Eglantine And The Year in Books (And Giveaway Winners)

Dear readers,

    

Eglantine; soft pink petals, falling loosely when plucked, against small, bright green leaves.  Its other name, sweet-briar, comes from its faint apple scent wafting on a warm, summer wind.  Conjure up in your mind these simple, wild roses together with the summer solstice and you have yourself an idyllic landscape.  Titania's bower in A Midsummer Night's Dream was 'over-canopied with luscious woodbine, / With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine'.  This flower is also armed with stout thorns - its name, according to Katherine Swift, means 'prickly' from the Latin aculeus,  'a litle needle', by way of the Provençal aiglentina.* - and is surely the briar through which the prince fought his way to Sleeping Beauty's turret room.

Eglantine; a rag doll whose vintage cotton sheet body has been dyed with caramel tea leaves - the kitchen smelled wonderful - with braided hair in 'Treacle Toffee' alpaca and silk yarn (I'm unashamedly addicted to this), kissable cheeks, a rose-sprigged Liberty print and a golden-winged embroidered fairy faintly reminiscent of the twelve good fairies who bestowed gifts at Sleeping Beauty's christening.  Oh, and I mustn't forget her knitted shoes!  I must have made at least three pairs in different coloured yarns before settling for her plumy rose ones.  The talented doll-maker, Little Jenny Wren's pattern, which is free, may be found  here.  I love Jenny Marshall's dolls so very much and you too can fall for their undeniable charms on her Little Jenny Wren's Dolls Page on Pinterest.

And my reading material for this rose-filled month of June is Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Light Years.

"Sybil got up from bed and went to the open window; the air smelled warmly of honeysuckle and roses, there was the metallic sounds of blackbirds settling down for the night and the sky was turning apricot streaked with little molten feathery clouds. 'Look thy last on all things lovely, every hour,' came into her mind.  She leaned further out of the window and pulled a rose towards her to smell it. [...]  She was thirty-eight, and the thought that it might be a very hard labour and that she might die recurred now.  The petals of the rose began to drop; and when she let go of it, it swung back with only the stamens left."

Elizabeth Jane Howard, The Light Years (Pan Books: London, 2013) p. 127.

What a fascinating life Howard led, according to this obituary.  A very good thing, perhaps, for I could not help but notice how many details in this, the first of four volumes of The Cazalet Chronicles, are of an autobiographical nature; smuggling into the pages the author's own version of Eden.  Focusing on the pre-war years of 1937-38 Howard appeals to the childhood of many readers.  There is so much more, of course.  For those who are interested in the social context of the time the varying constrictions in the lives of middle-class women are sharply brought to modern light together with the reluctant obligations placed heavily on the shoulders of middle-class young men around whom everything seemed to revolve.  Sweet nostalgia tempered with virulent depictions of inequality and suffering.  I haven't finished reading The Light Years yet but I am grateful for the dose of English life, both in London and in the Sussex countryside, it has afforded me.

 

 ****************************************

Before I finally cut to the chase and announce the two giveaway winners, please wish Héloïse well for this coming week's Baccalauréat exams.  She's had a few already but this week is going to be intense!  Secondly, as I proudly announced over here last week, Tristan came top of all forty-five guitarists for his end of year exams.  I had goosebumps when he played and the parents and children broke into applause right there in that exam room.  He was, despite his stress, so very poised for a ten-year old.  A joyful moment indeed for both mother and son.

**************************************

Truly, the best thing for me about these two giveaways has been the delight of reading kind-hearted comments left by readers I had not had the pleasure of 'meeting' before.  Thank you to all of you for taking the time to write to me and for expressing your enthusiasm.  I wish, somehow, I could make each one of you a winner.

So, the winner of the Salley Mavor two art posters (offered and signed by the artist herself) and the book (a gift from  me) is Jessica Stride.

The winner of my Maytime Hare is Ali Thomson up in fair Scotland.

