkled with semolina both to give a nice crunchy crust and to prevent sticking. Prove for another hour or thereabouts until doubled in size again. If you have a really sharp knife or a breadmaker's lame you can score the top now and then pop into a preheated hot oven to cook until golden. Loaves will take approximately 25 minutes and should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. Rolls will need less time but should have some colour on the bottoms too. To achieve an even bake you will need to rotate the tins once or twice during baking.

I use this as my basic dough for both loaves and dinner rolls. Depending on how generous your rolls are that quantity of dough will make at least 24. Lots of recipes call for spritzing your oven with water to create steam. I've tried it with and without and not noticed a great difference. Of course, once you become an obsessive baker like me you need to have all the gear. The Bertinet Kitchen website can mail you everything you crave! There are also some great videos showing techniques from his new book Pastry - I feel a purchase coming on!

While we are on the subject of food, the cake we had at the workshop came from a lovely cookery book I was given a couple of years ago for my birthday.

I choose to make the Birthday Cake recipe where the secret ingredient was courgette. And not just a token amount - it used 400g of them peeled and finely grated. The recipe also called for the zest of 3 lemons in the mix and lemon juice to make the butter cream topping - all I can say is YUM. I don't know if you can feel entirely virtuous eating this but it probably would count as one of your five a day if you ate enough of it, especially as it was layered with my homemade summer fruits jam.

I promise not to talk so much food next time - who knows I might even get round to showing you the progress with my latest quilts and more little bird paintings.

Bye for now,
Linda

Painting today

My younger daughter is very inventive when it comes to giving presents. For my birthday last month a small package arrived by post. "I know you're busy", she said "but it's only small and I'm sure you can do it"!

Inside was a 4inch box canvas and a set of official rules for the Pen Pal painting exchange. The deadline seemed ages away so of course the canvas got filed under a pile of more urgent business. Yesterday she emailed to remind me that I have to get the finished painting date marked no later than the 30th of the month.

This afternoon I painted this little sparrow in acrylics. They are a common sight in our garden although I understand their numbers are declining in Britain.

A four inch canvas isn't very big - even for a tiny sparrow! So, I wrapped his tail and the branch he's perching on around the sides of the box. I only need to add a second coat of metallic gold to the background and he can fly off the America. The idea of the pen pal exchange is that everyone taking part is paired with a like minded individual - I shall await with anticipation to see the painting I get in return!

I am very lucky with my relatives! They take time to find unusual gifts and treasures they know I'll appreciate. One of my brothers-in-law sent these lovely old shuttles to me this week. They've seen a lot of hard use but are no less desirable for that! Oh dear, ours will never be a minimalist house!

Talk to you again soon - Linda

In the garden and thinking ahead

I love this time of year when I can wander up the garden path to see what to have for dinner tonight.

Not so good though if you don't like your greens - this is just today's pick! You'd think I was feeding a tribe rather than just the two of us wouldn't you?

Of course we have food of other hues too! Looks like ratatouille is destined for the menu as soon as the aubergines cooperate.

Last year we really enjoyed the tomatillos so he who gardens has grown them again. They may look like Christmas decorations but they taste wonderful with chilli and coriander in a salsa.

You may have spotted (behind the pots of tomatillos) the less than lovely tunnels we grow all our vegetables under. The lace-like cabbage above shows why they are necessary. It's one thing attracting masses of beautiful butterflies to the garden but not so great when their caterpillars munch their way through your veg! This victim of the munchers was a spare left out in a pot. Looks like the bait worked!

I am doing some work as well as living off the land! Thr3fold have had a bit of a sabbatical of late but we have an exhibition on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia next spring so I've started work in my sketchbook. The title of the exhibition is Unfinished Business. It refers to the work we produced for the five thr3fold journals we wrote where all of us loved the pieces we did but sometimes felt we didn't always have time to do as much as we'd have liked on a particular theme. This will be our opportunity to revisit favourite inspirations to make new work. I'm starting by drawing treasured objects I've collected over the years.

My collection of old medicine bottles and inkwells have very little monetary value but I love them. I've found them at antique auctions, flea markets or, believe it or not, dug them up in the garden. When our house was built in the early 1700's there weren't such things as refuse collections and much of the rubbish was simply buried. We regularly unearth all kinds of broken china and now and again we find perfectly intact bottles too. We even discovered a silver thimble one time - now that was a real treasure! There it is in the photo below sitting next to a lovely mustard spoon and a fragment of blue and white china.

The thimble was full of earth and covered in verdigris but it cleaned up a treat. What made me quite emotional was the hole in the side showing how well used it had been! Both the favourite objects and the printer's tray they sit in will provide inspiration for a quilt or two. I'll keep you posted with my progress.

Thanks for dropping by - talk again soon - Linda

Festival of Quilts and back home again

Festival of Quilts has come and gone again for another year. We spend weeks getting ready and suddenly it's all over in the blink of an eye!

We were kept really busy on our stand - here I am with Laura - we're both chatting twenty to the dozen as usual. It was so great to meet up with people we usually only talk to by email from all over the world. You can just see a corner of Amelie's high chair in the background - Granddad seems to be  taking care of her.

She came every day and managed to charm everyone she met. My thanks to Linda Seward for this picture.

There were many exciting exhibits at the show. To get a flavour of the Through our Hands gallery that both of us were part of you might like to check out Laura's blog posts from the last few days.

It's hard to choose favourites from all that was on offer but one of the exhibits I loved was the Banjara work curated by Jan Petranek

I took this photo of the deserted gallery before the show opened and the rest of the photos were taken through the glass of the display cabinets so I'm sorry about the glare of the reflections!

Basic patchwork, usually worked in red and blue, is transformed with closely worked simple stitching to create beautiful patterns. I have collected a few of these traditional cloths myself over the years and will be having a go at my own version for DMTV very soon. If you liked the recent Kantha inspired project I think you'll enjoy this too. Get your cowrie shells ready!!

This detail of a rather distressed quilt was wonderful. It's not typical Banjara technique but no less lovely. The layers of cloth have worn away to reveal underlying colours. I can't believe how contemporary it looks. The worn layers look just like our textured and painted surfaces!

Yesterday was taken up with unpacking boxes and stock taking but today we're back at our desks and spending time with our online students. One of our recent Creative Sketchbook graduates has generously allowed me to share some of her pages with you. Thank you Pat!

Gorgeous observations of favourite objects!

And Sue, a subscriber to DMTV has generously sent me images of her wonderful rusted fabrics.

She's used them to create this intriguing polygon pages book. Thanks Sue - I'm pleased you were inspired by our videos.

I've spent a few essential hours in my studio today. It looked like a bomb had exploded in there. That's what happens when you get back from a show - everything is just thrown into the room as the van is unloaded. After 4 days at Festival we're all so exhausted we're satisfied if we can just empty the van and actually shut the door of the workroom before we creep off to bed. I must admit it was satisfying to have a reason to have a tidy up this morning and I've made the most of it by having a bit of a move around. Surprising what treasures turn up when you have a purge!

Thanks for reading this - I appreciate your company! Linda