Sugar Plum

 

 Dear friends,

 

The hours of daylight are at their shortest as we approach the winter solstice and again, as with each passing year, I find that "carpe diem" and "wonder" become two faces of the same thought.   The children and I feed off each others' desire for enchantment and, in our own rough and ready way, we cultivate delight with true hearts and giddy minds.  I observe them from the corner of my eye endlessly drawing, colouring, cutting and see that their need to embellish the everyday humdrum mirrors my own. It's a time for giving and I have lost count of how many handmade cards Angélique has gifted her fellow classmates.  On complimenting Angélique's maternelle teacher on her impressive array of sparkly pullovers this week, she retorted that the short and often grey December days begged light in any shape or form, even in a handful of glitter.  She is right, of course, but in my mind the bleak weather makes little difference and, when the mornings are frosty and the late-rising sun bright, I watch the pinks, mauves and grey of the winter sky unfold behind the intricate shadow puppet trees and imagine frost-flowers, silently unfolding before me on the windowpanes.

 

I also love the day dawning in heavy freezing fog when the garden seems to float and everything turns to silver.  I'm almost disappointed when the swirling mists clear and daylight invades once more but I leave the Christmas tree's twinkling lights on and recall the colourful candles poised heavily on my childhood tree waiting to come alive with the strike of a match. The children and I are praying for snow.  We crave the peace and silence it grants.  I'm knitting a stole with a yarn named Snowbound in the hope that the températures will drop and our world will be white once more.  The yarn refects the exact grey of a heavy winter sky.

 

I have knit another hat; a second Rosewater by Tin Can Knits, this time with Madelinetosh's Sugar Plum colourway.  If many of us remain unsure of the original definition for 'sugar plum' it has with time crystallised into the definition of the excitement and childlike wonder of Christmas.  In the 1600s, as 'sugar plum' passed into general usage, it came to have its own assoiated meanings quite apart from fruit.  If your mouth was full of sugar plums, it meant that you spoke sweet, and possibly deceitful, words.  If you stuffed another's mouth with sugar plums, that meant a sop or bribe which served to shut someone up.  The Oxford English Dictionary also spells out that throughout the centuries 'plum' came to mean something desirable.  Surely, that is what this precious period of Advent spells out too?  Children's desire mingled with the hope of adults accompanied by a resounding refrain of 'Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all Men'.

All the pictures of Paris above are taken from our old and very beautiful neighbourhood; la Galérie Vivienne in central Paris.  The picture below, fellow knitters and teashop enthusiasts, is the one and only L'Oisive Thé, situated in the 13th arrondissement in Paris, which I finally set foot in for the first time fortnight ago.  Vibrant, cheery, stuffed with fabulous yarn, books and teas, suffice to say I have been dreaming of this street corner of inspiration ever since.  Aimée, the American/French owner holds the most amazing workshops on a regular basis.  I have watched, over on Instagram, with fascination the visits of designers Gudrun Johnston and Stephen West unfold and plan to be part of the fun in 2015.  Go take a look; it will bring a smile to your faces.

 

I have also included two hares - Miss Hyacinth and Edmund Elf - as there have been a lot of hares being created behind the scenes in preparation for Christmas.  My notes for my Sugar Plum hat may be found here.  Mickaël kept laughing at me whilst he took the pictures above as it appeared I was praying to the baubles.  I see his point!

I wonder what you are hoping for during this last week before Christmas?

 

A bientôt,

 

Stephanie

 

 

 

 

Parisian Garden Party (And A Spot Of Knitting)

Dear readers,

Today I have the honour of joining Anita's Parisian Party at Castles, Crowns and Cottages although I am a little fashionably late in arriving as it officially started yesterday!

I love Paris.  It must be in my blood.  My mother was born in Paris and told me tales of her grand-parents' appartment overlooking the gardens of Versailles.  I have inherited an uncanny fondness for the smell of the Parisian metro from my aunt who lives with my uncle opposite the Sorbonne and who still continues to catch a whiff of the fetid metro air with relish at the grand age of eighty three.  The years spent in Paris were the happiest of my life and I believe that my decision to write a thesis on seventeenth-century Parisian gardens and theatre aesthetics was based on a need to return to the capital regularly.

Every day on my way to work I would walk through the lime tree lined avenues of the Palais Royal gardens.  The sweet fragrance of those flower-laden trees was intoxicating in spring.  Aren't those linear alleys with their regularly planted trees quintessentially French?

I recall comparing such views to the stage scenery I had seen time and time again at the opera. 

Seventeenth-century drawing, possibly by Jean Berain, for the Prologue to Aricie

In eighteenth-century theatre design gardens were much favoured and often associated with architecture.  The picture below, taken from the Palais Royal galéries, could very well be the backdrop to an opera or ballet.

Look at the regularly positioned columns in the scenery design below:

Le Palais d'Amour in Lully's Pysché performed in 1678

French painters, such as Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Antoine Watteau, depicted garden scenes in which their characters danced, walked, and fell in love.  The latter's Fêtes galantes is a beautiful example. One century later the poet Paul Verlaine wrote a series of poems named Fêtes galantes.  He drew his inspiration from the painter's work, of course, but also the Parisian royal gardens such as Versailles, Marly, and Saint-Cloud.  In several of these poems Verlaine makes use of the tree-lined garden avenues as a place for his characters to play their roles.  The poem below, translated into English, is a perfect example of the theatrical aspect of Parisian public gardens:

L'Allée

As in the age of shepherd king and queen,

Painted and frail amid her nodding bows,

Under the sombre branches and between

The green and mossy garden-ways she goes,

With little mincing airs one keeps to pet

A darling and provoking perroquet.

Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds

With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings,

So vaguely hints of vague erotic things

That her eye smiles, musing among it folds.

- Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth,

Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly,

In her divine unconscious pride of youth,

The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye.

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896)

translated by Arthur Symons

This picture is taken from Le Poème Harmonique's website.  Take a peek as their Baroque operas and plays are truly exquisite; completely candlelit!

I have drawn inspiration from garden avenues, rows upon rows of leafy trees, and the colours of Baroque opera.  Who could not?

The rows and alleys here are our neighbouring vineyards in Vouvray as we could not make it to Paris; sorry Anita!  The colours are reminiscent of my favourite opera, Cadmus et Hermione, Jean-Baptise Lully's first opera to be performed in Paris in 1673 and much favoured by Louis XIV.  The DVD of this work is A WORK OF ART!

The pattern I have knitted is Scalene.  It's asymmetrical composition is a perfect definition of the word baroque which derives from the Portuguese word denoting an irregular pearl.

The yarn is Madelinetosh DK in Fragrance and Olivia.

The model is Héloïse, of course, who will be performing on stage tonight a ballet named Promenade à Paris.

Details are on Ravelry.

Thank you so much Anita for inviting me to your Parisian Party. 

A bientôt,

Stephanie