puddling in perfumery

I really like things that smell nice, oh so much, but I just can't bring myself to part with the ludicrous amount of money that perfumes go for. And I am also fussy, and don't like many of the cheap and cheerful perfumes on the market, they are usually too sweet and sickly for my liking.

So I was delighted when I found in a herbal book a recipe for 'Carmelite water' which involved infusing delicious ingredients like lemon balm, coriander seed, cloves nutmeg and cinnamon in vodka.

Hmm. she thinks. I could try that:

So - 500 ml vodka (£5)
cloves (from the kitchen cupboard)
cinnamon sticks (as above)
20 drops of benzoin resin essential oil (already in my stash)
5 drops of myrrh essential oil (in stash)
star anise (from the cupboard)
15 grams (approx) of moroccan solid 'amber' perfume, chopped.(about £3-4 pounds)

So it is good to get a blend of top middle and bottom 'notes' in perfume.
I always like warm, spicy rich smells but also sweet and floral smells - ylang ylang would be just about my favourite scent on earth, possibly only matched by Labdanum, and then followed closely by benzoin resin. Labdanum is an interesting one - it is a sticky brown resin obtained from the Cistus ladanifer (a kind of rock rose) Traditionally it was collected by combing the beards of goats, who got it stuck to them as they wandered about grazing.

We bought a block of solid 'amber' perfume in Morocco, which is also pretty lovely. Apparently it is a combination of woods, resins, incense notes, patchouli and vanilla. It can be light and fresh (heavy on the frankinscence), or dark, thick and sweet (lots of patchouli and vanilla). My one was definitely on the thick and sweet side.

I think my top notes will be the gently anniseedy star anise, and the slightly rose-like benzoin resin. These are the first impressions of the scent, and linger the most briefly.

The middle notes, the body of the perfume which make up the fullness of the scent will be the sweet thick amber and the spicy, aromatic cloves, and the base notes, which linger longest and give 'depth' to the perfume, will be cinnamon and myrrh- woody, resinous and warm smells.

I am very excited- now all I need to do is shake the bottle every day for a couple of weeks, and eventually, add a bit of vegetable glycerine for longevity (on your skin) and strain out all the bits and bobs (cloves etc). My very own perfume.

It would be fun to make a slightly lighter version using vanilla beans and ylang ylang, with some orange and cinnamon and geranium thrown in there. scrumptious.

The wisterias, in full bloom at the moment also smell amazing...



On a completely unrelated note, the bluebells are out, and they are magical...
These are at the Harcourt arboretum, the tree part of the Oxford botanical gardens.

sneaky disguise bag

So - being somewhat afraid of drawing undue attention to the brand new camera that has recently become Malcolm's pride and joy (thanks to a generous return from mr taxman on finding out he'd been on the wrong tax code - yay)..

The night before we set off to morocco, Malcolm decided he needed a bag. I thought I'd have a bash, and decided to do it 'properly' which, when you are tired, slightly stressed and still packing is maybe not entirely wise. Much unpicking, some swearing and a few hours later...we had a sneaky disguise bag, with slits in the straps so you could feed the camera bag handle up and through it. Here it is, manly yet unassuming, I hope - it seemed to do the trick nicely:



And in other news, it is spring. relief. bliss. blossoms everywhere new leaves popping out, and sunshine.

I cant put into words how good it is, so here's some photos- the neighbours huge apple tree behind our tiny cabin is looking amazing!

marrakesh colour

I love colour. Our recent trip to Morocco was a feast to the eyes for colour. Marrakesh makes everyone paint things the same colour by law, so the result is a dusty pink city with some glorious details of faded chipped paint and scuffy walls.










Then the majorelle gardens, final resting place of Yves St Laurent, are an oasis of green and blue amidst the faded pinks of the rest of the city. Look at these luscious bougainvilleas- and of course, the famous 'majorelle blue' trademarked by french artist Jaques majorelle. I do love that colour.

Booties for big feet

So I am reaching the capacity of my felting space. I thought since I'd mastered the art of little booties, I would have a go at some larger ones, but the template only just fits between the basin and the wall, which means for any feet bigger than about a 41/UK 7 1/2 I'd have to find somewhere else to felt. These take a serious 4-5 hours of hard work, you can't put them down and pick them up while making like knitting, it's best to do them all in one go, and by the end your arms ache! I use a square of ridged decking boards to work on, since you need some decent texture to make the fibres mesh together well. Hard work but well worth it. I reckon these are pretty lush, if I can say so myself... not a bad outcome from a pile of wool, soap, water, and elbow grease.

