He wanted to make a magic potion. He stood over the sink with a bowl of water and green food dye. He started mixing flour to make a vivid green slime. Lots of time playing with slime. "Mum, can I cook this?" ..."Um, yes, but it's very wet" "I'll add some more flour". More mixing. "What more do I add to make bread" "Just yeast and salt" "Ok can I make bread?" "Sure". He sorted it out, then left the bowl in the cupboard. We forgot about it for 2 days. "Have you cooked to bread mum?" I went and found the bubbling green mess. What the hell, lets just shove it in the oven. It made the most amazing delicious green bread.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
"Mum, what is university?" "It's a kind of school for adults." "But the whole point of being an adult is you're school-free!"
During half term we visited our friend's new coffee roasting business. Coleman Coffee Roasters is Jack. Jack was revered coffee maker at Leila's Cafe before setting up the roasting business, and now supplies the coffee for her cafe and shop. We like Jack a lot. Some people say he is Jack of the Beanstalk. Jack has a stop watch around his neck most of the time. His roasting machine is over 60 years old. Jack restored it himself, adding useful bits like an extra thermometer and devised a cooling extractor. It feels like a inventor's science laboratory. A very delicious smelling laboratory.
It's a very precise affair, so we mostly watched and lounged on sacks of beans. It was very noisy; the roar of the gas, the giant tinny shaker sound of the the drum rotating and the extractor fan drone. We joined in weighing the green waxy unroasted beans and packaging the bags. Jack records the exact weight, timings and temperatures of each roasting, so he can chart how this affects the flavour; each bag is marked with batch number and date.
Jack's workshop is in Brixton so we ate pizzas at Franco Manca. A very perfect day.
We were totally absorbed making this marble-run present for a friend's 7th birthday.
Ruben drew out the grid; we chatted about what numbers and colours to use; discussed the 7 times table; painted together and took it in turns to bang in nails. I saw this idea on a site I never tagged. On a google search there were manyexamples but not the one I'd first found, so I apologise to whomever gave me the idea, that I can't credit them. I was anticipating that Ruben might decide, once finished, that he'd like to keep the game for himself. He's often had that inclination when making things originally destined for someone else. But this time he gave it so generously and joyously that I felt really proud; proud of his pride in giving. And I was worried that the gift might pale next to the magnificence that manufactured toys display. But the birthday boy was genuinely thrilled and appreciated the gift. Couldn't have gone better. What is it with the worrying?
You need a piece of wood, ideally about 2 cm thick. Draw on a grid with square sides that are bigger than the marbles you will be using (to fit through!). Paint your grid and number however you like. Hammer in nails on grid corners. Thread elastic bands between nails to make a maze. We wrote out our instructions and drew examples, but you can choose the rules to your game. Or it might not be a marble run at all, but a board for writing and making patterns with elastic bands or threads. We might try making a proper pinball version with flippers next.
Our own apple tree. It probably has about 40 fruit, but we're competing against the birds and the squirrels. That we have stopped counting the exact number is proof of abundance. None has ever tasted as good as the first apple, when the tree bore one, lone, giant, snow-white-like red apple.
We've been part of a community vegetable garden that started last winter on the council estate opposite mine, making use of an derelict locked-up playground. It is transformed and I only wish I'd taken photos of how it was before. On Sunday we reaped our little share of the harvest and made an entire lunch from the produce. The cucumber was divine, and the beetroot leaves tasted like sweet butter. The project is so simple, entirely run by local residents, but who battled with the Council for their right to dig and grow. Brings a new meaning to Dignity - which is what the project brings to the whole neighbourhood.
I'm making a plaited rag-rug. Takes a lot longer than you'd think.
The ingredients and history are: A blue towel that's a least 20 years old from my mother's house, I remember it wrapping be from had to toe; a pair of paisley pink pyjamas bought from a secondhand shop in Bristol when a student, that I sometimes wore clubbing; some red tartan pyjamas from a dear friend; a stripey dress bought just after Ruben was born in the hope that it would be flattering and easy for breast feeding (it wasn't, flattering or easy); a turquoise top bought in Lisbon on a rare frivolous shopping spree with my dear ballerina friend who I haven't seen for so long; and an old black ribbed top, another cast off from a friend that served me well for many years (the friend and the top). Old Rope.