Congratulations dear ladies! I look forward to receiving from each of you your full postal address via Facebook or email when you have a moment.

I'll be back within the week as I have many exciting things to share with you.  Now, if you don't mind, I have a Banoffee Cheesecake to bake for Father's Day tomorrow.

With very warm wishes,

Stephanie

I'm joining in with Laura's June version of The Year In Books.

*Katherine Swift, The Morville Hours, p. 186. 



A Maytime Hare - GIVEAWAY!

Dear readers,

 

Before I launch this jolly (late) springtime giveaway please bear with me as I gently urge you to find yourselves some rhubarb and a small pot of thick sour cream to make this cake - it is truly scrumptious and holds the taste of spring in my opinion.



I am mighty glad to have carved out this precious corner of time from the organised havoc of guitar concerts, relentless choir rehearsals, theatre performances, seven music exams (for a ten-year old),  final dance shows (for my imminent school-leaver) and the long stretch of Baccalauréat examinations which have triggered as many outbreaks of eczema for Héloïse as the stage make-up she's been using.   Most of it is uplifting stuff although I would be lying if I said that voices were rarely raised in our home and sleep never broken.  Keep stitching, baking and walking, I say.  And a few chuckles and belly laughs in between the stress-ridden moments work wonders too!



I am delighted to introduce you to Spring Chick my latest limited edition hare created specifically to celebrate almost three years of blogging, nurturing precious friendships and sharing inspiration with like-minded folk.  This little lady is most definitely a nod to the kitsch and a tad quirkly. She is a Mistress of Flowers clad in early morning glimpses of patchwork fields of brilliant yellow oilseed and creamy lady's lace (just look at those bloomers!)  The month of May in our parts is usually terribly rainy and so very verdant - a hundred shades of green.  My favourite is a cross between pea-green and parrot-green; both of which feature in the Liberty fabric dress.  If I close my eyes for a moment I see garden festivals, held between sunny spells and rain clouds, cakes being baked and eaten with clotted cream. I see the white flowers of strawberries, and a colourful riot of columbines and foxgloves.  Part of me, however, is holding onto the movable feast of Easter with its entourage of early spring flowers; hence the two chicks perched on each hare limb.

 

I could go on and on... You know that, don't you?

 

Antique French creamy lace and tulle, spring flowers on a new Liberty print, bright pink satin ribbon, gold-threaded 1950s ric rac and perky chicks.  Like her or hate her she's one of a kind!



 

So, if Miss Spring Chick tickles your fancy there are THREE ways to win her and you can try all three ways to give yourselves a little extra luck.

 

First, all you have to do is to leave a comment at the end of this post.  Everybody is welcome regardless of where you live or whether you are a regular reader of Millefeuilles.

 

For a second chance, if you wish, you can SPREAD THE WORD about this giveaway on your blog or put a link in your sidebar.  Please feel free to choose the picture your prefer for that.

 

Finally, if you are on FACEBOOK, there is a post about this giveaway on my page which if you LIKE and SHARE will give you ANOTHER chance to win.  Don't forget to leave another quick comment here once you have done the deed to let me know.

 

This giveaway will close on Tuesday June 10th and I will be using the Random Number Generator to pick the winner.

 

I'm afraid the macarons are NOT included in the giveaway.  There are currently sitting in our fridge! 

 

A bientôt,

 

Stephanie

ps I have decided to announce the winner of the Salley Mavor Giveaway on June 10th, too.  This way I will be making one trip to the post office with two parcels instead of one.  Three actually.  It seems that more than a handful of you have been misled into believing the giveaway was a book instead of a beautiful poster.  I could not resist, therefore the urge to purchase a brand new copy of Mavor's book A Pocketful Of Posies - a feast of artistic inspiration - which I will be offering, together with the two posters, to the winner.

pps The book featuring in the very first picture is Vic Brotherson's Vintage Flowers which was generously gifted many moons ago by Annie over at Knitsofacto.

