Hungarian rack

74. Hungarian rack.

When we moved to our present house we did the usual thing of re-arranging several walls and doorways. When the chaos was over we bought the house a present of this Hungarian shelf and rack. It hangs in a space created by the removal of a door.

It has a wonderful patina of age, with the date 1882 barely discernible in the faded paintwork. The decorative flowers and patterns will once have been bright and colourful.

The importer who was selling to us asked if we wanted him to do some restoration work on the piece.

"NO" was our immediate and horrified response.

This practical object  has a celebratory feel and was probably made as a wedding gift. Now it celebrates a happy retirement. It is barely visible beneath a collection of coats and hats, dog leads and umbrellas.

Darning mushroom

73. Darning mushroom.

I inherited this sycamore darning mushroom from my mother-in-law. She was a demon knitter and the only female in a household of males. She knitted socks and jumpers, scarves, hats and gloves. Her husband and sons must have given her handiwork quite a bashing because the surface of the mushroom is pitted from years of use. It is a satisfyingly practical object, the wood is light and comfortable in the hand, far superior to the ugly plastic mushroom that I used before inheriting this.

I was taught to patch and darn at school, a place described as being for 'young ladies'. What do 'young ladies' care about patching and darning? Very little, I can tell you! We had to practise these skills on small squares of fabric. How pointless and time-consuming it seemed. I was marked 0.5 out of 10 for all my effort.

My heart still sinks when I discover a small hole and know that I shall have to get out the darning mushroom and set to work.

Embroidery

72. "Bella in Heaven"

silk embroidery by Janet Haigh.

I was brought up in a household that always included one or two dogs, but I married a man who quite definitely did not want to share his home with one, so that was the end of that. But when my father died, at the start of the new millennium, shortly followed by his faithful old spaniel, I was bereft. The only solution was to buy a dog of my own. Bella came from a breeder further down the dale, and for me, at least, it was love at first sight.

Love poem.

I have a new love.

Her greeting melts my heart.

Doe eyes, kohl-rimmed and gentle

her presence in our house experimental.

"Besotted," says my husband,

and he's right.

He'll not be charmed without a subtle fight

of wagging tail and wriggling with delight.

"That bloody dog," he says

of mud across the floor

and hairs on clothes 

and half chewed bones.

But I am charmed,

and every little chore is worth it

for my own first dog,

fox terrier,

whom I just adore.

Bella met an untimely death, chasing a cockerel across the road. I was heartbroken. My friend Janet, the owner of two wire-haired fox terriers, dyed a large square of silk into beautiful colours. She embroidered Bella, complete with a pair of wings, in the centre of this silk heaven. Her inspiration came from the Bedlington terrier paintings of Craigie Aitchison.

I felt that Bella looked lost in so much space (how rude of me) and Janet, wonderful friend that she is, let me mutilate the silk by cutting it down to make a dainty icon of her work.

This embroidery is precious to me for many reasons.

Bella in Heaven

When Bella died I cried

while Janet stitched my little dog with wings

and dyed a piece of silk bright green

for heaven.

There she stood, with matchstick legs and neat brown head

waiting to play in her silk heaven, generously large,

a gift of sympathy and love.

But in this space she looked too much alone

and so I asked, "Please can I cut her heaven down?"

Now my small dog stands square in her own patch,

the boundaries marked out in wood and gold,

happy in heaven, never growing old.

Enamel flowers

70. Flower brooches,

enamel on copper, by Janet Haigh.

The embroiderer Janet Haigh, makes the most beautiful objects, and her enamel flower brooches, in a myriad of delicious colours, are irresistible. The enamel is fused onto copper and the small glass beads stitched into place with wire thread. The pleasure in owning and wearing these brooches is intensified by knowing that they have been made by a friend.

71. Heart badge,

 enamel on copper, by Janet Haigh.

A firm fabric knot mends this broken heart. The significance of mending is an important theme in Janet's work, and this colourful little badge is very meaningful to me and to the friends for whom I have bought a similar heart.

Flower vase

69. Strathearn glass flower vase,

green and blue with copper aventurine inclusions.

This vase was a wedding present to my parents in the 1930's. My mother rarely picked flowers from the garden but it is something that I have always enjoyed.  The fluted rim provides a wonderful structure for holding and displaying whatever motley collection of flowers are placed in it. It fulfills the tenet, 'form follows function'. This vase was such a favourite of mine that at my own wedding I was given a large, green Strathearn glass vase of my own, a present from my much loved Auntie Ann. The rim of that vase is unfluted and does not display the flowers so well.

Some years ago my mother gave me her own.  

garden book

68. 'Simple Fruit Growing' by P.K. Bear.

This much-thumbed little book is very precious to me, but not for any of the advice given within its covers. It is printed on rough, dull cream paper, "produced in complete conformity with the authorised economy standard". 

My father bought the book in 1945 when he was discharged from the army at the end of the Second World War. He filled the blank frontispiece with the names of all the roses that he had bought to make a rose garden. On the end pages he made a record of the fruit trees, planted over several years, that became our orchard.

It was a magical place, underplanted with spring bulbs, the long grass scythed only a couple of times a year.  When I look at the names that my father has written I am transported back to the orchard, my favourite part of the garden. I remember the different trees well, 'Egremont Russet',  'Ribston Pippin', the 'Irish Peach', the hard 'Pitmaston Duchess pears, and the cherries that the birds ate the minute they were ripe.

 

Eating cherries, 1950's.

Doorstop

67. Victorian cast iron doorstop,

 Woodcutter and his dog.

My father brought this doorstop as a present for our last house where it propped open the sturdy front door so that the children could run in and out to and from the garden.

The doorstop was a good choice of subject matter because we had two copses of trees and cutting wood was a fairly regular occupation. There were a few fine old oak trees, which remained untouched, but quite a number of ash, and these we felled for fuel and also for safety reasons. They had self sown and were too close together, growing tall in their competition for light. I did the roping, to be sure that the tree would fall where intended, and Peter did the cutting.

There is an old saying that wood warms you three times; once in the felling, twice in the stacking and finally when you burn it. Don't I know it!