Jane Brocket's Blog, page 55

coming up and up and coming

The High Line has been extended, with beautiful curves and long benches, small inclines, narrow passes, and beautiful framing of streets and vistas. It's now an up and coming area to live; new apartments are appearing along its length and boast views of the High Line (but if you live at High Line level it also means the High Line can get a good view of you).

As you come up the stairs and leave the streets thirty feet below, you reach what is now a modern incarnation of the old-fashioned Promenade (they could do a contemporary version of Easter Parade here - in fact, it's only a matter of time before the High Line appears in films). Although it's empty at 7 am except for runners and people being shouted out by their personal trainers, it is packed with promenaders later in the day.

Maybe it's to see and be seen, but far better to go for the spectacular planting, the brilliant designs and details, the feeling of being elevated in all senses.

If Central Park is the green lung of Manhattan, the High Line is its green artery, giving new life to Chelsea.

The surrounding buildings look as though they have come up through the grasses, shrubs, flowers, and trees. The spots of colour and the tall plants match the urban lanscape perfectly. And the huge numbers of people coming up and down the line, like the old trains, add motion and vitality. It's an amazing place.

(It's also ideal for two quick branch line detours. One to Chelsea Market for bread at Amy's, books at Posman Books, and fruit at the Manhattan Fruit Exchange. And one, worth the detour from anywhere, to Billy's Bakery for key lime pie.)

 

celebration

 

[Ladies Who Lunch Beryl Cook]

I went to Bristol for one celebration, and found another.

One of the professors in the university Russian Dept is retiring this summer after 36 years at Bristol, and a surprise dinner was organised. I rarely go to this sort of thing as I'm not one for formal programmes or dressing-up (and, would you believe it, on the night there was someone else in the same dress - just goes to show that I should have stuck to jeans and a clean T-shirt...). But the opportunity to see the teaching staff again after all this time, as well as graduates from my year, was too much to resist. And I was so I went. Apart from the fear that I wouldn't understand a word of Russian in the speeches (I didn't, but it didn't matter - I wasn't the only blank one), it was a wonderful celebration of a very special subject, department, and some very unusual shared experiences.

 

[Percy at the Fridge Beryl Cook]

In the afternoon I went to the Bristol Art Gallery which was one of my favourite, warm refuges when I was a student, and still feels beautifully grand and old-fashioned. I wanted to see the Beryl Cook exhibition (link to good selection of paintings) because I've always been aware of her funny, supremely well observed, colourful, and very popular paintings, and liked them. What I didn't realise, though, was the extent to which the establishmen art world has been terribly snooty about and dismissive of her work and that despite the fact that her prints and cards and calendars sell like hot cakes, there are very few of her paintings in public collections. It seems the gallery directors and committees buy what they think the public ought to like, rather than what they do like. (It's very much the same story with LS Lowry, another immensely popular artist whose paintings are rarely seen in galleries.) [just found this]

 

[The Last Gasp Beryl Cook]

The exhibition is a lovely celebration of a celebratory artist. It was very busy and full of people smiling and often laughing. (Sadly, there were no ladies done up in green eyeshadow and red cupid bow's lips, huge furs, fabulous coiffures, dangling earrings, and outrageous shoes - but they would not have been out of place.) BC had a warm sense of humour, was a keen observer, and loved the everyday, vulgar, and noisy. She reminds me of the master of saucy seaside cards, Donald McGill, and there are some very large bottoms and smothering bosoms on show. Her paintings are clearly influenced by Stanley Spencer (lots of loud patterns on clothes, unusual - often undignified - angles, very carefully painted trees and foliage) and there is the same feeling of warm, buxom humanity and enjoyment. Beryl Cook was also very keen on needlepoint and knitting and there were some of her needlepoint pieces on show - full of colour and detail in unique designs.

 

[Ladies' Night Beryl Cook. This one is for my Mum]

 I came away feeling uplifted and amused, for this is a real celebration of life and people and foibles and often very private passions. Later on, at 1.30 in the morning, I walked down the steep hill of Park Street which was full of people out on the town, and there were the very characters I'd seen in the paintings in the afternoon. BC lived in Bristol for five years until the hills proved too much for her legs, but on Saturday night/Sunday morning everything she enjoyed was there to be observed and celebrated. And not, for the first time that day, I was reminded that Bristol is a good place to spend a few years.

refreshment

 

It turns out that I spent a whole year in Bristol without realising the flat I shared virtually overlooked the abandoned Clifton Lido. I never even knew it was there - maybe the weeds were so tall they obscured it - but I do remember catching a glimpse of the once-beautiful Victorian pool from a different vantage point and wondering about its story.

