Drifting Towards Spring

Dear readers,

(Should you be in need of a splash of colour there are two cheery hares waiting for you at the end of this post!)

Misty, overcast, gloomy, and grey.  Oh, and did I mention the rain we've been having?  Walking along the slippery banks of the Loire this afternoon we observed a swiftly flowing river with high water levels.  It's hard to believe in such moments that the Loire Valley is considered to be the Garden of France.  And yet, there have been signs of Spring this week!  On Wednesday, the day in France when primary schools are closed, on returning home from Tristan's morning at music school I felt the urge to fling the windows and doors open and ... clean!  There was some undefinable magic at work which filled the children and I with gladness and caused quite a stir with the birds in and around our garden.  The air resounded with the sound of woodpeckers tap, tap, tapping on bark.  It was chilly still - the doors and windows were firmly shut again two hours later - but there was a special kind of sunlight this Wednesday noon which suggested hope and looked down kindly at the crocus heads pushing through the soil ready to join the crowds of nodding snowdrops.

 

I have been delving into some treasured books: The Virago Book Of Women Gardeners and Notes From The Garden: A Collection Of The Best Garden Writing From The Guardian famous in my household for its article about a gnome abducted from a women's garden and returned to her doorstep seven months later along with a photo album picturing him in the twelves countries he visited with his abductor!   (You can find both books here and here.) A few pages prior to the Garden Gnome with "itchy feet" there is a different but just as thought-provoking article entitled: "The Female Garden" dating back to May 26 1982. The journalist, Felicity Byran, explained that the three modern gardens she loved most - that of Rosemary Verey near Cirencester, of Eve Molesworth at Iver, and Joyce Robinson at Arundel -  were "all creations of women who are gifted and knowledgeable amateurs.  It is not just that they enjoy them visually.  It is the surprise element, the eccentricity and daring, you might say - odd plants and colours juxtaposed and intertwined regardless of rules - that make them thrilling.  They are also happy gardens with nothing rigid about them."

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Having pored over French plans and gardening treatises dating back to the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries, such as André Le Nôtre's Versailles Gardens shown above, I have had more than my fair share of "rigid" garden design.  I was intrigued, therefore, further into the same article to read Penelope Hobhouse's thoughts on female gardening: " 'I'm sure,' says Penelope Hobhouse, 'that men feel much more strongly about straight lines.  With women it's much more like embroidery - interweaving colours and textures.' "

Of course many prominent women gardeners have also been painters or much involved with applied arts.  Gertrude Jekyll is the classic example.  Marvellous examples of her handiwork, particularly needlework, still exist, and it was only when she was fifty and suffering from failing eyesight that she turned exclusively to the art of gardening in her home at Munstead Wood in Surrey.  Thus began a stream of wonderful books and her famous partnership with architect Edwin Lutyens which created so many enchanted gardens.  Hobhouse, an authority on Gertrude Jekyll, feels that she needed Lutyens as much as he needed her.  Felicity Bryan goes on to write in her article: 'for only an architect (and only a man?) could make that bold framework - the incredible stone-work, the pergolas, vistas, inverted steps etc - and only she could soften it with the brilliant use of billowing plants and shrubs'.

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But is it that simple?  After all, André Le Nôtre and his band of contemporary garden designers were capable of thinking beyond the straight line and embracing the curve as the parterre in the gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte above testifies!  So what do you think?  Are men more at ease with rigid design and women instinctive design softeners?

 

I myself am fascinated by both straight lines and curves.

This is a detail of my recently completed Driftwood by the talented designer Veera Välimäki.  This pattern has a clever twist which incorporates extra lines a third of the way through the design causing the wrap to widen gently.  Simple lacework creating curves and straight lines which have soothed me in the evenings and brought me back regularly to the rows of vines being pruned ready for spring.

Driftwood knitted with Madelinetosh Pashmina in Sugar Plum which makes this wrap drape spectacularly! 

 

My Ravelry notes are to be found here.

 

Finally I am sharing a couple of my latest hares inspired by spring and headed for warm Australia:

 

Mademoiselle Valentine

and

 

Mademoiselle Spring Dreams

Isn't that piece of 1900's tulle with hand embroidered raised dots beautiful?

 

I have the joy of working on a few customer orders (always a pleasure) but I promise to post a few pictures of my next hare to pop into my shop.  Spring is approaching fast and I feel particularly inspired to create so should you have a burning desire for an Easter hare, I would be happy to oblige.

 

That's enough shop talk I think.  I leave you with a picture of Tristan who has just celebrated his ninth birthday!

Happy birthday Tristan!  Poetic, musical, considerate, truly sweet-natured, and a prankster!  We could not wish for a more inspiring son.

 

A bientôt,

 

Stephanie