the patchwork dress

the lord giveth and taketh away

A couple of weekends ago our washing machine blew up. It wasn't a very convenient time, as not only did I not have time to go searching for another one, it was another expense I really could do without.

this was the machine we inherited when we moved in. I never liked it really. I knew it was playing a game of time with us and that sooner or later it would blow up, belch steam, cook N's trousers and melt the powder drawer - just to be totally sure it was gubbed.

Not perhaps the most interesting thing to post about, but, the next day I noticed a sign at work advertising a washer/dryer for £100 - which was 6 months new...

We picked it up this morning from a house which is about 5 minutes away as the crow flies, and discovered it belongs to a screenwriter!

Another thing I may not have mentioned here is that we discovered 'our' cottage once belonged to Tom Weir - Scottish naturalist, writer and tv presenter. We are hoping some of his good karma will rub off on us!

angels over Glasgow

I love this Glasgow building at an intersection, (or fork), in the road. As you drive toward it the angel is a dramatic presence and always makes me feel there are protective forces overlooking the city. Reminds me of
this film by Wim Wenders. Three extraordinary things have happened whenever I have watched this movie. The first time was a day or so after I'd had an extraordinary dream where an angel spoke to me - freaked me out a bit. The next time I invited N, soon after we met to come and watch it at the flat I shared in London. The third time was just a few miles from here at a friends house who was screening the movie. Before it even started some friends of hers came round unexpectedly. During the course of the conversation they began to talk about the aunt of their son's girlfriend who they'd visited in London, as the conversation went on I realised they were talking about one of my best friends Barbara.

I've an idea for a short film about 'angels over Glasgow' and this image would be key!

new year

happy new year to you - may this be a rich and inspiring year for you, full of abundance and creativity!

I've often found New Year in Scotland a bit of a strange time. There's the Hogmanay pressure to have a hootin, tootin, tartan time - and to be honest it doesn't really do a lot for me, so these days I prefer a peaceful meal, a movie, see the bells in and get up fresh with good intentions on the 1st.

Several years ago, while living in England, I felt the urge to come up to Scotland as celebrating New Year in London just wasn't the same. We rented a small cabin in Argyll near Lochgilphead, and prepared for a quiet and remote New Year celebration. On Hogmanay I suggested to N that we should go to Dunadd and a nearby stone circle at Kilmartin. Whilst at the stones I had an unsettled feeling, as if trying to remember what the stones were for - just a memory away in my mind. We walked over to another set of stones, and at that point I heard a car draw up and someone call my name. The lady that got out of the car was Liz, a fellow member of my meditation group in London. By coincidance she had taken a last minute offer of a New Year in Scotland from her friend. We were both booked into cottages on opposite sides of the same village, a remote forestry commission settlement 10 miles down a no through road. The rest of our meditation group, we knew, had gone on a pilgrimage to India. To me this felt as if this were a message to say - where you are is good enough! We agreed to meet up again on New Year's Day, and had a walk with thermos coffee and a slice of fruitcake.

This year has reminded me of that cabin... we have been relistening to Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain album which totally has that vibe... and last night inspired this rather 1970's scenario

lots of candles, vegetable and cashew nut curry, and a glass of beer... yum

I have also been taken with an urge to bake recently, and so far have made mince pies, carrot loaf and chocolate/courgette(!yes!) muffins.

Having made one batch of mince pies at Christmas, I was delighted with their Dickensian appearance, and made another batch for Hogmanay. I was finding it really hard to source g-free mince pies locally, so the gift of a jar of mincemeat from my friend Susan, inspired me to make my own gluten free pastry.

As all previous attempts at gfree pastry have been pretty disastrous, I returned to the trusty, and previously mentioned Evelyn Rose's Jewish cookbook, and used her almond pastry recipe which works and is delicious. If I remember correctly, the recipe goes something like this:

* * *

Almond pastry for mince pies - makes about 9 large Dickensian pies

** I am doing this from memory, as just loaned the book out!!**

9oz of gluten/wheat free flour
3oz (caster) I used demerara sugar, as all I had in house
6oz margarine/butter
1oz of ground almonds
1 egg yolk
2 tablesp.'s milk or cream/ricemilk etc

Grease a muffin tin with oil.

Rub the flour,sugar, ground almonds and marg together until resembles breadcrumbs (it may go into a big lump, but don't panic!).

