Crochet a Shamrock for St. Patrick ...

Are you in some far-flung part of the world where Shamrocks are pretty scarce on the ground? What to do? How to get one for St. Patrick's Day (17th March - this Monday!)?

Rest easy. I have the solution. You can crochet one!

How does this look? And it's super easy-peasy to make.

Crochet Shamrock

Here's what you need:

A little bit of left-over green wool in 4 ply
3 mm crochet hook
darning needle
very small safety pin

Here's a crochet map of how to do it:

By way of explanation, the terms used are American terms. Ch for Chain is, I believe, universal. SC is Single Crochet in America, but in Britain it's called Double Crochet. Tr is Treble Crochet in America, but it's called  Double Treble Crochet in Britain.

Here's what to do:

1. Start off with a sliding loop: wrap the yarn a couple of times round your left index finger (if you're right handed like me - or the other way round if you're left handed) keeping the dead end of the yarn closest to your wrist.

Row 1

2. Work a slip stitch with the working end of the yarn through the loop.
3. Ch 1. SC 8 into the loop and join with a slip stitch into the first Ch 1. Be really careful to work clean stitches in this round without splitting the yarn as it's easy to get it knotted when you come to tighten the circle in step 4.
4. Gently pull the dead end of the yarn to tighten the loop and close the circle in the centre.

It should look like this: -

Row 2

5. SC, Ch 3 and Tr 1 into first SC of last round. Tr 1 into next SC. Ch 3 and join with a SC to the same stitch that you did the last Tr into. SC into next stitch. *Ch 3. Tr into next stitch. Tr into following stitch. Ch 3 and join to the same stitch as last Tr with a SC. SC into next stitch.* Repeat from * to* once more. SC into next stitch. Ch 7 to make the stem of the Shamrock and cast off.

It should look something like this:

6. Now you need to attach your safety pin. Place it on the wrong side of the Shamrock and sew the harbour pin (the one that doesn't have a pointy tip) to the Shamrock, like so:

And now you're all set for the big day!


Bonny x

Random Friday: 5 things that made me smile this week

By way of explanation: spring has finally arrived in London - hurrah! As a result this week's 5 random things are perhaps not very random; they're all a bit sun-related.

Post box and cherry blossom in West London

1. Breakfast in the sunshine

My weekday mornings are usually a hectic speed-fest. I always seem to be racing just to keep my head above the waterline. My son, Emi, has to be fed, turned out in his best bib-and-tucker and magicked off to the school gate before 8:30 a.m., the dog has to be walked and fed, and my husband usually has some early morning crisis that demands my input. So by the time I get back home I feel as though I've done a day's work already. But the thing that picks me up is my home-made granola with a good cup of extra-strong black coffee, which I've been able to enjoy in the sunshine on my kitchen terrace. Sublime me-time!

If you'd like to make my granola; it's super, super easy, and you can find my recipe here: Mulberry Granola Recipe

2. Spring flowers

A4 Daffodils

After the long, grey slog of winter I'm really enjoying the colour or our wonderful spring flowers. Right now we've got drifts of daffodils all over Ealing, which are making me feel very Wordsworthy - drifting lonely as a cloud ... and all that .

The daffodil is the great everywhere/ anywhere flower in England. They pop up all over the shop. Just look at these beauties growing on the verge of the A4, the main artery into London from the West.

Also, throughout the month of March we have the wonderful Camellia Festival in nearby Chiswick House. I trolleyed over there last week and was delighted by the blossoms on the two-hundred year-old camellia trees. The Middlemist's Red (which is pink) was imported in 1804, and I'm entranced as much by the romantic history of the tree as by its wonderful pink flowers. If you'd like to read some more about the camellia collection, I wrote a little bit about it here: Chiswick House Camellia Festival

Middlemist's red: 200 year-old camellia, Chiswick House Conservatory

3. Driving with the roof down. 

It finally feels as though spring has sprung, and we've been enjoying driving around with the roof down - yeah!

4. Long, lazy walks along the Thames

Maxi (the black, fluffy chap with the button nose in the photo above) and I went on an all-morning walk along the Thames tow path the other day. We took some friends, had lunch in one of the lovely little pubs with a riverside deck on the Hammersmith embankment, and it was awesome. I'll write a post about it next week for anyone who'd like to do a really good Boat Race walk. And, yes, the Oxford/ Cambridge Boat Race is coming up very soon (Sunday 6th April). Come on the Light Blues!

'Ello! Would you like to be my friend?

Hammersmith Bridge

5. A Haircut 

On account of the rising mercury it seemed appropriate that Maxi should have a haircut. He was panting a bit with the heat, so this morning he kept his appointment at the local doggy beauty parlour. He went from looking like this:

to looking like this:

I'm not sure that he's totally sold on the nice bow.

Wishing you all a great weekend,

Bonny x

signs of the times ...

So what's going on here?

Health and Safety gone mad?

Newly-discovered species of man-eating tree?

Homicidal gardener with a death-wish against anyone who gets in his way?

We stayed safely on the other side of the fence,

Bonny x        

Stange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance at the National Gallery

I toddled along to have a look at this exhibition yesterday. It's interesting for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is the art.

They say that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and one of the themes that the exhibition explores is how, here in Britain, there has been a general prejudice against German art. It is suggested that the strained relations between the two countries over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in the wake of the First and Second World Wars, is partly to blame for this attitude.

