Slow food, slow growth.

This photograph was taken on the 25th April 2012. See the abundant muscari, with their cheerful miniature blue flowers. Notice the height of the mint in the planter in the foreground. And observe the lush growth of lovage at the side of the planter and standing quite tall at the very back of the photograph.

I took this photograph today. Notice the few stunted muscari, and the newly emerging lovage shoots.

And here the few brave mint shoots poking their heads above the parapet! How different from last year. I wonder what other implications the long cold winter and slow spring will have for us on the food front?

Following on from my foraging trip last post, I got very busy in the kitchen as wild garlic wilts very quickly, and I didn't want my haul to go to waste. I decided to make a variety of 'foodie' items loosely following the recipes in Simple Things, a magazine I occasionally buy; although pricey it has excellent articles and recipes, and is a 'keeper'.

I made wild garlic butter:

Wild garlic oil - this is stored in a dark place for 18 days then filtered and re-bottled. It will keep for 9 months in the fridge or 2 at room temperature.

And wild garlic pesto. This will keep for 3 weeks in the fridge. (I bet it will keep a bit longer, I have covered it well with olive oil) I've also frozen some.

The more you chop or crush herbs the more pungent they become; as a leaf wild garlic is quite mild, like a faintly garlicky chive, but once crushed - oh! My word. Talk about blow your socks off! Very peppery, much hotter than rocket or watercress. In fact I will have to let each spoonful down with more oil before use. I did however mix some with hummus for my lunch today, on homemade bread and it was delicious. You could also add it to cream cheese, which would be fabulous. I'm thinking...perhaps add a dollop to a tomatoey or creamy pasta sauce ....ooooh yes!

I just need to tell you a bit about wild garlic as some folks have been asking on Facebook.

Ramsons - common name.  Allium Ursinum - Latin name. Other common names are legion: Buckrams, wood garlic, Bear's garlic, broad-leaved garlic, and others.
Native to Central and western Europe. Thrives in woodland, moist, slightly acidic soils. Prolific spreader! Onion-like perennial, small white flowers which appear in May-June, by which time the leaves have become somewhat bitter.

Good for a plethora of ills: respiratory conditions, vasodilator and antiseptic. Reduces high blood pressure, is a good spring tonic for immune system, liver, gall bladder, stomach and intestine. Topical application useful for arthritic and rheumatic joints.

So there you are, go forth and forage!

My latest bread making was a bit of a visual disaster, as I was going for the 'slow food' approach and trying to let it rise long and slow, but I over-proved it and it collapsed in the oven. However, I can tell you, don't ever be dismayed if the same happens to you because it tasted wonderful!

And to continue the 'slow' theme, a quick look at some 'slow cloth' ... from the inside too!

Hope by the time next blog post is written this wind will have dropped - fed up with it now! At least the sun has been shining, and hopefully most of us will have a good weekend.

Slow Cloth and Image Transfer

                                  My Juicer has arrived! But more of that in another post.

I hope you're all settling back down into 'Autumn Mode' - children back at school, new terms begun, holidays out of the way, yet blissfully we are not yet into counting 'shopping days til...'!

There was quite a bit of interest expressed about my fabric books in the previous post. Mostly, people wanted to know how I got the text and photographs onto the fabric. Well, I'm not a tutorial blog, and there are HEAPS of people out there better equipped to tell you how it's done, loads of books, and numerous youtube clips, so do avail yourselves of those for the real 'gen', as they say.

However I'll tell you how I did mine. First of all the Paper Bag Transfer. You've all seen those paper bags with patterns on, sometimes quite pale. Well they are printed using the final 'run-offs' of print runs, so as not to waste anything. And there is still some juice for us to make use of. Simply place the paper, print side down, on your fabric..use something fairly smooth, mine was old sheeting. Press with a hot iron, keep checking carefull to test 'done-ness'. You'll get quite a faded result, but I like it.

                                                          Just the effect I wanted.

For the other transfers I treated my fabric first with a solution called Bubble Jet Set. Use only cotton or silk, it won't work on synthetic fabrics. It comes in a 946 ml container, not cheap, but it does last, and you can re-use it, so it says. Made by an American firm, it is available to buy in the UK, probably from Art VAn Go, Cotton Patch or Rainbow Silks. Full instructions on the bottle. However, soak fabric in solution for 5 minutes, DON'T WRING, keep it flat and drip dry or blow dry.

Cut freezer papr to A4 size. Iron to fabric and cut fabric EXACTLY to size, removing any stray threads. Feed into your printer in the normal way. For this photo:

I simply laid the original onto the photocopying plate of my printer and pressed go. You can do this with any image, or a textile you want to photocopy and print onto fabric. You can also scan your images and save to your computer, to access later on. You can of course use any computer generated image or text.

For this little book I created paper versions of the pages by using rubber stamps and images /text from magazines onto A4 paper, and using this as my image to transfer. For blocks of text you either photocopy blocks of text, or type it out on your computer and simply print.If you know you are going to want to cut the text apart, then make sure you leave enough space between your lines of text. Here I've just used a block of text:

Here, however, I typed lines of text and spaced them out so I could cut them seperately.

Wash your printed fabric , each sheet seperately so nothing transfers between sheets. I have treated several pieces of fabric and stored them for ages, and it still works. If you are making something purely decorative you probably don't even need to use the solution. Have a try, experiment!

I was over at Jude Hill's lovely blog, Spirit Cloth, and remembered an ongoing project of mine. Jude is a great advocate of the Slow Cloth movement - google it, there's quite a lot of info about it. It grew out of the Slow Food Movement. Anyway, I began a few years ago collecting fabrics (any excuse) and stitching away by hand at a variety of little motifs and appliques. Who knows when it will be completed? It's a slow cloth! So here are some of the pieces waiting to be joined to their neighbours.

Its Working Title, is The Gypsy Quilt. Mostly very bright colours, cottons, silks, velvets...just a collection of lovely things and a wide variety of images and patterns. No plan in mind, it's just meandering its way along. Possibly it never will get finished, who knows!

On Saturday we are off to Ireland for a week, spot of fishing, spot of music, eating and drinking, sewing, reading, journaling, swimming, possibly a spot of walking too, you never know, but let's not be too hasty, eh? Going with good friends Mike and Lesley so double the enjoyment! Not sure I'll be able to blog from there, as am not quite up to speed with the technology..though I am getting there!

Happy Autumns to you all, and let's hope for a bit of an Indian Summer on the side!