Add the egg yolk and milk and mix to a soft pastry

Divide the mixture roughly into 2 - keeping half for the tops.

Line the muffin casings with the dough, lightly using your fingers to mould the case.

Put the remaining pastry for the tops in a bag and pop into the freezer to chill for 30-60 minutes. The tray can also go in the fridge if you like.

When ready, add the mincemeat to the cases.

Evelyn Rose recommends grating the topping after chilling it, but I managed to roll it out lightly - just flour the board and rolling pin - and use a shaped cutter to cut and lift the pastry onto the pies.

Put in a preheated oven 190C for approx 25 mins.

The pastry is sticky to handle when raw, but cooked is light and crumbly in texture - thick and holds together well. Let the pies cool until firm in the tray before taking them out. When eating just reheat at around 200C for 5-10mins.

scraps

Last week mum and I visited Pollok House...

...which is worth a post in itself. But if you were ever a fan of Upstairs Downstairs (which I don't think I actually ever watched, but is ingrained in my consciousness) or the Duchess of Duke Street which I loved! - you will also love it here, because you can go down into the basement and sit in the old kitchen with it's tiles and old range, have a cappuccino and a piece of cake. "But only for 5 minutes mind, before you get back to work, clumsy child!" The remaining basement rooms and stores are given over to a Pantry style shop with biscuits, chutneys all that sort of thing, and a gift shop. "Not for the loiks of you!"(must've comeover all Duchess of Duke Street)

Sometimes I like what goes on behind the scenes more than the scene itself - and Pollok House doesn't disappoint with a cross-lateral corridor for servants, so they could access all the rooms without "..'anging about" the family areas. Coming out of the servant corridor where it crosses the main axis, you'd have to look both ways like crossing the street, incase of passing Gentry.

We were a bit early for the Christmas decorations, but they were decking the halls and fireplaces with holly the day we were there. If you live nearby and have never been, it is worth going at Christmas, as very festive but away from the commercialism of it all. They have a Mrs Claus for the children - which I like the idea of. The chap at reception was very keen to tell us that a house like this required 30 or so staff to keep it going. He then very kindly let us in for free! "...'ow will we ever thank 'ee, sir?"

My inquisitive nose is always out for the unusual, and I was immediately impressed by a stack of huge books, leather bound and gold embossed with the words Lady Maxwell's Scrapbook on the spine. I was a bit disappointed not to be able to see inside them, but later on found this case with one open...

... not a great photo (without flash), but to add to it all, laid out on a logcabin quilt!

Last week I also received my scrap swap package from Alisa in Canada.

Full of lovely scraps - just great... and photographing it this morning I thought of it as a book of scraps too...

...turning the pages to reveal another layer of colour and pattern...

...here is the logcabin card Alisa sent with the package. Reminds me of Lady Maxwell's quilt. Unfortunately Alisa has decided to stop blogging, but perhaps she will reconsider at some point, to share her quilts with the world.

Then, while looking for something else yesterday, I came across some scrapbooks I kept around the time I was at art college during the 1980's. I couldn't quite understand at the time why I had the compulsion to do this, but certain images would call to me, so I collected and composed them in themes and by colour... just like I do now with the recycled cards. Again it must be an ancestral thing, my Grandma was a colourist for a carpet manufacturer and one of her other grandchildren (my cousin) is now a stylist and set dresser.

Just goes to show brown paper and ribbon never go out of fashion - on the left is a Christmas spread from Good Housekeeping magazine in 1988!... and on the right, I must have had a latent love for quilting, as not sure I was even aware there were quilts in this picture until today!

No wonder there was often a cry of "don't cut that up until I've finished reading it" in our house! - although I did always ask! Wonder if Lady Maxwell ever heard the same thing.

More recently I began collecting images again - this time I put them into plastic sleeves, although now I'm not sure whether to continue, or go back to glue and paper again. As you can see I'm a bit behind with documenting... another of my 'jobs-to-do'.

But look... what's this?

...remind you of anything? I've always LOVED this image, and only today when I was downloading the photos I noticed it says "Handmade...all part of the charm..."
...maybe not the fishnet socks though...

Taos

Lately I've been feeling the need to do a post about Taos and the trip I did there in 2004. This was the ultimate in artist's dates. After a particularly long freelance job I felt the need to recharge - and Taos was calling! I'd heard of Taos from several sources, it was a name that just kept cropping up - first of all through Julia Cameron 'inventor' of the artist date and the artist's way... and later again with Natalie Goldberg.