Sorry Gaspard.  Those macarons are not for you either.



The Year In Books: A Violet Season

Dear readers,

Before leaving for Paris this weekend to spend time with my family I am squeezing in a post after almost a month's silence.

Although the season for wild violets came to a close early April in our corner of France I have been cultivating my love for these tiny blooms with hand-dyed threads and a beautifully-penned book. 

In a recent post of mine, also dedicated to violets, the author Kathy Leonard Czepiel wrote a comment gently suggesting I read her debut novel  A Violet Season (published in 2012).  It took me two minutes to order it and two evenings to devour its two hundred and fifty odd pages.

I recall my primary school master decades ago urging us not to judge a book by its cover but his cautionary words flew out of my head when I set eyes on this pretty cover.  Fortunately, in this case, this book is both beautiful without and within.  It is also hard and frank; a dark tale of a hardscrabble life set in 1898 on a violet farm Upstate New York.  Leonard Czepiel's carefully researched and constructed novel carried me back to the turn of the twentieth century and kept my senses alive with every page I turned.  It is a finely-written tribute to late nineteenth-century women's endurance which has put in check my daily and trivial grumbles.  The booming violet industry provides a sensual backdrop to the dashed hopes and drudgery of most women who must endure the sometimes heartless decisions and subterfuge of their menfolk and teaches the reader how hardy both violets and women can be.  It is also a book delightfully stuffed with details of the everyday life of over a century ago.  Glimpses of city life provide a counterpoint to the Fletcher family's rural existence.  Household chores, Christmas traditions - violets were grown over winter, not spring - and one of the early sewing machines makes an appearance too!

I will not share the storyline of A Violet Season with you but I will say that a woman's relationship with her daughter is damaged (beyond repair?) as they both make dreadful sacrifices for their family's survival.

And the violets in the first picture above?  They are a work in progress from Blackbird Designs (I purchased the sampler chart, linen, and threads from here ) and the perfect complement to my recent reading.  The violets are stitched on Iced Cappuccino hand-dyed linen from R & R Reproductions with Weeks Dye Works floss in River Rock, Stepping Stone, and Stone colourways.

Finally, in a desire to feed Angélique's overwhelming enthusiasm for Nursery Rhymes two years ago I stumbled across Salley Mavor's stunning textile artwork through this book.  I recall showing it to my mother on one of her visits to our home and she too was in awe of this amazing artist's attention to detail and the rich colours she uses.

A few weeks ago I purchased a signed copy of Salley Mavor's Self Portrait: A Personal History of Fashion.  I was touched to receive a second copy, also autographed, which I decided with the artist's approval, to send as a gift to one of you.  This fabric relief sculpture incorporates miniature dolls which represent each year of the artist's life; each one is hand-stitched and displays a wealth of details of fashion over the past fifty years.

If you are interested in receiving a copy of this work of art together with a poster of Mavor's beautiful Blossom Fairies please leave me a comment below.  I will announce the winner in just over a week.

I hope you are all well and happy.  I dedicate this post to my American friends who are finally enjoying violets after a long winter.

I have the pleasure of joining in with Laura's May version of The Year In Books.

Stephanie xx

ps BE WARNED!  To celebrate (almost) three full years of this small blog of mine there will be a Spring Hare Giveaway on my next post.  She is blooming, kitsch and cheery in equal measures!

Wild Violet Season

Happy March dear readers!

I am shyly joining in with Karen's Sunlit Sunday this weekend.

"I can see meadows, deep woods, which the first outburst of buds mists over wth an elusive green, cold streams and forgotten springs.  Easter primroses, daffodils with the saffron coloured heart, and violets, violets, violets...