Ingredients: A pair of my mother's velvet trousers that were too past it to get the patching love, an old pajama top and some scraps.
I knew straight away I would use the trouser pocket as a mouth, and the button said "nose". I did play with lots of different possibilities, especially a flat-fish, and tried stuffing the two front pockets with white cloth so they looked like giant eyes. Anyway, he's a dog. Elwin? I'm open name suggestions.
This is where I got to after an hour. The body isn't stitched to the head. Everything was slower, not only because was I experimenting with other options, but because he's entirely handsewn. (Why handsewn? Have I been overcome all ethical about body vs machine? No, I've just moved into shared studio space! Hurrah. Hurrah. Notice how I casually drop this vital information into conversation. However I haven't moved-in my sewing machine) I also ran out of sewing cotton and had to pull threads from cloth. Hardcore.
Here he is after 2 hours. As always I've over stepped my deadline, he's still not finished, at least another hour or 2.... He's too large to stuff with my scraps. I'd like to turn him into a puppet as the pocket-mouth is already half the construction. He reminds me of a Muppet.
Accession number: A27046 Titled: AKHA EMBROIDERED LEGGINGS, THAILAND, S.E ASIA Handwoven cotton leggings decorated with applique and embroidery are part of the traditional costume worn by women of the Akha hill tribe or Northern Thailand. Hand-stitched and hand-woven with Indigo and natural dyes.
I've always associated leggings with 80s fashion and fluorescent colours. This summer on my camping holiday I finally appreciated that they may have a function: I was trying to cook 100 corn fritters over a large open fire (another story) and I would have liked some extra leg cover. In the evenings they would have been handy to stop the midges biting my ankles. I have no idea of the Thai use for leggings but I bet there is some utility behind their gorgeous decoration.
I'd almost forgotten, as it was made over a year and half ago. It's strange to make something intently, cast it away, and then have it returned a year later in a nice fat padded parcel. Suddenly the intervening year comes into relief as I touch the cloth.
Kathreen Ricketson is the indefatigable motor behind whipup.net. She found my sewings through flickr (I do love flickr, I've made real friends through that site). I was flattered and emboldened to be invited. I admire the confidence of her convictions; she asked people whose work she liked, joining the professional with the amateur (that's me). More about the book and the other contributors here. I'm really excited to see if someone can actually follow the instructions and make their own version of the Circus Quilt.
Circuses have been a constant theme in my life. I saw more than most in my childhood as my mother wrote the Kid's listings for Timeout magazine in the 70s and 80s, when the status of Circus was relegated to children only. I also remember a surreal church service full of dressed up clowns at Holy Trinity Church in east London. They still hold their annual Joseph Grimaldi Memorial Service in February. In my 20s I went to live in Portugal, where my first job was teaching English at Chapito, the Lisbon Circus School; watching sultry chubby teenagers attempt the trapeze and practicing juggling in their lunch break. Two weeks ago my son Ruben and I started Circus Skills classes at Circus Space. I don't have the upper arm strength to hold Ruben over my head (really, he is heavy) in the balancing moves and only just managed a backwards roll. He in turn attempted every flip and threw himself on and off every piece of equipment. I have vivid childhood memories of the Pickle Family (and Mr Sniff), Circus OZ and Victoria Chaplin's Cirque Imaginaire. The past year highlights have been NoFit State at the Roundhouse and the Seven Fingers show Psy on at the Peacock Theatre (tonight is the last night). It has breathtaking acts and brilliant group choreographed sequences fusing dance and circus and theatre. Go go go if you can. But my favourite circus ever is in the video below. Alexander Calder. A very great and joyous man.
Hopefully we've got a small select knitting group started, steered by my mother's nimble and creative fingers. Meeting again in two weeks. Ruben made us each a club card with the colours of wool we're using.
