Waving Goodbye To The Daffodils

Dear readers,

The dazzling flash of yellow forsythias, which offer a splash of fleeting colour after a hard winter, fade and drop in March hedges barely fulfilling our craving for a fix of colour.  Usually daffodils bring the next cloud of bright sunshine-yellow much to the delight of all spring revellers.  This April sadly I have not seen them. While walking in and around our village I could say truthfully my eyes have been drawn upwards to marvel at the countless orchard trees in blossom.  I should also write that my eyes and thoughts have been turned inwards searching for solutions.  I have reached the conclusion that I cannot be a full-time mother and continue to work on the growing list of 'to be made to commission' and 'to be written by a deadline' items after dark when my children are asleep. My body has been sending me cleverly crafted signals which have stopped me dead in my tracks: migraines!  Oh, the migraines I have had! It's hard to find solutions when your head hurts, your children cheerfully chatter, your puppy makes that face again and your dreams are waiting in the wings to be made real.  For an impatient, easily inflamed soul like me the answers need to snap into place quick sharp; no dawdling, please.  We all know however that solutions and answers will only come in their own sweet time.  And so I bide my time and learn the art of patience.

The best remedy of course it to walk and gather inspiration from Mother Nature. Fortunately I have found the vivid yellows and greens of daffodils in other splendid forms. The lichen-covered vines are bursting forth.

Primroses are abundant in the undergrowth flanking the vineyards.

And rows upon rows of tulips sway like balloons in the breeze in this hillside garden lovingly tended by the deceased owner's daughter.

I had the joy of re-reading Anna Parkinson's wonderful book Nature's Alchemist: John Parkinson, Herbalist To Charles I, recently.  John Parkinson was, in my opinion, patience personified.  His lifelong passion for plants was intimately bound up with the struggles of faith during the turbulent early seventeenth century.  Despite his regular presence at the court of Charles I and his central London apothecary he kept a low profile, being a Catholic, quietly growing an extraordinary range of flowers for delight and pleasure in his garden in Covent Garden.  He carefully recorded them all and had them engraved for his exquisite book Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, first published in 1629.

John Parkinson's daffodil (no. 8) and those of his friends, illustration from Paradisus, 1629, taken from Anna Parkinson's book.

The most startling feature of John Parkinson's book, to quote, Anna Parkinson, "was that it was the first English book about plants to be devoted above all to their beauty".  He believed that one could create a paradise in the tiny enclave gardens to be found in the crowded city that London had become.  John also called this book his 'feminine' work, thinking of the gentlewomen among his clients for gynaecological remedies and beautiful plants who shared his love of flowers.  Anna Parkinson writes: "He often wrote about women's speech, their desires and their needs.  John's garden released feminine aspects of himself in which he revelled, such as his mircroscopic reverence for colour and detail. [...] When he recommended bulbs to his readers, he gave advice on how to care for them because 'I do wish all Gentlemen and Gentlewomen... to bee as careful whom they trust with the planting and replanting of these fine flowers as they would be with so many Jewels'.  Bulbs were expensive, especially tulip bulbs from Amsterdam, but for John these flowers were more precious than their mercenary value.  Working with his plants with the care and devotion that gentlewomen applied to their needlework, John wanted to show that nature could offer an equally satisfying result.".

The link made by John Parkinson between flowers and women's needlework fascinates me.  We all know how gardens lend themselves to a variety of art forms.  I am particularly drawn to how gardens may be transformed into bodily apparel.  The picture above of Daffy-Down-Dilly, taken from Salley Mavor's exquisite Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes and the garden inspired painting below by the artist Jess of Purpletreebird are both examples of what make me tick. 

As a tribute to those much loved and unseen daffodils and to ease my solution-finding mind I have knitted two cardigans using Rowan Tweed DK in Avocado Green and Rowan Fine Flecked Tweed in Leyburn Yellow.

One small,

One big.

One was knitted up in the blink of an eye whilst eating date and wholemeal scones and drinking Chai with my children.

