Au Revoir Mes Amis

So sorry I’ve been away for ages and sorrier still this break will continue.

I still love craft but I am finding it harder and harder to write about. Contrast this with writing about cinema, which flows off the keyboard since I have been accepted to write for the very fabulous Lost in The Multiplex.

I leave you with a picture of a bracelet, a handmade present from my friend Dany.

I’ve appreciated every visit, every comment, every subscriber. I may be back but until I do thank you so much for making time for me.

Warmest wishes, Lydia.

 

Cambridgeshire not Cornwall

Snagged at St. Ives Country Market. 

If You Signed up for Films or Books..

 

Reading “Simple Blogging” alerted me to the un-niche-ness of my blog. Folk who want to read about “Justified” aren’t necessarily folk who want to see my baby blue, hand dyed alpaca bobble yarn. There’s an overlap, but it’s minimal. So henceforth I am Lydia-two-blogs.

Judah’s blanket: the haven of domesticity it always was.

*What Would Sherlock Do?: all the stuff you’d find in The Times Culture magazine, but in an inferior writing style.

Some of you followers may be leaving us to sample these new pastures. I’ll miss you, when your name popped up as a subscriber I got a little jolt of fatheaded joy.

*Garry suggested “Bludah’s Janket”

 

Rosy Jam

I’m being pampered with a guest post from Jacky (and so are you)

Hi,

I am a home edding mum who loves all things of a foraging/self sufficiency nature.  Actually, my love borders on obsessional!

Recently, my foraging adventures have combined 3 of my favourite things: roses, foraging and preserve making!

I took the sprogs with me on a little excursion (along with my field guide, Richard Mabey: Food For Free handbook!) to a nearby public right of way footpath that is festooned with wild rose bushes.

We collected a quantity of pretty rose petals (about 2 mugs full when packed in) … leaving the rose centres intact for the future hips, of course!

We brought them home and sorted them out, liberating any critters that had the misfortune of hitching a ride home in the bag.

Then we, or rather I, as the sprogs had now taken up electronic devices, dissolved 2 cups of sugar in half a cup of water and a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice.  The rose petals were then tumbled inside the liquid and stirred for 30 mins.

Cool slightly then pour into sterile jars.

As you can see from the picture, you may either leave the petals in or remove them.

If you leave them in, they float to the top and look pretty as a picture!

All you need to do now is either drizzle the rosy gorgeous loveliness over fresh pancakes, ice-cream or hot, buttered toast!  It is the most delightful jam I have made to date.

Hope this inspires some of you to try nature’s bounty that is both fresh and free!

JJ x

And You Know I’ve Tried A LOT of Brownies

Simple Homeschool has a post that fits Connie’s journey to culinary competence. Here.

When she began asking to cook (age nine or younger) I found it hard as:

1. she didn’t want help

2. she didn’t want recipes

3. my kitchen is MY KINGDOM!

Also she made grimace inducing food, it felt wasteful. I was negative and anxious.

I coped by nixing certain ingredients, demanding she clean up before and after and shutting the door and walking away (returning only to place dubious cake mixtures in the oven)

First her baking became edible. Then delicious. She never wrote anything down but seemed to remember which amounts and combinations went well. Then she began using recipes. Age 11 she could make a three course dinner for six. Age 12 she bakes the best brownies I have ever tasted.

 

Jon Wants to Believe the Best of the Klan

Jon wants to believe the best of everyone he meets, whether it’s Omar Bakri Mohammed or David Icke. No matter how ludicrous or repellent your claim (a cabal of Jewish lizard people rule the world) Jon will give you opportunity to prove it. This gives his writing a warm, clearheaded openness and means when people reveal themselves as malicious, bigoted or hateful you are hit with shocked conviction. It’s also funny, as the contrast between the grandiose things believed and the ordinary, mistake prone humans who believe them, is often comic.

“Them” is a nonfiction story of a search for an urban legend, the Bilderberg Group, a conspiracy of the hugely rich and the prospectively powerful, allegedly shaping world events.

It turns out to be true.

Only not how it sounds.

Not how it sounds, because this is also a book about subjectivity. About how two people can witness the same event, one seeing harmless immaturity, the other sickening evil.

Read it yourself and discover if you’re Scully or Mulder.

I Know a Four Year Old Could Have Done it But I Couldn’t be Prouder

Sue and I were welcomed into the conservatory which serves as Lydia Haines‘ studio. It was a hot day so the temperature inside was bikini appropriate. Around us hung her giant silk paintings and her prints on fabric and paper. She gave us both screens to paint on, encouraging us to experiment, not worrying about trying to make them look perfect, advice Sue ignored as she thoughtfully dabbed away for twenty minutes. When the screens had dried we flipped them over onto paper. Lydia brought out some special seaweed gunk she herself had knocked up that morning, it looked like wallpaper paste. We plopped some into the frames and immediately the paint colours were drawn up into it. We spread the gunk all over the screen, squeegeeing it back and forth, lastly sweeping it off. Then the reveal. We lifted up the screen, peeling back the paper and ta dah! Mine is the brown stripy one, Sue’s is the green and blue one that looks like a tree.

I love the separation between artist and composition that printing provides. The final result is hidden even from the creator until the last moment. It feels magical, surprising.