Little silk brooches

Earlier this year Paul Smith opened a pop-up shop on Kingsway, Holborn for a couple of days during the week. This has become an annual event and the shop attracts its custom through casual passers-by and word of mouth.  The items are inevitably delightfully eclectic: vintage brooches, buttons, a fifties milk bottle stand (I think), guides to touring the UK as part of the Festival of Britain, fabric maps and tatty recipe books.

Heaped in a corner was a pile of beautiful silks sourced from Thailand, shimmering materials with subtle graduations of colour, their only defect a square cut out to provide a sample for the finished product.  I collected an armful and came back to buy more.  I was greedy but I was right to do so; if the pop-up shop had not existed, all the fabric would have been incinerated.

The silks are an inspiration and a delight. My first project was to use some as lining for a Kindle cover but I decided it would be a shame not to celebrate the rich interplay of colours.  The textile also has an interesting quality: it is not particularly stretchy (not so good for a lining where measuring is not my forte) but it is quite malleable.  Hence the decision to create the brooches below.

The flower petals bunch beautifully and the addition of the felt disc at the front and back creates a solid little brooch.  The fibres of the silk retain the tension of the running stitch (and fortunately don't seem to fray), resulting in an interesting organic shape that can also be sculpted.

Every piece of craft has a story.  My buttons are usually sourced from second hand shops and vintage fairs.  The blue button that provides the centre of the flower here however was in a end of season box in a haberdashery shop in Coleraine.  At 75p it was a bargain, because this was a fashion button made in Spain or France.  The seller also showed my shopkeeper buttons at £25, a snip, but my canny Coleraine businesswoman was not tempted. Apparently the UK no longer make fancy buttons...

London Green Fair and Apple Day

Many thanks to Lewis from the London Orchard Project for an interesting and informative talk at this year's London Green Fair.


I already knew a fair amount about the Project, having attended one of their training events at Camley Road Nature Park in 2009.  I learned a lot then from the splendid Wade Muggleton about apple trees, and how they can come in different forms (for example, espalier, step over and fan), and even featured in a Permaculture magazine photo.  The main outcome however was the decision to run our own Apple Day as part of Transition Crouch End, which is now in its fourth year.  Amber, the other Project Manager has actually been to one of our events and remembered the talk by John Selborne on the origins of apples. It seems to me this is a golden opportunity to revisit that connection.


There are three initiatives that the Project currently offers.  One aim is to create thirteen community orchards every year, working with local groups such as Friends of Parks and Housing Associations.  They will plant eight fruit trees and offer one's day training, with a visit six months afterwards to check how the plants are doing.  For their part, the community association guarantees four 'orchard leaders' who will take responsibility for the trees, including weekly watering during the first year.  The trees are planted carefully, which means choosing a suitable location; lawns with their bacteria-rich soil are not ideal for apple trees.  Because they are essentially edge of forest plants, they prefer a soil rich in fungus, which is facilitated by a mulch of vegetable matter.


Experience has shown that the new trees can be vulnerable to theft, vandalism and dog training, and so each new plant is protected by a fairly substantial guard, dug about three feet into the ground.  These may not be pretty to look at but will be reduced as the tree establishes itself.  The orchard is there for the duration.  By the same token, the choice of apple tree may be surprising: exotic varieties, rather than traditional.  Why is this?  The sad fact is that climate change means that delightful Victorian varieties such as the Peasgood Nonesuch, need chilly winter days to prosper, and these can be rare in an urban southern setting. Foreign varieties fare better.


The second activity offered by the London Orchard Project is restoration of old orchards.  It is striking how many of these exist in London, several of them interestingly linked to mental institutions,  founded in the nineteenth century.  (I wonder if St Annes Hospital in Tottenham is a case in point.)  The reasoning behind this seemed to be that tending the orchards was viewed as a kind of occupational therapy, something we would now regard as ecotherapy. 


