Serendipity - a visit to Woolfest at Narberth

Early on Saturday morning, I had a Facebook message from fellow-blogger Dawn of Doing It For Ourselves in Wales blog.  She had just noticed that Narberth was hosting Woolfest that day, and was I interested in going?  Well, show the dog the rabbit - of course I was.  We had a wonderful time and I had to hide my purse for fear of spending all my Malvern money on wool!!!

The INCREDIBLE deer head above was worked purely from wool, by needle-felting (I am going to clear out my craft corner-cupboard today to find my felting needles).  I don't doubt this took days and days to make but WOW!  Rustic revolution have a website where you can see more of their work in the gallery, and I noticed they also do courses.  Oh my, I would LOVE to go on one.

An overview of their stand - unfortunately I forgot to press the flash, but you will get the general idea from the individual photos below.

What a brilliant idea - a lovely knotty piece of wood with a barn owl peeping out.  I'd love to have a go at something like this.

Woody Woodpecker.  We have one who visits our nut nets in the winter.

I love the use of these lovely old bits of wood to showcase the needlefelting.  This green man is beautifully showcased.

Next door, some colourful flowers, lovely clothing , bags etc.

Then some needle-felted animals and birds and a chance to buy kits to make your own.

Rag-rugging - here is a lovely one with Pentre Ifan burial chamber on it.  I can do that, I told myself!

Above and below, a Great Wheel.  It was good to see a young man using it, and he knew his stuff.

Needle felting seemed to be the theme throughout the exhibition, and in all sorts of different techniques.  Here are some amazingly colourful needle felt pictures in a style which reminded me of the paintings of Eric Kincaid.

Below: BIG knitting.  Not for me, but I can imagine it knits up incredibly quickly.

A selection of lovely  Paisley pattern materials.

A wet-felted handbag.  Isn't it gorgeous?

A selection of more felted bags and some lovely scarves.  Note the little dogs!

Colombian knitters and spinners.  There were some hanks of naturally-dyed wool which interested me and I was tempted but managed to resist temptation. . .

These woven scarves were SO soft and warm.  The ones on the right were coloured with natural dyes.

A chance to win some lovely things in the tombola.  Dawn won a ceramic bowl which held your wool and needles, I "won" a toffee!





I bought myself some coloured tops for wet felting, a large bar of olive soap (ditto), a yarn gauge in the shape of an Alpaca in light wood, and a Lucet, which I have been playing with.  It is based on an Anglo-Saxon tool for making cord.  Now I've got the tension right, it is simple to use.

Malvern post tomorrow.  I am still recovering from a busy and very enjoyable weekend!  Thanks to Dawn for letting me know this was on!

I love apples

I love apples and eat LOTS of them and cook with them regularly.   I love having my own apple trees on our plot, and being able to lay down a store of apples for the winter.  I picked the best part of this year's rather poor crop on our own trees - 4 were "resting" having given huge quantities of apples last year.  3 of them are related trees, as the two young trees are grown from seed from the parent, and give two different sorts of apples.

I love orchards and when we went to Hay-on-Wye today, I just had to stop near Glasbury and take photos of this orchard (cider apples by the look of things).  It was a bumper crop here, on old trees which are full size and not grown on dwarf rootstocks as the modern orchards are.  When we move, I still hope to have a small orchard (apples, pears, plums) in one area,  rather than just half a dozen trees growing randomly, although the young trees I am growing are slowly coming on here beside the path in the paddock.

As you can see, a good mixture of different cider apples have been grown, for a blend of sweet, sharp and bittersweet.

I am not sure if these are picked for cider - but what a shame if not.

One of the scarlet-fruited trees.

A view of part of the old orchard from across the road.

We had a wander round Hay, and a bite to eat in the Sandwich Cellar in Backfold (as always).  The Folio books above are on offer in Booths, where we sat for a little while in comfortable chairs, looking at the books we were going to purchase.

I bought a critique of Thomas Hardy's work by Trevor Johnson, and look forward to sitting down with that when my brain is functioning again (I only got 3 1/2 hours' sleep last night).

The shelves of horsey books down the road in Addeyman's, where I bought Queer Horses and Queer People by C G Fitch, written back in the days (1930s) when Queer had no undertones and a fascinating book.