I can see a silent little girl whom spring has already enchanted with a wild happiness, with a bittersweet and mysterious joy. A small girl imprisoned by day in a schoolhouse, and who exchanged toys and pictures for the first bouquets of violets from the woods, tied with a red cotton thread, brought by the little shepherdesses from the surrounding farms.

Oh, violets of my childhood!  You rise up before me, all of you, you lattice the milky April sky, and the quivering of your countless little faces intoxicates me." 

This is an extract from the French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette's kaleidescope of fragments dedicated to her childhood first published in 1908 under the title of Les Vrilles de la vigne.  Although there is no particular logic to be found in the sequence of these eighteen short stories, there is a poetic or musical beauty to be found in the construction of each together underscored with a strong feminine sensuality.  The above description of wild violets is from the short story Le Dernier Feu which has marked me particularly.  If you would like to read these stories in English you may find them in this book.

 If Colette writes in the final words of the above extract that wild violets belong to the month of April, I usually see their tiny faces appearing during the course of February along the shady banks and hedgerows of our local vinyards and in our garden.  Spring flower obsessions are shared by many as dear Elizabeth reveals in her recent and beautifully penned post on snowdrops which further endorses my opinion that she should really write a book on gardens.  I am fickle in nature.  Spring provides an intoxicating potion of vibrant colours and tantalising scents and I usually fall madly in love each year with each spring flower but, as loyal readers know, my passion lies with violets.  Greek myths tell us that violets first sprang where Orpheus laid his enchanted lute and that the goddess Persephone and her companion nymphs were gathering rose, crocus, violet, iris, lily and larkspur blooms in a springtime meadow when she was abducted by the god Hodes. This year I have succumbed to one of my favourite scents once more, Violettes de Toulouses, and, as you may see, to knitting a cardigan inspired by these brave, delicate and diminutive blooms hardly bigger than a fingernail.

I have observed with a little gratitude and much delight how the poetry of flowers has woven its magic on my dear Angélique since a very early age.  I wanted to create a cardigan for her which captured the elusive colour of violets.  The Old Maiden Aunt colourway, Bluebells, together with Madelinetosh's Olivia were a match made in Heaven.  

The pattern is Dani Sunshine's Bella.

My Ravelry link is here; do come and say hello!

The pretty wreath of violets was created by Amore Bride.

Please take a few seconds to look at the white dress Angélique is wearing.  It dates back to the late nineteenth-century and the collar, which you can see more clearly in the third picture from the top, is exquisitely embroidered entirely by hand. 

And before you leave PLEASE tell me which spring flower do you love the most?  I would love to know!

A bientôt,

Stephanie

ps  As my Facebook page, Madame Millefeuilles has very kindly reached over two thousand likes I would like to arrange a special giveaway, both here and on Facebook, once the flurry of pre-Easter orders has been dealt with!  

pps  I am also, tentatively, joining in for the first time with Jodi's The 52 Project.

The Meadow Hare Winner

Oh my, oh my!

 

If I have chosen to portray a small part of Mademoiselle Flower Meadow below it is simply because I wish in some magical way I could give a little piece of her to every single wonderful soul who participated in this giveaway both here and on Madame Millefeuilles.  But that just wouldn't work, would it?  A winner must be chosen and before the very obliging Random Number Generator did its job this morning a lot of additions and, dare I say, a smattering of multiplications needed to be performed with the wonderful list of hopeful shares on Facebook and the numerous cheery comments on this blog.

 

Phew!

 

Before I announce this flowery Demoiselle's destination I really would like to THANK YOU ALL from the bottom of my sincere heart.  There will be other giveaways, I promise!

 

So, this little hare is off to Germany to  live with Bärbel, (aka The Garden Fairy).  Please Bärbel, could you send me your address via e-mail?

 

I will be returning in a few days.  I am dreaming away, stitching and knitting during this wonderful everyday life we live.   I wish you all well.

 

A très bientôt,

 

Stephanie 



Flower Meadow Hare - GIVEAWAY!