The orchards can be seen on old Greater London Authority maps but the Project needs people on the ground to confirm this.  The Project will then attempt to restore old trees that may be overgrown and in need of care and attention.  Pruning out extra branches in the centre will recreate the goblet shape which is most productive, in that it allows pollinators to access the flowers and the fruit to benefit from light.  Older orchards are rich sources of biodiversity and even damaged trees are fruitful as excellent habitats for insects and birds.



The final service on offer is the harvesting of fruit.  The Project now own two cargo bikes, provided by the London Cycling Campaign, one in North London, one in South.  The Project appreciates that there are several groups already involved in collecting urban fruit.  There is the Organic Lea Scrumping project; Transition Kilburn to Kensal Rise have been offering fruit to schools for three years now and of course, our Apple Day would not exist without the input of the Urban Harvest and Gemma.  Nevertheless Lewis did mention one exciting development: the London Glider cider created by a group of enthusiasts in Epping and now stocked by six London pubs.  It even gained the accolade of a Camra award.


In terms of our Apple Day next year, it might be worth pursuing some of these ideas.  We already know about the iniquities of 70% of supermarket apples being shipped in from other countries, but did you know we could feast on a different English apple every day for six years?    


It would be great to invite London Orchard members to the Day to tell us more about their work.  They could also advise us about planting more apple trees in local green spaces, Stationers Park being a prime location. Lewis is a keen permaculturist and wants to explore the possibility of creating a forest garden around apple trees, where the formation of guilds would reduce infection and increase yields.  And of course they could give us feedback on our own apple produce, especially the liquid kind.  They have already conducted a successful experiment with cider-making and may be keen to share their expertise....  


It's never too early to start planning for Apple Day!  

The Crouch End Festival 2012

What have I learnt about being creative during the Crouch End festival?

There have been a few opportunities to explore my creativity during the last nine days: the Craft Trail, May Day in the Park and Crouch End in Cardboard.   Here are my thoughts as Waste Lady, a woman who can't let go of anything that might be construed as useful or beautiful.

But first of all, let me go backwards and say, well done to Claire and the Makers on the extraordinary and wonderful thing that is guerrilla bunting.

In the run up to the festival, bunting, normally associated with jubilee parties and vintage tweedom, became an act of defiance, a blazon of civic entitlement to drape the landmarks and iconic buildings of Crouch End. (Hornsey Town Hall, we had you in our sights.)  This was a wonderful collaborative effort, not just by the Makers Group at the Bunting and Bubbles Party when fuelled by prosecco, we pinned and sewed....

 ..but also by children in schools and playgroups who created their own flags and emblems with paint and hand prints.  (And thank you to the artist who wrote 'Croch End Festival' on one - it cheers up the W7 commuters no end.)  It was crafted by invisible, nameless makers who sewed their squares with beads, boats and butterflies, handed them in, quietly pleased with their effort. and hoped to find their work sometime during the festival.

But back to the Festival per se, and the Craft Trail.  Although a missed opportunity for me, the stash of upcycled crafts is accumulating and will be on display at some point.  That particular day was all about chairs, tables and vans, and toasting the Trail with prosecco (again) at the end of the day, and washing clay off a table used for sculpture at the beginning of the next.

May Day in the Park was glorious, though not the weather.

Dear Church Farm lambs, thank you for coming to London and looking so cool.  Thank you for inspiring so many woolly crafts through all the stages of spinning, weaving, knitting, and felting.  And thank you for being happy to appear as paper plates, iced biscuits and soft toys.

May Day in the Park was a phenomenal success.  Visitors to Stationers Park were enchanted by the bizarre sight of farmyard animals in an urban setting, and Elvis the resident border collie was deeply confused. 

On a miserable, wet day parents herded their hyperactive little ones indoors to be comprehensively entertained by the activities mentioned above.  The aura of success lingers, as parents list the lovely ovine objects their children have made and brought home to sit resplendent in kitchen windows and bedrooms, (for a little while).

And last but not least, the Crouch End in Cardboard.  Now in one sense, it was the least.  It was not very well attended. In the beginning, there were considerably more adults than children, many of whom will struggle to justify time bank credits they 'earned', as they created little people out of corks and pipe cleaners. 

