Today I'm all about high summer. I'm busy making jam. My kitchen is filled with the rich, almost floral, smell of Loganberries bubbling happily with some lemongrass for company in my big jam-making pot. I've been harvesting them every day and putting them in the freezer as they've ripened - until today when I've got 2 kg to make jam with. Outside my hollyhocks are blooming, the birds are singing and from time to time there's even a little bit of sunshine to add to the seasonal theme.
And I've finished another pincushion: what do you think?
It was a bit of a challenge getting that trim to do what I had in mind. It kept unravelling regardless of how I end-stitched it. In desperation I did what I'd have done if I'd been using it to trim an upholstered chair: I got some fabric glue - that dries clear - and used that to seal the cut ends so that they stopped fraying. And with a cunning combination of sewing and gluing, I got my trim to behave pretty much how I wanted it to.
I lost my mojo mid-week. I'm working on a project that I've really lost interest in. It's a striped cardigan for a little girl, but it's been really dragging as I've been finding other things so much more interesting and compelling. I love the red/ orange colour combination, and I've got some really sweet buttons from the Button Queen on Marylebone Lane, my go-to shop for buttons. I nailed my ears to the table, and made myself finish the first sleeve on Wednesday. When I'd finished I decided that the shape of the sleeve was all wrong, and my already-lagging enthusiasm for the knit imploded.
So I hit upon the brilliant idea of jollying myself along with an audio book. I've downloaded The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, which is a totally fascinating read - or listen-along, in my case.
Frankopan argues very convincingly against the Western-centric view of world history, which places Athens as the cradle from which civilisation emerged, with the Romans following on and developing what the Greeks had created, followed by the Catholic Church, as the ultimate successor to Imperial Rome, with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment as the next steps along the way. Instead he focuses on the importance of the great Persian Empire, and the civilisations of the Near East. He looks to the contributions from Egypt, from Jerusalem, Istanbul - or Constantinople as it was back in the day, and from further East.
Suffice it to say that it's making my s-l-o-w project tick along a little more acceptably ... . I've simply got to get it finished sometime soon as there are sooo many other things I want to get on to.
Anyway, that's all from me. Have a super-duper weekend!
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