The other required patience!  The Knitting Gods were laughing at my knitting zeal for halfway through my first effort I came to the sorry conclusion that - and you too will laugh - my tension was wrong!  Quick as a flash with a heavy sigh I switched from 3mm to 3.5mm needles and started all over again.  I could paint a poetic image here.  True, I spent a lot of time knitting this cardigan under apple trees in blossom over Easter but many hours were also spent fumbling through a haze of aching headaches.

Nevermind.  'Tis done now!

The human-sized cardigan is Orianna Eklund's Daffodil, which is a beautifully easy pattern to follow. The little folk sized cardigan is Claire Garland's doll clothes pattern conceived for her knitted Easter hare. If you aren't familiar with her enchanting blog dotpebbles to take a peek.

I leave you with a photograph of my constant companion's, Angélique's, helping hand. 

Thank you so much for patiently waiting for my return and your kind, kind words about my rabbits in the previous post.  I have been surprised and excited to see how in real life they seem to be in demand.  More on that later.

A bientôt,

Stephanie

Spring Introductions

Dear readers,

I am full of joy to be here with you today on this glorious day.

Please indulge my childlike enthusiasm here. 

I have succumbed to spring folly.  Whilst March is usually the month of hares I have been busy dreaming about rabbits.

Let me introduce you to:

Mademoiselle Potager,

Mademoiselle Myosotis (Forget Me Not),

Mademoiselle Viola,

and finally, Mademoiselle Jardin anglais and Mademoiselle Primavera.

These two have become good friends.

I started making these five -and it has been such a pleasure - a few weeks ago for a very special couple - Sylvie and Xavier - who have brought happiness into our family's life.  When we first arrived in Touraine in July 2009 I spent a year wandering like a lost soul looking for the perfect resting place.  I found plenty of gardens of course.  What a multitude of Edens there are nestled in the idyllic countryside on both the north and south banks of the Loire river.  (Can you imagine how excited I am that the garden season is soon upon us?  I cannot wait to share some of its magic with you.)  The kind of place I am referring to here  however is a special café or tea room to which you are drawn.  A place with the best quality products, beautiful, comfortable surroundings and warm people.

We found it in June 2010.  A newly built little corner of heaven most aptly built opposite the eleventh-century village church (how did they get planning permission for that, you might ask yourselves) just down the hill from our house.

This is Xavier hanging up the freshly concoted menu for lunch and his wife Sylvie is preparing blinis.

A perfect mix of restaurant, café and grocery shop which is also a space for exhibitions.

Most fortuitous indeed.

Wouldn't you love to come here for a drink and a chat?  I wish you could!  You would immediately understand my fondness for this lovingly crafted place which has become a success over the past two years.

Sylvie (pictured above) asked me if I could create a few rabbits for their shop to bring a bit of spring fever into the place.  A sort of pre-Easter exhibition with a garden theme.  I was delighted and so set to work often late in the evenings after the children were in bed and during quiet moments carved out of our busy lives thanks to Mickaël, my dear, patient husband.  These rabbits of mine are a little strange looking but their long, slender bodies lend themselves well to carefully stitched clothes and a little ornamentation.

There is also a beautiful walled garden arround this sunlit terrace with a large, gnarled apple tree which casts shade on this otherwise hot place in summer.  Sylvie and Xavier are passionate about gardening as well as food and art.  They really are the most wonderful of people.  I thank them both for giving me the chance to make some spring creatures for La Part Belle - which translates roughly into English as "The Best Portion" or "The Choice Slice" - and look forward to spending many, many happy moments in their company.

Thank you all so very, very much for your sweetly worded comments on my last post.  I still feel a need a little more time but I shall be back soonish.  In the meantime I will continue to visit your little corners of pleasure and I am so grateful you take the time to visit me here.

A bientôt,

Stephanie

Modest Flower And Giveaway Winners

We have become spectators to "the endless ballet of the weather", as the poet George Mackay Brown put it.  There have been severe frosts, boisterous winds, generous spatters of rain, racing clouds and - the show stealer - warm sunshine and a big, blue sky.  We are on the cusp of spring.