But once the steel band had packed up in Weston Park's Spring Fair and the bar had closed, children did come and they joined in.  No-one told them what to do.   This was an activity that did what it said on the box, a reconstruction of Crouch End, using boxes, packing tape and buckets of ingenuity.

The construction expanded from the striking clock tower created by Alex to a panorama of Crouch End.  There was the macro: Park Road swimming pool, Rokesley School with climbing frame and pupils, Waitrose (although other supermarkets were available, namely Budgens) and the micro: trees, sheep and of course, the poet in the phone box.

For me, this was the most successful, because it was the least stressful.  I looked around and everything was mess and chaos, not an easy feeling because I teach English to adults.  My lesson plans (ideally) should have learning objectives and outcomes, and every moment, every second is a step towards achieving them, with me as tutor directing the group. 

 'Crouch End in Cardboard' on the other hand was creative mayhem. It was ephemeral.  Some people took their little cork people home, but most left them to live on in this virtual village, just as no-one made off with Lynne's sheep or hens in her superb knitted landscape, on display at May Day.  

Crouch End in Cardboard is now folded away in a shed.  I'd like to bring it out again at the Festival Evaluation meeting on 21 May and solemnly, ritually burn it, as a formidable farewell to Crouch End 2012, but it may just moulder along with other HVCC craft experiences, (although being biodegradable, this might not take too long).

And the lessons learnt?  Please, I won't be so didactic, tendentious or hectoring.  All I would say is there is something to be said for space.  Space to make a mess and find your own creativity, where you don't take anything home to treasure, other than the experience.  What you made may well sit in a shed, but your mind and hands have been shaped by the experience.  And at the same time, you have made friends.

Recycled laptop covers

As I prepare for the Crouch End Festival Craft Trail on Saturday 5 May, here is some of my previous work, all made from felted sweaters.

End of season tomato chutney

I mentioned earlier how I had made Nigel Slater's mixed tomato chutney, a combination of green and red tomatoes.  This weekend I cleared the last of the tomato plants from my own garden and the tyre garden I helped create at our local community centre.  With the recent sunny weather, a few of the most recalcitrant tomatoes managed to ripen nicely.  The community garden tomatoes had self-seeded from interesting varieties, which included some black tomatoes.  This all made for an interesting mix of colours and sweet and sour flavours.  On the down side, the ripe tomatoes rather had a tendency to burst, which meant it was impossible to scald them to remove the skins.  Never mind, this is a rustic chutney.

Ingredients
900g tomatoes, green and red
350g onions
90g raisins
250g light muscovado sugar
300ml white wine vinegar
1 medium sized, hot red chilli
1tsp of sald
2tsp of yellow mustard seeds (for my recipe I used brown)

Yield: I made twice the amount above and made just over 12 x 8oz jars of chutney. 

Cut up the tomatoes without peeling. 

Put the green fruit together with the peeled and roughly chopped onions, into a large stainless steel or enamelled pan, with the raisins, sugar, chilli, salt, mustard seeds and vinegar.

Bring to boil, turn down the heat, and leave to simmer for an one hour, giving an occasional stir to reduce the risk of the chutney sticking.

Note after about 25 minutes, add the ripe tomatoes and continue to simmer. until thick and golden brown.  Remove the bag of chillies.

Spoon into sterilised jars, and seal.

Everywoman's Autumn Chutney

This is the next in a series of recipes that I have used to capitalise on the abundance that is so much part of autumn.  The downside of abundance of course, is waste and it hurts me to see apples lying unused, even crab apples from urban trees. And  I refuse to ditch our copious crop of green tomatoes, just because they won't ripen. When the blight comes, I act fast.