These days, I would love to live that close to the Lido, where yesterday I met Charlotte for copious amounts of tea and conversation. The restoration and modernisation of the pool and changing rooms is marvellous, and the refreshed pool looks amazingly inviting (I didn't swim because you need to book a package at the weekend). There's a cafe, a restaurant and a spa, and it's all very much a modern-day version of the Roman baths (eg Baths of Caracalla) minus the slaves working away underneath, keeping the fires burning to heat the water (I hope).

 

I find it very difficult to sit next to water like this without leaping in, so I'll be going back with my cossie, Simon, and a toga-styled towel. Having seen photos of the pool at dusk with steam above the water, I think a cold, autumn day would ideal. After all, now I know it's there, I've got to make up for lost time.

tiredness/happiness ratings

 

Phoebe is not happy. She is tired and fed up with GCSE pressure at school (she takes them next year, but it's never too early to start the anxiety, it seems).

Tom is happy. He is also tired because he working twelve-hour days at the Hampton Court Flower Show to earn money for a holiday with friends next week. (He hasn't seen a single flower, but he has seen a lot of pints as he is doing bar work.)

Alice is very happy. She is extremely tired because she is having a holiday (funded by a Saturday job in Boots) in Portugal with friends, and is getting in after nights out at a time I now associate with getting up.

Simon is pretty much always happy, especially when the Tour de France is on TV. He tired as he hardly been at home for the past fortnight, and is mostly to be found pretending to be awake and listening to the droning commentary.

I am happy because a very exciting new project has just been agreed this week, I am going to Bristol tomorrow for a special event, and am off for a few days at the end of next week. Then I will be really tired.

Despite Phoebe's tiredness, she made the cake for a friend's birthday last night. She was very weary and couldn't think of a clever decorating idea, so I said she should just call it a 'jewel cake' and go to bed early. Which she did.

viscosey posies

 

Well, thank you for all the comments about the quilt top.

  

I considered the various options suggested here, and in the end have decided on something very simple which I was inspired to cut out last night after re-reading Rebecca's comment. I also very much like the idea of a binding made from Liberty Tana lawn, but probably won't do that because I don't own any, and I'm trying to use up the fabrics I have. In addition, I have chosen the fabrics for the back after many trips up and down the stairs (my fabrics are in a chest of drawers upstairs); I hadn't quite realised how few pale/white background fabrics I have (about four). Now all I have to do is finish the border, make the back, tie the layers, and bind it all, and the crinoline ladies will be well and truly ensconced in pastures new.

 

And I shall also move onto pastures new in the form of posies and vases stitched on viscose (aka rayon).

 

Now I would never knowingly part with money for something made from viscose. I simply don't like it; I know this from working for Courtaulds plc in the 1980s, and being part of a small team that went to Moscow every month to sell the trio of Courtaulds'  man-made fibres - acrylic (Courtelle), acetate, and viscose - to the Soviet Union. (If I digressed into vodka, snow, and Communism at this point, I'd be here a long time.)

 

I know that viscose is the most natural of the three as it's made from wood pulp, but it has terrible thermal properties, creases as soon as you touch it, and has what I find to be an unpleasant handle that sets my teeth on edge.

 

Yet I have some really lovely, cheerful, colourful, confident stitching done on viscose which I have bought believing the sellers who described the background as cotton. It's funny how this fabric attracted such exuberant colours and dense stitching, and a particular kind of cotton crewel-work. 

 

Amongst its various failings, viscose also frays and develops holes very easily, so many embroidered old pieces are very much worse for wear. But I think the stitching is of a kind that is worth keeping in the form of a big, show-off-and-admire quilt top. So this is my next project, even though I'm already gearing up to getting very cross with machine-piecing the slippery, slidy, viscosey posies and vases.

liberated ladies

 

Hell's bells and buckets of blood, as my Mum would say. Much as I believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and in the joys of free speech, I can't help but think that in comparison to some of the terrible things that happen in this life (of which I have had a fair helping), cutting up a few worn-out table linens is hardly something worth getting het up about. I mean, when it comes down to it, the loss of the wholeness of a tablecloth is hardly a tragedy. I'm not being flippant here, I am being deadly serious.