We have relatives in New Mexico and the invitation to go there had rang in my ears since childhood. It was the trip of a lifetime and I can't possibly do all of it justice in one post, but I'd like to focus on the place, the draw it has, and the one incident that made it particularly significant to me...

I've long been a fan of 'Northern Exposure' and you can see from this shot I was impressed by the mainstreet! It doesn't look much here, but Taos is situated north of Santa Fé - which is one of the biggest centres for art in the US. Taos has a reputation as a place for writers and artists, much further out into the sagebrushed desert than Santa Fé, yet anchored beneath Taos Mountain which keeps an eye on the place.

Not only was I on a pilgrimage to my 'artist self', needing to retreat into the artist colony vibe and soak up some of the galleries (at that time over 30 for a small town - quite a high percentage), but also drawn by the mystical quality. Taos Pueblo lies at the foot of the mountain, and I was told by a local that the Pueblo tribe consider the mountain to be sacred. "God runs things in Taos" I'd heard, and interestingly the name contains the word 'Tao' which means the spiritual way or path.

The feather in the cap was also discovering that a large number of the off-grid ecological Earthship houses (designed & developed by Michael Reynolds) - which I had read about and been so inspired by ... were also here in Taos! Somehow I'd forgotten... and when I hired a car and drove out to the plain by the Rio Grande it was very emotional to see the Earthship community with Taos Mountain in the background - little pioneers in the desert.

You can just see the edge of one of the buildings in construction to the right of this one - the walls are built up from old car tyres and compounded earth which are coated with the hacienda type finish. The solar windows have a double skin with a planted area/garden inbetween which is also part of the greywater recycling process. (we now have one in Scotland, prototyped in Fife).

Eventually I heard the Taos story from a local woman who said everyone had their own Taos story - how they came there and what 'happened' to make them stay. (You can read about the founders of the artist's colony here - the wheel came off their wagon). People are drawn to Taos, and it can take you in or spit you out. She had come from Australia, ran out of money and had stayed and got a job there... I was still a bit unsure if I was being drawn in or about to be spat out, although I was in awe of the place.

On the last day I was waiting for my cousins to drive up from Albuquerque and spent my last solo lunch in one of the cafés. As I walked out a woman stopped me and asked me the way to Michael's Kitchen. I knew that she was quite far off track and needed to get back to the main street. When she heard my accent she asked if I was Scottish... She told me she was also Scots and had lived in Colorado for 20 years. I asked where she was from, and as she answered me with my own hometown we both just looked at each other and blurted out the same street name at the same time. She was born in the street where I live in Scotland! Her friend gasped and said that if we had the same name, she was going to freak out. Well, the woman's name was Kathleen, and my name means "little Katherine" - so in a way it was! I offered to walk them back to the main street. As we walked she asked why I was in Taos, and I was trying to explain that I'd been kind of drawn there and that I was interested in art and writing... "So am I, I'm an English teacher," she said. I explained about Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg -and she replied that Natalie Goldberg was also one of her favourite creative writing teachers and that she taught Goldberg to her own students.

By this time she gave me her email address, and we said cheerio at the main crossroads in Taos town centre. But as she walked away I turned and felt a pang of sadness. I once heard a story that we have 10 fingers to remind us that we will meet 10 significant people in our lives... I'm not sure whether this is true, but if it is, this was one of those moments.

I was about to buy some gifts to take home at a local shop - where I knew and had previously chatted with the owner. When I went in, I told her the story, and that I'd wished I'd chatted to Kathleen longer - maybe I should catch her up in Michael's Kitchen. The shop owner agreed, it did seem an amazing coincidence.

I went round to the café and Kathleen and her friend were still there - so I joined them for a drink. We chatted and it seems they were just passing through Taos on the way back to Colorado - and had just been to the Santurio De Chimayo

the miracle church where I planned to go with my relatives the next day. The church has a hole in the earth where you can take some of the soil, and is reputed that no matter how much you take, the earth never runs out. I suppose it is the Lourdes of New Mexico - as there are crutches, crosses etc left by pilgrims tied to the fences and in the sanctuary. The story of the Earth also ties in with the stories of many of the Pueblo potters who believed the earth renews herself in creating the clay they use for their pots.

I have a little of that earth in a small keepsake box, and ever since then I have Taos in my heart.