Category: photography

A still life with lemons

“ When life gives you lemons make lemonade”

We all know the old saying “ When life gives you lemons make lemonade” although I prefer “when life gives you lemons reach for salt and Tequila” either way I seem to be getting more than my fair share of lemons lately, so I decided to get my own back by turning a few lemons into Limoncello.

Still life with lemons

Here’s my still life with lemons, one litre bottle of budget Vodka, 500grams sugar, 6 unwaxed lemons, and a large screw top jar.


First thinly peel the lemons being extra careful not to take any white pith off as this is bitter.


Then squeeze the lemons.

only two weeks to go.

Put the sugar in a pan with 200 ml of boiling water and simmer till dissolved, add the peel, bring to the boil and simmer for 15mins, then add the lemon juice, bring back to the boil and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Allow to cool for 15 minutes so you don’t damage the glass jar when you decant it. Finally pour into the jar, add the Vodka, and screw on the lid. Gently shake the jar every two days for two weeks.
Strain the liqueur into bottles, (a coffee filter in a funnel works best if you have one), add a little peel for decorative effect and label. Serve chilled as an after dinner treat.

Indian Summer

I found old and broken heating grills in the derelict greenhouse which would make interesting quilting designs, and an old rusting metal chair with an anthemion design, simplified but nevertheless a potential quilting design.

Just as the Summer was turning into Autumn, and in search of some Autumn colour we went one Sunday for a country drive to an out of the way little teashop we know. The Apple Store is set in a lovely spot on the edge of the Trough of Bowland, an area of outstanding natural beauty, on a country estate. It’s a great place for walkers, and I love it for its trees and the fact that I can sit in the garden of a grand house to enjoy my tea under a huge Ginko tree which must be over a hundred years old. The business is new and a work in progress, the owners are doing up the facilities incrementally as resources allow.

 

Whilst waiting for my tea to be delivered I was free to wander about with my camera, as further evidence that you can find inspiration for quilting everywhere, I found old and broken heating grills in the derelict greenhouse which would make interesting quilting designs, and an old rusting metal chair with an anthemion design, simplified but nevertheless a potential quilting design.

 

 

After tea and cake we walked up the hill towards open moorland and along a road that was wick with young game birds, marvelling at the damage to the roads that flooding had done this summer, and wondering if we will ever see again summers like the long hot summer of 1976.

A fine day at last

The plan was to drive up to Sandside and stop by the roadside with a view of the Kent Estuary, and the snowy fells beyond to eat our picnic, but it was not to be.

A sunny day to round off my rainy hiatus between jobs, so we took the opportunity afforded by my little convertible not being mothballed for the winter quite yet and went out in it with the top down (and plenty of warm layers on) I’ve known it to be warm and balmy into November but this November isn’t one of those, in fact there’s snow on the Lakeland hills already.

Brrrr, snow already

We drove to Silverdale and then on to Arnside where we stopped to buy a picnic in a local bakery, the plan was to drive up to Sandside and stop by the roadside with a view of the Kent Estuary, and the snowy fells beyond to eat our picnic, but it was not to be, before we got there we met with a couple of women standing in the road flagging down the traffic and turning us back, there had been a road accident ahead, and they were trying to keep the road clear for the ambulance. I have to admit my first thoughts were hardly charitable.

My pride and joy, and my Dearest with pie

We ate our picnic in a less salubrious spot, and a very disappointing picnic it was too, maybe I should pack one myself next time.

On the subject of Yellow

it was a perfect day, mild climate, sun shining and not a breath of wind.

What a beautiful day we have had today, the sun shining in a clear blue sky and the forecast for 12 degrees was well exceeded; it must have been nearer 20 degrees in Bowness. We drove up the A6 from Lancaster and through the Lyth Valley to Bowness, and then walked along the Lake edge path to the marina, and the Windermere ferry. We had hoped for Autumn colour and were not disappointed, but more than that it was a perfect day, mild climate, sun shining and not a breath of wind.