And to make them even better, I sewed some leather onto the soles, so that they don't wear out too quick. 5 layers of merino, these should provide their recipients with seriously toasty toes.

Treasures

So when you do a lot of digging, you find treasures sometimes.

Here's a selection of my favourite things Malcolm has found buried in the ground. He has his favourites too, and I leave for him to tell about those, but I like these ones, because to me they are like a little story, a literal fragment of something that used to belong to someone, somewhere, and was used by them many years ago. I wonder how old they are, and what they once looked like.

And then i wonder if they could be made into anything... maybe a mosaic in a one day garden.

Cardiganisation

What a word. It brings joy to my heart.

So... with my newly aquired powers of crochet, I saw a handy little tutorial on how to 'cardiganise' an old pullover. I have a bit of an (unhealthy?) obsession with cardigans.

They are just so verstile and layerable. Maybe it's from living in a climate where the weather changes in minutes, maybe it's because you can match colours really nicely with a cardigan. At present I am totally without that crucial wardrobe staple, a little black cardigan, so am being forced to range further in my choices of cardigans each day. This is a rather loud top I found in a Swiss charity shop... cardiganised!



I also have a habit of chopping the tops off things. I like necklines that you can show a scarf or necklace with, or that you can layer under other things. Usually I just leave the frayed edges raw, but now I can crochet them...



And finally.. I accidentally hot washed, tumbledried and ruined aforementioned little back cardigan. Twice. It is now unsalvagable, though its sleeves were cut off, crochet added and voila, arm warmers, which make me feel just a teensy bit less sad about its fate.

Singular

Valentines day is rolling up in all its tacky smultzy glory. I made an attempt to put together a little present for Malcolm, for which I was going to make a photo with six little square images of the two of us taken on our second wedding anniversary in October last year. But being rubbish at keeping secrets, and having never used the software I needed to use to do it... combined with the fact that Malcolm's computer is being fixed so he's using mine, and the fact that I cunningly called the photos valentines and they showed up in the recently used documents at the bottom of the screen all conspired to give the game away. And though I did take and edit the pictures myself, Malcolm ended up putting them together. We will get it printed and maybe mounted on MDF or something. Quite fun:



Having watched Malcolm use the GIMP editing software, maybe I will be able to use it myself next time!

I can't help but think of my single friends on valentines day. We don't live in a society that embraces singleness - particularly as you get older. One of the reasons (and there are many) that I really dislike romantic comedies is the way they perpetuate the myth to women that to be happy ever after, you need a man. Don't get me wrong, I love being married, and feel blessed everyday by having the husband that I do. Lots of research shows that married people on the whole tend to be happier. Having also lived though my first marriage breaking up, it's a pretty horrific process, and I have some idea of all the complexities involved in the decision to stay or not stay in a relationship, and the pain that's caused by relationships breaking down. What I object to is to romantic love being upheld as the one route to happiness, and singleness being seen as a second best alternative. I also think that the kind of thinking we are fed though rom-coms and TV and girly romance novels puts far to much expectation on one 'love' relationship to provide everything we need for love and happiness, almost as if couples live in some magic bubble that contains only themselves and where everything is perfect.

We've been avidly watching 'my big fat gypsy wedding', a brilliant series on the milestones in the life of Irish gypsys and travellers here in the UK. This culture seems to seriously buy into a paradigm of marriage being the ultimate aim in life, especially for women. If a woman not married by her early 20's she is considered on the shelf. Lots of emphasis is put on the wedding day, which must cost ludicrous amounts and seems to involve serious metres of pink or white lace, frills, diamantes and general bling. Little girls grow up dreaming of the day they will get married, and be a princess for a day. One episode looks at the life of these women outside of the wedding day. Many of them are taken out of school at an early age (12 or 13) to cook and clean and care for younger siblings, and then it is usual marry at 17 or 18, upon which they become a housewife. Whats the point in getting and education when your culture see it as shameful for the woman to be anything other than housewife. The thing that was most horrific to hear is that 50% of traveller women experience domestic violence in their marriages. In the UK 1 in 4 women experiences domestic violence in their lifetime. Happily ever after? I think not!

