Unbought Delicacies

Monday, 27 February 2012

Ribbett!

Knitted for the grandson of a friend - a happy wee frog :)

http://www.spudandchloe.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/ribbit-11.pdf

Saturday, 25 February 2012

I went down to Portland again today; weather was good, if slightly nippy, but OK in the car. I love it down there, nice and quiet at this time of year. Sadly, not many bikers to ogle ;) lol.
Lighthouses old and new; the older white one is now a hotel/B&B I think.

The red and white on is the iconic Portland Bill lighthouse. Lobster thermidor and two pints of Ringwood bitter for lunch, lots of crochet done int he car throughout :)

Friday, 24 February 2012

Knitting

Another new project..........

lol. Couldn't resist this :) I've used Forest Fibres a few times via e-bay, a brilliant business, can recommend them thoroughly.

I bought this:

It's a kit for socks - 100g of top quality Trekking sock yarn (75% wool, 25% nylon), your choice of 3 dye shades and instructions for dyeing; good value at £9.95 I thought. I chose turquoise, slate and bluebell for mine - sort of blues/grey ix, hoping it might be quite subtle, but will be fun whatever it turns out like. I hope to at least get it dyed voer teh weekend, so watch this space!
http://www.forestfibres.co.uk/

Thursday, 23 February 2012

10 influential books

These are mine :D (no particular order) ; there are a lot more, I may post some up later, but these are the important ones for me :)

What are yours?

Johanna Paungger - The Art of Timing

John Seymour - Self Sufficiency

John Lane - Timeless Simplicity

William Coperthwaite - A Handmade Life

Bob Flowerdew - Companion Planting

Satish Kumar - You are, therefore I am

Masanobu Fukuoka - The One Straw REvolution

Tom Hodgkinson - How to be Free

Thoreau - Walden

Emerson - Self Reliance

''I arrange all my own flowers you know!''

I always think of that line form Margo in The Good Life when I'm doing my flowers for the house, never fails to make me smile :)

I have found such joy

I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

~ Grace Noll Crowell

Ideas for handmade gifts

Small knitteds - gloves, scarves, hot water bottle covers, hats, tea cosies, phone covers, little toys,,cushion covers, bags. Some of these can be felted/fulled for extra interest.
Edibles - chutneys and jams, pickles, nice teas in a vintage/retro tin, sweeties, toffees, mustard, home made wine and liqueurs, home dried fruits, ketchups.
For the home - trimmed tea towels, handknitted dishcloths, quilted wallhangings, small samplers, restored picture frames, pot pourri, lavender bags, covered coathangers, little scented bags for hanging on handles, framed photos of family,etc you've taken yourself, pincushion,needle book, scissor keeper, book of promises (eg babysitting, 1 hour's housework, the ironing, etc)
Bathtime - homemade soap, bath oils, bath salts, knitted washcloths, herbal bags for the bath, hand sewn toilet bags, trimmed hand towels, homemade lotions and potions packed in pretty jars and bottles.
For the garden - home saved seed in handmade decorated packets; homemade handcream, exfoliating soap, wheat bag for those digger's aches and pains!

Handmade books, personalised printed notepaper and envelopes.
Hamper of bits and bobs from the above lists, packed in a pretty lined basket.

I'll add some more as and when I think of them; These can be used all year round and easily tailored to the recipient - everyone loves a homemade gift. :)

Inspiring thoughts.............

I saw a man, an old Cilician, who occupied an acre or two of land that no one wanted.
A patch not worth the ploughing, unrewarding for flocks, unfit for vineyards;
he, however, by planting here and there among the scrub cabbages or white lilies and verbena and flimsy poppies, fancied himself a king in wealth, and coming home late in the evening, loaded his board with unbought delicacies.
Virgil

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independently as far as possible from a system of division of labour in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smell as it burned in the hearth I had made. I wanted to grow my own food, or forage after it. In short I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realised from partial experience the inexpressible joy of doing so.

Harlan Hubbard, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life

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