Anyway. I felt it wouldn't be fair not to show you what I'm making. I took out as many small areas of good quality, long-lasting stitching as possible from a number of old tablecloths, tray covers and assorted small pieces. I spent ages (years) thinking about how to use my 'touchable' tablecloths so as to revitalise the lovely stitching that went into them. I'd thought of a quilt top made up of irregular squares and rectangles, cut to frame the stitching I want to show, but kept wilting at the thought of dealing with a jigsaw of pieces. Then I saw sense, and realised that it would all be much easier if I stuck to one size of square, and cut out the best bits to fit into it. I decided a 6" x 6" square was a good finished size, so cut out about ninety 6.5" x 6.5" squares and laid them out. In the end, the top is 8 squares across and 10 squares down, and I spent some time arranging the squares so that there aren't whole processions of crinoline ladies along certain rows, or too many pieces from a single cloth too close together.

What I've ended up with is something like a densely stitched tablecloth (it reminds me of children's illustrated book pages) which will give anyone who is bored and sitting under it something to look at for ages and ages. Because there are crinoline ladies, dogs, chimneys, a Welsh lady and a mountain, sprays and posies, baskets and lattice-work, hollyhocks and herbaceous borders, French knots, lazy daisies, button-hole stitch, stem stitch, and all sorts of daintiness and colour. It isn't finished yet; I am still pondering a border (or maybe not), and I need to make a back. I won't quilt it because there is quite enough stitching on there already, so it will be tied with different colours of thread.

 

There are lots of liberated crinoline ladies in there. That may sound like a contradiction in terms, crinolines being the work of the devil and all that, but I have to say they do look good in their new garden surroundings. (The photo above makes it look as though I'm also wearing a crinoline. Sorry to disappoint, but that's just my dress.)

true dare

 
 

I remember playing 'true, dare, kiss, command or promise' at junior school, and never quite knowing which one I most feared getting. I tell the truth all too easily, dares scare me, the idea of kissing a boy may just have crossed my mind but not in the context of the whole school playground watching, I don't like being told what to do, and promises can get you in a mess. So I would always much rather be skipping or spending ages upside down, dress tucked into my knickers, in a line of girls doing handstands against the school wall. I hadn't thought about the 'true, dare...' game for years until this weekend, when I did something that felt like a true dare to me.

 

For the last eight years or so I have been picking up vintage hand-embroidered tablecloths here and there. I don't spend much on them and I have some specific criteria for selection (certain types of designs, decent stitching, good condition, appealing colours) and as a result I now I have a cupboard full of linen, cotton, and sometimes viscose tablecloths. (I really don't like the latter so it's ironic that some of my most exuberant pieces of stitching are on viscose. I am always disappointed when I buy something from a seller on eBay who describes the fabric as cotton and it turns out to be slippery viscose.) 

 

Over the years, my tastes have refined and I buy more carefully and sparingly, so I now have two categories: untouchable and touchable. And this weekend I did what I'd wanted to do for a long time but hadn't dared: I cut into the touchable pile.

 

In fact, there has been an explosion of vintage tablecloths all over the place. They are in 'save' piles, pre-cut piles, cut piles, ironed piles, unironed piles, remnant piles, viscose piles, and there is even a pile for Simon to use to clean his bike.

 

It seems I unleashed a inner daring, wild woman with scissors and rotary cutter, as I didn't just cut up one or two, I cut up enough to make several projects. And it felt good. It felt fine to release the areas of colourful, homely hand-embroidery from squares that are marked, worn, or dull with age, and to liberate some crinoline ladies so that they can see the sunshine again instead of spending an eternity folded up in a dark cupboard. The house looks as though a cotton shredder has been through it and there are no direct routes across the downstairs rooms, but it has been a lovely, warm, sunny weekend with Wimbledon and a lot of cutting.

 

Now I dare you to say, 'how can you?'