Anyway - what I want to say is I need friends in all walks of life. I can't think of much worse than only hanging out with other 'smug marrieds' (as I've heard the happily hitched referred to as). Real communities have people in all walks and ages and stages and relational 'status'. How can we learn from each other and share our lives in a meaningful way if we spend time only with those just like us? One relationship, no matter how wonderful it is doesn't take the place of a network of family relationships friendships and community. Singleness may be a season or it may be a decision (Shane Claiborne of 'the simple way' comes to mind as someone who has made a decision to be single in order to do what he feels God has called him to). I really hope that wherever we go and whatever we do in the world we would not ever exclude people or segregate ourselves along the basis of singleness (or for that matter marriedness). We need each other, folks! If you're feeling a little lonesome this valentines day, here's a little something that I hope lifts your spirits.. it's a beautiful song/ poem/ contemplation on the nature of being alone.

Bag lady

So I have a habit of carrying around mangy looking calico grocery bags, for my lunchbox, my waterbottle, my raincoat.... I've never quite managed to be a minimal traveller when when leaving the house only for the day and since I have loads of fabric, and old curtains, not quite big enough to make into clothing, and too lush to be left folded away, the obvious solution was to make some bags!

So I bought a pattern (shock horror - till this point I have been psychologically incapable of following patterns) made by the very talented loulabelle. The pattern is for a simple sling tote, lined, with a pocket inside. Long handles are useful cos you can easily wear a bag like that when you're biking about. It was also a very clear step by step instructions, which I need, because usually, I get to the first instruction that I don't understand, then I give in.





So I made three bags following the pattern, then being totally delighted with the results (and the fact I followed instructions), branched out a little and tried some different bags (sans instructions).

I made one for my knitting that was slightly larger and had two handles, and another two handled one in reddish fabric (since I'd already done green, brown and blue). Then I branched out and had a wee look online for other bag patterns and it turns out there are loads....





I tried this one, it looked easy enough, but I got totally flummuxed and my one looks nothing like the pattern one. sigh. Check out the awesome button I put on it though...


Finally, I made a case to hold my knitting needles to go in my new knitting bag, with some calico and a scrap of fabric I love so much. You simply roll it up like a giant knitting needle sushi and tie the ribbons tight.





For the record, this has been two weekends of mostly sewing - slightly intense but oh so satisfying. I don't know if anyone else is like this, but when I make something, I want to see in in a whole range of different colours and contrasts, and then that's all I can think about for a while, and I pull out my material and start matching it up until common sense takes hold again and I select just a few of the best ones and put the rest away. Slightly compulsive I think, but for now, bags are out of my system, until I try making a felt handbag (thinking along those lines soon)

homesick

Sometimes I really miss NZ, especially when it's so cold and dark.

Here's a poem:

New Zealand/Aotearoa

Are you my home?
Your wide clear day
showing up for bright green the grass
and for corrugated the fence
beside the field where children play.
Are you my home?
small square veined town
tarmac oozing in summer sun
blaring with pied piper ice cream vans.
Your valleys are cloaked in mysteries
of somber green
ornamented with hidden birds
darkly singing to the fathomless sky.
Your fields are flecked with wooley backed
land-maggots
clinging with all four feet
ceaselessly gnawing
at your outsides.
Your hills
lie stark and trembling
lashed to the bone
and waiting to be washed away
in the merciless rain.
No gentle beauty
No faded grandeur,
a narrow lock of land
hemmed by great sweeps of grey
fumbled relentlessly by the hands of the southern seas
scattered with the black bones of bonfires
you do not welcome me softly
with your too-cold wind
and your too-fierce sun
the thorn of your wildness snapped in my hand long ago
and I have left it there
a dark mark under my skin
so I wait
to feel your soil under my bare feet
for your wind to toss my hair into my face
for my heart to rise gleaming
like the tui
to the kowahi tree
and to speak
I am home again.

Stencils

I love street art, I always keep an eye out for it in new towns we visit.

We recently went down to London, and stayed with our brilliant friends Tim and Lucy, who organise a weekly session called 'make' on Sunday afternoons, open to anyone who wants to come along and make things together. The weekend we were there, their friend Ben who runs Graffiti workshops came along and taught us how to make stencils. We either drew our own pictures or got inspiration from magazines, tracing pictures out of them. Quite hard to do, as you have to imagine everything in reverse, as the bits you cut out are the bits that show up darker. Lots of fun. I will have to put my new skills to use, it's amazing what you can do with building up layers of texture. I also put to use the inside cut-outs of some of my stencils, like the teapot.

I think the tricks seemed to be - a sharp scalpel, cutting mats, stencil paper (strong and slightly waxy) and spraymount (spray on glue), which allows you to stick the stencil down flat before you spray it. You then wait a couple of seconds before peeling away the stencil, and you have your image.

Here are some pictures of the stencils I made. Unfortunately I never took any pictures of the boards we made up together- great collaborative art!