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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 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 all the works 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… 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 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. I think I’m happy to leave it where it is and just come away with a smile.
Posted in art, museums and galleries
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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.
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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.
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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!
Posted in baking, knitting, wool
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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.
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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.
Posted in baking, museums and galleries
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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.
Posted in spinning, wool
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