Every year in those early days of timid budding and unfurling when the spring garden wakes slowly like a sleeping village I feel myself becoming jittery and a little anxious.  I am entoxicated by the POTENTIAL of spring.  As new plants raise their colours every day an uncontrollable urge to create overcomes me.  I don't question it.  I lived in Greece for two years and experienced almost helplessly the potent impact of the sap rising in warmer climes.  There is little one can do to resist! 

If I allow myself to yield to the desire to pay tribute to the glorious pagent our gardens stage for us in my articles on gardening aesthetics and with my very modest crafting skills I am mindful of the need to maintain a (fragile) sense of equilibrium. On the best of days my husband and children watch me run around like a headless chicken between sewing baskets, teetering piles of yarn, and my treasured reference books during every moment set apart from the daily management of our family life.  I talk to them of my ever growing catalogue of projects in my head and they nod and smile and offer wise advice. Mostly they understand me and for that I am hugely grateful.

 But as spring jumps at me I must be mindful of remaining focused or I run the risk of spreading myself too thin.  My focus must be on important projects alone and most importantly my family for their desires and plans are worthy of great respect too and an ear capable of truly listening. There is also Gaspard our puppy who is growing beautifully and at three months needs a constant eye and to be trained not to jump onto people.  Any advice on that?

It is a mixed blessing that we rent our present house.  While its garden is perfectly lovely with its cherry trees and silver birches and ideal for children to run around in we cannot invest energy in putting our horticultural dreams into fruition here.  All we need to do is to trim hedges, cut back the profuse lavender bushes and eat cherries in May.  We must wait patiently for our own garden.  Frustrating?  Yes. However I am grateful in a sense for this year I simply wouldn't have the time to do it all.  In the meantime I garden with words.

One Tiny Tea Leaves simply is not enough and so I made this second one, named Viola, for Angelique.  It is a little longer in length than her first so that she may wear it for longer in time.  

Also this Madelinetosh DK in Sugar Plum (has anyone every actually eaten a sugar plum?) seems softer and more delectable than all other skeins I have purchased previously so knitting a bigger Tea Leaves made the pleasure last!

For those who are interested the details are on Ravelry.

Angélique's new cardigan goes beautifully with her new rainboots purchased on the same day as the Viola above in our local gardening centre.  Most satisfying.

At this time of year you will also see me bent double over the damp earth under our garden trees looking for Viola odorata. It's like finding coins in the grass only better.  The violets captured here are Violettes de Toulouse purchased on a whim at the wonderful flower market in Tours which stretches along one of the main avenues two days a week.  Heaven.

I have already promised Angélique we will walk alongside the vines and orchards in search of tiny wild violets.*  Why these flowers with their heart-shaped leaves are referred to as modest or humble escapes me.  They are quite simply beautiful and their elusive scent on a fresh spring morning could charm away the most malevolent of spirits.

Some spring days I would like to replace our grass with a flowery mead, the carpet of tiny flowers you find in Medieval and fifteenth-century paintings.  Cultivated meadows were filled with small blooms: viola, violets, periwinkle, lily of the valley, columbine, birdsfoot trefoil and cowslip were some of the flowers to be planted.

I have sprinkled a few of our favourite violet sweets onto one of my cherished books; Les Fleurs animées by J.J. Grandville.  Are you familiar with this book?  This last work of the author - published the year of his death 1847 - contains fifty-two engravings of high society fashion on the eve of the Second Empire.  Flora's court is dressed in floral haute couture and displays the sentimental romanticism of the epoque.  The flowers portrayed in this book could be set against the magical stage design of the romantic ballet genre.  Small garden creatures - crickets, butterflies, and caterpillers - play second role to the enchanting flower personae.  This book is a delight and if you wish to purchase a copy click here 
although I own this version.

But where are my manners? I almost forgot to give you the names of my two giveaway winners.