A brief wander around the town: my reflected elbow and a very large Heron in a shop window.

A rather nice reflection of the town in a shabby chic shop window.

Of course, we couldn't resist a wander round the antiques shop, which is looking more and more empty.  I loved this fabric chicken and had to take a photo of him for posterity.

Without doubt, the best display in the shop, and some very desirable bakelite jewellery and similar goodies on offer.

Above and below.  At the bottom of the car park in Hay.  I loved these gorgeous amber-pink tones on the shrub below.  As we drove home, we noticed that colouration on the wild cherry trees and field maples too.

Finally, the view across the fields from the car park.  Apologies for lack of words, but I am surviving on just 3 1/2 hours' sleep last night and absolutely shattered.

Baking and making

This was a recipe I'd marked in a book (One Hundred Bread Machine Recipes by Vicki Smallwood) intending to make long before now.  However, we needed a fresh loaf yesterday so I set to and made this one, using the last two oranges in the fruitbowl.  O.M.G. it smelt DIVINE whilst I was making it and even better when it came out of the oven, looking a little as if it had been to the Bahamas on holiday as I had given it a good egg glaze and then put a tray of hot water in the bottom to give it a good crust.

I shall mix it better next time as the fruit stayed around the edges, but practice makes perfect and whilst it might not have got 10/10 on Bake Off for presentation and technique, it would have got 11/10 for flavour!  You start it off in the bread maker, but if you don't have one, just mic by hand in a bowl.

CRANBERRY AND ORANGE BREAD

1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups (525 grams) white bread flour
1 teaspoon yeast

To finish:

Juice of one orange
75g (3 oz) dried cranberries
Zest of one orange

Place the first 7 ingredients in the baking pan in the order in which they are listed.  Set the programme to Dough.

Place the juice of the orange and the cranberries in a bowl and set to one side (I also added the zest of the orange.)

When the programme has been completed, remove the dough, strain the cranberries (I froze the remaining juice and orange zest to use again), add to the dough and knead until they have been well incorporated. (You may need to add some extra flour to make the process easier).  Shape the dough into a long sausage shape, roll it up into a coil, and then place it on a lightly oiled and floured baking tray  Loosely cover the dough with a damp tea towel and leave to prove until nearly doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 200 deg., C/400 deg. F/Gas mark 6.  When the dough has almost doubled in size, remove the teatowel and bake it in the oven for 20 or 25 minutes, or until it is golden and has cooked through.  Transfer the loaf to a wire rack and leave it to cool.

Ignore wonkey centre (it improved with practice), but this is the latest crochet project, which will end up as a big circular cushion, seen in the photo below.

I love the Granny Squares deckchair cover behind it too, but would rather just make a Granny Squares throw.

I loved this "acid-drops" green of the late afternoon sun on the autumn fields behind the farm.  Quite a contrast against the rain-laden clouds.

View beyond the top of the yard, to the right of the previous photo.  The Ash trees are losing their leaves and are laden with Ash keys as always, some a deep Parkin cake brown, others more golden.  We have had two days of rain following a lovely Indian Summer last week, when I was able to get out in the garden and carry on with the Autumn tidy up.

The corner of the bed where the ramblers grow.  I haven't been able to get on top of this for years, but had a really good clear out, and dig through and removed rubber trug (Itsy's old feed bowl) after rubber trug of Bindweed roots which spread easily here through a sandy corner (old builder's sand), plus eradicting a goodly amount of Ground Elder too.  I am going to plant a few bulbs here for spring.

The area is usually covered by the huge leaves of the Oriental Borage, which has just been cut back within an inch of its life.  I am going to remove a few of the Thugs further along the border to make it more easy to maintain.  I must have taken 30 barrowloads of spent leaves and stems from these borders, which is a bit ridiculous really and NOT low maintenance!

If it stays dry today we will pick the cooking apple tree and put them into store in boxes down in the larder, where it is nice and cool.  I like free food . . .

Knitting teddies

As promised, here is the teddy I shall be knitting up for Annie.  At present, I've just knitted him a cherry red jumper, with no Fair Isle as it's been half a lifetime since I last attempted that!  I must try again though.

This is how far Annie got.  One teddy head, embroidered and sewn up and stuffed.

At the bottom of the bag I found this, which I think is a 2nd head started . . .