And I am not scared to say, 'I can.'

[Four crinoline ladies and four sets of flowers have been liberated from the same tablecloth.]

 

 

pure style

 

One Jane likes acres of white. The other Jane wants as much colour as possible. One Jane's signature colour is blue: sea blue, sky blue, indigo, robin's egg, duck egg, and any other clear, pure blue in between. The other Jane's signature colour is pink. Or maybe lime. Or maybe cranberry red. Or maybe any colour in the rainbow that looks good at the time. One Jane believes less is more, and the other Jane is adamant that more is more.

Despite their differences, the first Jane, Jane Cumberbatch, has been one of the most enduring style influences on the the other Jane, me. I remember when her first book Pure Style came out not long before we moved to this house after six years in rented accommodation, and I read it more closely than any other interiors book I'd ever read. Because it wasn't just about rooms and houses, it was about homes and philosophies, and it informed all I did here. Even though my home looks very different to Jane's calm, plain, pure and simple homes (she's has moved a couple of times since the first book), I'd like to think that mine reflects some of the same qualities as Jane's in that I like plain, practical interiors without knick-knacks and flounces. Plus I always buy Duralex glasses, ever since Jane persuaded me that they are the best thing for adults and children alike.

Her next book Pure Style Outside applied the same simple, careful philosophy to the garden or outside space. I was delighted to see that someone else loved nasturtiums and vegetable plots as much as I do, and promoted the idea of doing what you can and enjoying it, rather than flogging yourself and never getting to sit down and relax. And keeping it really, really simple.

It's the same approach that underpins Jane's new book Pure Style: Recipes for Everyday Living which is beautifully produced (no surprise) with lovely photos and an emphasis on seasonality, taste, and enjoyment. The recipes are interspersed with 'recipes' for complementary gardening and domestic activities, and it's all done with Jane's characteristic common sense flair. And I love the linen tea towel cover idea. Clever Jane.

 

after school

 

Thirty giant smartie cookies made after school yesterday (photographed this sunny morning). Phoebe's baking is in great demand at the moment, and these are for schoolfriends.

She also made it clear to me that just because Tom and Alice won't be here from September, it doesn't mean I should stop baking stuff for when she gets home from school. That wouldn't be fair, she says, and she's not that keen on Kit-Kats. (I agree, Kit-Kats are very boring.) I said that if I bake regularly, and she, Simon, and I eat full-scale batches of baking on our own, we would have to widen all the doors in the house.

Case in point: I'd made a dozen madeleines just before she came home (photographed in yesterday's grey gloom), and they disappeared in a cloud of icing sugar while they were still warm. But there were four of us, including a large boy teenager who eats for England.

 

(If the tablecloth in the top picture looks familiar, it's because it's the one on the UK edition of The Gentle Art of Domesticity. I know copies of the book are expensive and difficult to find, but I didn't realise booksellers were asking this much... ROFL, as Phoebe would say. Thanks to Ida for the link.)

party silks

 

Thirteen years ago I started an embroidery course at a college of education where two very worshipped and influential creative embroiderers held sway. I gave up after five weeks of not threading a needle and being told off for bringing a piece of nice silk fabric to stitch (above - still not used as it has unpleasant associations) instead of dyeing, bonding, fusing, manipulating my own. It didn't take long for me to realise that 'embroidery' can have many interpretations and that this wasn't the one I had in mind. At the same time, Tom went into hospital, was very ill with pneumonia then a rare complication, had to be transferred to the John Radcliffe in Oxford, and my creative embroidery went up in a puff of burnt chiffon smoke.

The only good to come out of this demoralising episode was that I discovered Patricia Woood's Mulberry Silks at one of the college fairs. She puts together the most beautiful themed packs of her shimmering silk threads which make you want to buy them just so you can look at the colours and how they work next to each other. I have bought a few packs over the years but, like the silk fabric, have hardly used them. This is partly because I always feel I should save them for a special stitching occasion, partly because they look so lovely unused, and partly because each spool is not very long so I can't do a great deal with any one colour. But the more I look at them now, the more I think I should have one big summer silk party and use them all in a single extravagant, exuberant silk project and lay to rest the ghosts of the past. (And not take a soldering iron to it to finish it off.)