Vanessa from Coco Rose Diaries and... oh dear, can you not read the second name there?

Dear Elizabeth and  Vanessa congratulations!  I will be sending you the Perrault books and embroidery respectively.  Please send me your postal addresses via e-mail when you have a spare moment.

I will be taking a step away from my space here for a while.  It's all about focus, remember? ;-)  I will not be able to resist the temptation of visiting your blogs though from time to time and I will return in the first official days of spring to show you what I have been concentrating and working on recently.  My modest tribute to glorious spring.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to visit this humble blog of mine.

A bientôt,

Stephanie 

*  We have just returned from a long walk and discovered countless clumps of wild violets growing along the main path leading to the vineyards.  We may have picked a small bunch ;-)

What Do Charles Perrault, Miss Clara And Embroidery Have In Common? A Giveaway!

Dear readers,

On February 15th we celebrated Tristan's birthday for which I baked the grand sum of 45 cakes (some large some small) all inspired by the colours of this work from our artist in residence.  

I simply love the fact my one and only son was born the night after Valentine's Day and because at the grand age of eight he is already a romantic I am gifting him this treasure entitled The Birds' Wedding Day created by Celia Hart of Purple Podded Peas.  (He also got a shiny, new bicycle.) I have also decided to take heed of Monty Don who claims February 15th - his wife Sarah's birthday - to be the first day of Spring whatever the weather.  (For his beautifully penned words on this date please refer to The Ivington Diaries.)

I have drawn inspiration from this book (I was certain I would).

The yarn is Koigu KPPPM

and have drawn lessons from my children on the fabulous art of delaying tactics while I should have been embracing the challenge of casting on My Rosebud Cinnamon Girl instead.

The yarn is Madelinetosh DK in Sugar Plum

I have gently told myself that part of my delaying devices were pardonable as they were working towards my Very Exciting Project which will be unveiled on the first day of Spring and which you will all be awaiting with bated breath, right? 

All these Spring colours have made me hungry for more and so I turn to eighteenth-century Versailles fashion.  I have succumbed finally to acquiring this book which relates the life and work of Rose Bertin, Marie Antoinette's dressmaker. I wonder if somone knows of English publications on this fascinating lady?

I have also been concocting a giveaway for you.

There are so many treasures I would like to gift you but I think it is time to celebrate my French origins. Merci Maman! 

As a child I was raised on the seventeenth-century writer Charles Perrault's fairy tales and decades later had the immense joy of weaving some of his texts into my thesis writing.  (What a privilege to be able to touch and scour through his original manuscripts!)  Some of you may remember my post last year on the artist Miss Clara's version of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen.  Many of you expressed your enthusiasm for her work and for this reason I have decided to offer you Perrault's disconcerting story Peau d'âne - Donkey Skin - illustrated by Miss Clara herself. (Click on the link and you will find a fascinating short clip of the artist in her atelier.  It's in French!)

Her illustrations are exquisite.

Of course not all of you may feel the urge to read this tale in French so I am also offering this recent translation of Charles Perrault's Fairy Tales which I find rather good.

My third gift moves into the realm of embroidery but also remains French in essence.  Are you familiar with the shop Les Brodeuses parisiennes?  It specialises in embroidery and cross stitch designs capturing the beauty of gardens, Paris and the aesthetic pleasures of French patisserie.  I have chosen for you a vintage style linen tea towel with a joyful parade of cakes and 1950's Parisian ladies to cross stitch (please note that the DMC embroidery thread references are provided but not the threads themselves).

So if you would like to win these gifts simply leave a comment choosing either the two Perrault books or the embroidery.  What a delicious dilemma!  Do not feel obliged to become a follower of Millefeuilles unless you want to.  Should you kindly add a beautiful and splendid link to this giveaway on your blog you will get two chances to win.  Just leave me another comment to let me know you have done so.  The Giveaway will close on March 3rd.

Bonne chance à tous!

Stephanie

ps Great news!  Mademoiselle Toadstool arrived in one piece at her destination!