This is actually a darker brown than it looks in the photo.  She had already knitted a teddy jumper, in the alternative pattern with cabel and bobbles (must learn how to do cable).

My efforts (unironed).  Much brighter because of the flash too.  It's a nice cherry red. Pure wool and lovely to knit with.  I needed a 2nd ball, and ordered it from Lanark Mills, who promptly despatched it and it was even the same batch number.

As I was gardening this afternoon I could hear the whoosh of a hot air balloon somewhere in the valley.  He got high enough and I forsake my grubbing under the overgrown roses for the roots of Ground Elder and Bindweed, and came out and saw him drifting peacefully away back towards Milo, where the chap hails from.

When my mum lived over that way she would mention seeing the balloon again and it was quite an occasion for her.

This morning we viewed an auction, went around the Antiques Fair at the Botanic Gardens and then went back to the auction to bid on something.  This lovely old bit was something I just had to have when I saw it on my friend Liz's stall.  It is probably from the deserts of Arabia, where an Arab horse would have worn it .

Back tomorrow with some photos of the Botanic Gardens and a couple from the Antiques Fair.

Weasels (dead one), wassups, bees, knitting, reading - oh, and a bit of baking

I woke early this morning - 2 hours before my alarm was due to go off.  I had things on my mind and knew I wouldn't get back to sleep.  Some friends of ours were due at 11 a.m. and I had things to bake. I'd made a Raspberry and Lemon cake yesterday, and a failed loaf of bread in the breadmaker (a smidge too much yeast I think as it overproved and collapsed), but I needed to make some Scones in payment for a chair they had recaned, another loaf of bread, and a traybake for Sunday when we have another Fair.

Windfall Apple cake as a traybake.  One half for the freezer and the other to cut up and hand around to friends on Sunday.  Plenty of windfalls out in the garden - well, Jackdaw-falls really as they are devils for pecking at the fruit.  The insects get their fair share, with all the half-destroyed fruit on the ground becoming a cafe for wassups (as we used to call wasps when we were younger), and the Hornet (in flight sounding like a jumbo jet by comparison) has been munching them too.

Then it was a successful loaf of half and half bread, mixed and raised to first rise dough in the breadmaker and then whisked out and knocked back, and put to prove a 2nd time in the tin before proper baking in the oven.

I finished off with using up some sausages as a batch of small sausage rolls, and left-over pastry sprinkled with cheese and baked up too.  The mountain of washing up was almost a welcome change after all this baking.

Below is a photo of the tiny Weasel that Alfie cat brought home (with much proud yowling) on Wednesday.  It was as dead as a doornail - I think they had just crossed each other's paths and then it was bye-bye Weasel as Alfie is a hefty lump, and used to catching well grown rabbits.

Today I gave myself the afternoon off.  I felt I had earned it, and the weather is SO glorious it would have been a crying shame to have spent a moment longer indoors.  So I took the lounger out to the patio, where I chased the sun around all afternoon, so hot at one point I even put on a SKIRT for the first time this year (too cold in summer), and I would do a few rows of knitting, and then read a bit of the biography of Coleridge Annie's daughter gave me last week, then back to the knitting.

It was so peaceful, and the air was full of birdsong, especially several Robins who have territories in the garden.  One loves to sing from the top of the telephone pole in the corner by the farmyard.  At one point some Long-Tailed Tits flew over me, and then a WaterWagtail serenaded me from the power line.  I was sat by some Sedum which is in full bloom right now, and there were always 10 or 12 honey bees on it throughout the afternoon.

When the sun disappeared behind the house, I changed into my trousers and followed it to our South-facing yard, where I absolutely roasted - it was still 70 deg. or more at nearly 5 p.m.  I was TOO HOT (in October!) and had to give up and come indoors.  I am NOT complaining, and this weather can carry on as long as it likes as it's like the first couple of days of July all over again.

The knitting is coming on well and the extra ball of cherry red wool I needed arrived today (Lanark Mills, I recommend them highly).  Another of the unfinished things I inherited from Annie was a big basket full of balls of wool and a half-finished teddy.  Looking through it today, I noticed a 2nd teddy's head had been started (one is finished and stuffed) and a jumper had been knitted, so I have two to finish now.  The cherry red wool is for a little teddy jumper, and is knitting up beautifully. Photos over the weekend.