So these recipes capture the joy of celebrating harvest, and at the same time combat waste.  The apples, a key ingredient, have come from different sources, but none of them, a shop or even (as if!) a supermarket.  They have been apples not good enough to sell in the Church Farm veg and fruit box.  They have been scrumped from ancient trees by River Stour in Dorset, (actually just by an arboretum), or  a hedgerow in the National Trust property, Dyrham Hall.  Or they have been come from gardens: a colleague's at work and my brother's in Wales.  You can see this splendid specimen below.

Because it just uses fruit and omits onions, this particular chutney is deliciously sweet and sticky.  And it is another instance of using up food waste, in this case three veg and fruit boxes which were not picked up by members of the Church Farm scheme.  The pears were at the hard and crunchy stage which made them ideal, while the tomatoes were at their ripest; the apples were cookers from a colleague's garden. 


The recipe below comes from 'The Preserving Book' mentioned before but I would also like to quote what Katie Stewart in her introduction. She recommends making 'the standard recipe exactly if it is a first time brew of chutney but after a little experience, vary the fruit and vegetables used or change the quantity or mixture of spices'.  So, rather than going out to buy the correct sugar and spices, I actually resorted to using up store cupboard inredients.  This means my version will not be the same as hers and if you try the recipe, your chutney won't be the same either.  On the other hand, you now have permission to tweak. 

Go on, try it out and come up with your own Autumn chutney!

Ingredients
1kg (2lbs) cooking apples
500g (1lb) pears
750g (1.5lb) red tomatoes
125g (4oz) seedless raisins
125g (4oz) sultanas
1kg (2lb)soft brown sugar
625 (1pint) vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground mace
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon salt
1tablespoon salt
15g (1/2oz) salt
12 red chillies


Yield: about 2.5kg (5lbs)

Peel the apples and pears, core and cut into small pieces. Skin the tomatoes and chop them.

Put the apples, pears, tomatoes and all the remaining ingredients into a preserving pan.  Stir well and simmer for 2 hours until tender, golden brown and thick.  Stir occasionally to prevent  sticking.

Put into hot jars, cover and seal.

Green tomatoes are hot!

My husband knows about gardening and he says growing tomatoes outside in this country is hard, even in 'Mediterranean' London..  If you have a greenhouse, they ripen beautifully but maybe there just isn't enough sun to turn those tiny green nodules into little red bombs that explode in your mouth. I plan to follow a friend's advice and pack them in a drawer with a red tomato or a banana, to see if they turn....


But in the meantime, I love making green tomato chutney.  Last year I tried Niger Slater's recipe with red and green tomatoes but in the end I preferred this one, which commits to using only the green, but adds apples. This last ingredient seems essential to create the desired gloopiness of a perfect chutney.


The recipe comes from  'The Preserving Book' published by Pan, which I found in a charity shop in Bath and which I imagine is now out of print.   It was written in the seventies, when people were able to get  home brew sets from Boots and 'The Good Life' was on the TV.  The writers are farmer's wives and stalwarts in the WI; the only male contributor (naturally) is responsible for the chapter on wine making and beer-making.


The addition of the ginger and chillies makes the taste of this chutney initially warm and then quite fiery, but complements the green tomatoes, which can be bitter.  I have to say I used birds eye chillies and had cold feet about keeping the bag in the mix for all of the cooking. Taste the chutney as it simmers and make your own decision.  The recipe says, simmer for one hour but mine took longer.  As in all chutney recipes, it is better to overcook than undercook.


Ingredients
2kg (4lbs) green tomatoes
500g (1lb) cooking apples
750g (1.5lb) onions, chopped
250g (8oz) seedless raisins
500g (1lb) soft brown sugar
625 (1pint) vinegar
15g (1/2oz) ginger
15g (1/2oz) salt
12 red chillies


Yield: about 3.5kg (7lbs)


Cut up the tomatoes without peeling.  Peel and core the apples and chop them.

Put all the tomatoes, apples and raisins into the preserving pan.  Add the sugar, vinegar and salt. Tie the chillies in piece of muslin and suspend in the pan.  Bring to boil, stir well and simmer for one hour, until thick and golden brown.  Remove the bag of chillies.

Put into hot jars, cover and seal.