Dear readers,

 

Inspiration, I am sure you will agree, may be found in many corners of our lives.  These past few days I have looked for it in the books I read whilst snuggled up with Angélique*, and in the merry profusion of wild flowers, sparkling in the September sun, which, I swear, seem to lift their swaying heads as I approach them on my way to the vineyards.

 Enchanted flower meadows don't just exist in Belle Ile En Mer; I've stumbled across quite a few here in France and there's even one a few minutes stroll away from our home. A 'Van Gogh cornfield or a mad technicolor Liberty print' as Katherine Swift describes them, they are composed of a clever mixture of native and non-native hardy annuals which flower over an extremely long period from mid-June through to early November.  The one nearby, alive with bees and brilliantly charged with colour, boasts blue cornflower, brown-eyed susans, toadflax, yellow corn marigold and self-heal amongst others I cannot name yet.

 A fabulous source of inspiration.

And so, dear friends, to celebrate your kindness and generosity and the past two years of Millefeuilles I have created Mademoiselle Flower Meadow as a GIVEAWAY to you.

She has been such a joy to stitch.  A little Liberty lawn (from the fabric used to make Angélique's summer dress), the softest merino fingering yarn from The Uncommon Thread in the Meadow Grass colourway, a few strands of hand-dyed silk and cotton threads to embroider those meadow flowers and my last piece of 1890s pale yellow lace to trim a pair of bloomers.  Oh, and I mustn't forget the 1940s ivory lace on Miss Hare's skirt either!

 So, if Mademoiselle Flower Meadow finds favour with you there are three ways to win her and you can try all three ways to give yourselves some extra luck.

 

First, all you have to do is to leave a comment at the end of this post.  Everybody is welcome regardless of where you live or whether you are a regular reader of Millefeuilles.

 

For a second chance, if you wish, you can mention this giveaway on your blog or put a link in your sidebar.  Please feel free to choose the picture your prefer for that.

 

Finally, if you are on Facebook, there is a post about this giveaway on my page which if you LIKE and SHARE will give you another chance to win.  Don't forget to leave another quick comment here once you have done the deed to let me know.

 

This giveaway will close on Tuesday 17th September and I will be using the Random Number Generator to pick the winner.

 

Thank you ALL for your encouragement and for leaving such kind comments. 

 

A bientôt,

 

Stephanie

 

* The four illustrations above are from three books all of which are illustrated by my current favourite artist; Charlotte Gastaut.

 

Charles Perrault, Les Fées

Charlotte Gastaut, Le Grand Voyage de Mademoiselle Prudence

Hans Christian Andersen, Poucette

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forget Me Not

Dear readers,

 

This is not a blog post as such.  I simply wish to let you know that I am sending you all a warm hug from France.  I am mastering the art (again) of treading carefully whilst I replenish my iron levels (again).  Despite this temporary state of fatigue I am feeling hopeful and excited about current projects and the school year ahead.

Sometime in early summer my blog, Millefeuilles, turned two.  I have experienced so much sweet generosity from so many of you and I would very much like to offer you all a gift; one of my limited edition hares - not Mademoiselle Forget-Me-Not featured below - but a special creature which captures the beauty of summer dreams and the glorious transition into early autumn.  I will be posting pictures of her here during the course of this week and offering you a chance to win her.

 

 

In the meantime I am concentrating on my three dear children and helping them, I hope, to prepare for their return to school tomorrow.

  

Héloïse is embarking on her final year of school...

 Tristan who may be living great changes thanks to his music...

 and finally, Angélique who is starting pre-school (maternelle) tomorrow: a big change for this three-year-old daughter of mine (and her mother too).  I'm wishing for a smooth transition for for all three of them.

 So, I will see you in a few days and I hope you all have a wonderful start to this first week of september.

 

A très bientôt,

 

Stephanie

 

ps Dear Claire, I am busy dreaming of Rapunzel and exquisite yarns.