I took the opportunity to take more pictures as inspiration for the autumn leaves quilt I may one day get round to making.

I also enjoy taking pictures which I think of as ‘studies in colour and texture’, others which I mentally categorize as Quilting designs, and others which might one day become studies for pieces of work made for a City and Guilds qualification in needlecraft.

I’m not sure I will ever have the time or inclination to enrol on such a course of study but at the moment thinking about it and taking pictures of images which I find inspiring is enough for me.

Yellow

I have long nursed a plan to make an Autumn leaves quilt using every colour of Autumn:- sulphur yellow , cherry red, crimson, flame, burgundy, bright-bright Orange (another colour I won’t give houseroom to) and various shades of brown from chestnut to mouse.

I don’t do yellow, not in clothes or shoes, home ware, cars, I cannot get on with it at all and would not welcome it in any form, you won’t even find much of it in my garden….. and yet I love Autumn, when the leaves begin to turn I just want to be out in the fresh air, kicking up fallen leaves and enjoying God’s Creation.

I have a good collection of hidden yellow fabrics in my stash, because I have long nursed a plan to make an Autumn leaves quilt using every colour of Autumn:- sulphur yellow , cherry red, crimson, flame, burgundy, bright-bright Orange (another colour to which I won’t give houseroom ) and various shades of brown from chestnut to mouse. All made with a hazy blue background as if seen from beneath the tree on a cloudless blue sky. I think I need Maple leaf blocks of varying sizes to replicate Acers in Fall, they come in so many shapes and colours that I think it will work. In the mean time it feels as if I have a guilty secret, that part of my stash which never see’s the light of day, and if I do come across it by accident while looking for “Just the right fabric” , those pieces are slung aside with disdain like an unloved child.

I don’t do yellow.


But thank goodness Mother Nature does.

My Home Town

It never ceases to please me when I stumble across a patchwork pattern in an unexpected place.

04.10.2012

It never ceases to please me when I stumble across a patchwork pattern in an unexpected place. This one is in my home town; I must have walked past it a thousand times without noticing.

you never know when you might find one.

Lancaster has had a market Charter since 1362, in the 19th century we built a covered market, and rebuilt it after a fire in the 1980’s, sadly it has recently closed to the dismay of the citizens of Lancaster. Due to the ill advised decisions of the local council, it had become financially unviable, and initially it looked as if the traders would all lose their businesses.

However, there were also a number of empty shops in Lancaster, a circumstance which blights many high streets, the market traders have begun setting up in empty shops, and a couple of weeks ago ambling through the city centre on a Sunday afternoon I came across a new shop, a recently closed gift shop has reopened as a Polish Deli.

As I stopped to peer in the window I looked down and saw the mosaic tiled entrance, I just had to go back to the car to get my camera. Beautiful as it is, one can never guarantee that others will appreciate it’s attractions, perhaps next time I pass it may have been the victim of works of “improvement”, and covered up.

Mental note, if I think about it, there are other tiled Victorian entrances to shops in Lancaster, perhaps a stroll round the city on a Sunday afternoon would provide other gems, in fact the music shop, which closed recently has one, I’m almost sure………

A Saturday well spent

OK so the hanging pole sagged a bit in the middle, I think if I needed to do this again I’d need a metal tube to join the dowels, or alternatively borrow a quilt stand…..hmm if only I had planned that in advance.

Sunday 30.09.2012
How do you photograph a quilt properly without a quilt stand? One might well ask! It’s a conundrum we were faced with on Saturday. Having decided that I needed to have good, well lit, clear photos of my quilts and having tried to take photos in the house, on the bed, I decided that I needed to take the quilts outside and hang them properly, in daylight.
But hang them on what? After a very frustrating morning trying various Heath Robinson contraptions we settled on a pair of step ladders, each with an extending arm (wooden pole) gaffer taped in place and drilled to take a cable tie, supporting two pieces of wooden dowel (broom handle), joined by a piece of plastic water pipe. This particular solution took one trip to B&Q and several trips to raid Dad’s garage and cost in total, not counting the shoe leather or diesel, the princely sum of £2.09. Compared to £150 to import a quilt stand from the USA, that’s a bargain.

OK so the hanging pole sagged a bit in the middle, I think if I needed to do this again I’d need a metal tube to join the dowels, or alternatively borrow a quilt stand…..hmm if only I had planned that in advance.

The weather forecast was for sunshine, so thankfully it barely rained at all, only one quilt was rained on, Shhhh don’t tell my Mother it was one of her’s…(see “Golden wedding quilt”), we were exhausted by the end of the day, up and down the ladders, quilt up, quilt down, “don’t let it touch the muddy floor!” After all that effort you would think we would be pleased with the result, but no, my Dearest now decided to go all Arty Photographer on me and declared that none of the shots we had were any good, the lighting wasn’t right and they’d all need to be done again, on the bed with different lighting.
Nuts to that!
I’m so glad we didn’t leave the photography till today, because it has rained… and rained… and rained… and rained, the garden is awash, and the weather forecast is for more rain, wind and snow, in October.

Golden Wedding Quilt

On the back we stitched photos, a picture of Mum, for the top corner on Dad’s side, a matching picture of Dad for the top corner on Mum’s side and at the bottom, a picture of my sister and me, when we were still young and cute, long time past.

My parents have been married for 60 years, on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary my sister and I decided we wanted to make them a quilt to celebrate their anniversary, we couldn’t think of anything they would rather have and at their age, they have everything they need and shed loads besides, so a quilt is what they got. Many evenings were spent planning, cutting, choosing the perfect blooms for the centres of the lattice, and the trailing flowers for the edges. A lot of fabric was cut to waste, but you rarely get the chance to make a quilt for such a reason, so I was happy to do it, besides which, it was for the best Mum and Dad in the world so for once……. Hang the waste!

Worth all the effort.

On the back we stitched photos, a picture of Mum, for the top corner on Dad’s side, a matching picture of Dad for the top corner on Mum’s side and at the bottom, a picture of my sister and me, when we were still young and cute, long time past.

It still lives in Mum and Dad’s bedroom but I don’t think it goes on the bed much, too heavy perhaps. Some of the fabric was furnishing weight and we used a cotton wadding, perhaps a mistake but it still looks great.

There’s nothing new about Recycling

The wonderful thing for me, more than 40 years after I first wore my lovely dress it is still part of the fabric of my life.

There’s nothing new about recycling, patchwork was invented for it. I love recycling fabrics and preserving them for posterity,and holding memories in a tangible form.
Being a child of the 60’s I have never known real hardship, though I have been so short of money I’ve had holes in my shoes, and wet feet. Nevertheless being the child of parents raised in the last war, who in turn had parents who were born in the first decade of the last century, experiencing both Wars and Depression, I have learnt economy, ingenuity and the principles of recycling from generations of Master cheese parers.
I find it hard to throw anything away if it might still serve some useful purpose. Evidence of this can be seen in the photos attached, a photograph of me, aged about 8, pudding bowl haircut and a typical 1960’s dress.

Me Circa 1968
Never mind the unflattering haircut, look at the dress fabric

When it no longer fit me, the dress and it’s twin,( my sister had one too) went back in Mum’s fabric stash. I always loved the fabric but couldn’t find a project for it. Years later I began collecting fabrics for a scrap quilt, and there in the centre is my dress fabric, and again in several places in the quilt.

there's plenty more

The fabric also appears in other scrap quilts of mine, in fact every last tiny piece of that fabric was recycled, and the wonderful thing for me, more than 40 years after I first wore my lovely dress it is still part of the fabric of my life.