Also in operation is our love affair with the Italian Renaissance - Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, anyone? And our, in my view, unfair perception that the German Renaissance was its poor relation. Anyone of that way of thinking should make straight for room 4 of the exhibition, which displays the works of Hans Holbein (the younger), Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach (the elder).

As a counterpoise to all this negativity there must have been a period when the art of the Northern Renaissance and the German Reformation struck a real chord with the English people. After Henry VIII became head of the English Church and led his people away from Rome I'd have expected there to have been a certain sympathy for the German Masters and perhaps even a shared Protestant aesthetic. Perhaps this underlies the emergence of Hans Holbein as the official court painter to Henry VIII, and his enduring popularity here in England, borne in no small measure of his iconic depiction of his patron king. Included in the exhibition is his exquisite miniature painting of Anne of Cleves, which played its part in paving the way for Henry's disastrous marriage to a woman that he never found comely. 

The final room of the exhibition is interactive, allowing visitors to vote and leave comments on how they feel about what they have seen. I hope that the National Gallery will let us know the general consensus in the fullness of time, and I hope it will show us to be more open-minded than the trustees of the gallery were way back in 1856 when they sold 37 early Westphalian works from the Krüger collection on the basis that they did not fit in with 'the present state of the gallery'.

The exhibition is running in the Sainsbury Wing until 11th May.

Enjoy!

Bonny x

Top 5 dog walks in West London: # 1 Chiswick House Gardens

Now that the sun is shining, the sap is rising and the skies are blue I thought I'd make a list of my top 5 dog walks here in sunny West London.

Yesterday, in the glorious spring sunshine, we managed a quick jaunt over to Chiswick House, which is one of my favourite places to go for a walk. Let me be clear on this one: I totally, absolutely, love the gardens there. I love the contrived formality of their statuary, I love the pretty lake with the woodland walk and the modern cafe, where they make great cappuccinos and leave out bowls of water for the dogs. I love that everyone else is there with their dog, and I love that they make it really clear where the dogs are allowed to go and when they're supposed to be on a short lead, a long lead or are free to go rollicking around at their whim. It's brilliant!

Chiswick House

The villa, finished in 1729, was built by Lord Burlington to show off his art collection and act as a venue for some stonkingly good soirées.  As originally conceived it had no bedrooms. Its sole raison d'être was to function as a party palace. His Lordship had been on the Grand Tour, fallen in love with the work of Andrea Palladio, and then decided to build Chiswick House as a homage to the Master.

He set to work with William Kent, and they created the villa with its beautiful gardens, out of which the English Landscape movement was born.

Serpentine Lake, Chiswick House Gardens, London

Lord Burlington was also a great admirer of the seventeenth century architect, Inigo Jones. In 1738 he acquired this gateway that had been designed by Jones for Beaufort House in Chelsea. It was re-assembled here at Chiswick and now leads grandly out to the Italian Garden.

Gateway designed by Inigo Jones, Chiswick House Gardens

Did you see the Duchess starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes? Maybe you've read Amanda Foreman's brilliant book about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, on which the movie was based.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

Well, this is where Georgiana held her very best parties. Back then they built wings with sleeping accommodation so that they could stay overnight, but these were knocked down in the 1950's to bring the building back to its original form.

Georgiana described Chiswick House as 'my earthly paradise'.

Chiswick House

Walking around yesterday in the sunshine I saw exactly what she meant. There were loads of other people and their dogs gambolling around enjoying the opportunity to swap their overcoats and scarves for flip flops and T-shirts. The lovely weather was infectious and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

We ambled around the lake, crossing Georgiana's classic bridge, built by her husband, the fifth Duke.

Classic Bridge, Chiswick House

Did you notice the little coots building their nest in front of the bridge?

Coots nesting in Chiswick House Gardens

Georgiana's son, who became known as the Bachelor Duke when he failed to take a wife, built the magnificent conservatory and the Italian garden when he inherited the estate from his father.

The grand conservatory, Chiswick House

The Bachelor Duke was an avid camellia collector, and if you visit during the month of March you can go and visit his historic collection of camellias while they are in bloom. I have written more about the Camellia Festival here: Camellia Festival.

I always enjoy the contrast between the formality of the statue lawn bounded by the Exedra hedge, and the informality of the landscaped parkland dreamt up as a more perfect version of the natural world than Mother Nature ever conceived.

I admire the beautiful ladies from Venus on her pedestal, struggling to cover her modesty in the Rosary Garden ...

Venus in the Rosary Garden, Chiswick House Gardens

... to the Sphinxes on the gateposts ...

... to the sculpted Terms in the inner courtyard.

The face of a sculpted Term, Chiswick House Gardens

And then in the quiet moments, when my family race on ahead without me, I enjoy letting my imagination run free to conjure up some of the splendid parties that happened here all those years ago. The Prince of Wales (later George IV), the Shah of Iran, two Tsars of Russia (Alexander I and Nicholas I), Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the Kings of Prussia and Saxony and an assortment of Whig party big-wigs have all wandered idly here in the sunshine of long-forgotten summer afternoons, smelling the flowers and admiring the views. Musicians have played for their entertainment, the most exquisite delicacies have been laid on for their consumption, garlands of flowers have been woven through the branches of the trees and exotic animals have been imported for them to marvel at. And sometimes, when you're here late on a summer evening and there's a hint of dusk dropping down on the quiet air, you can almost catch the echo of their laughter: a ripple through time from a lavish soirée all those years' ago.

Anyway, enough whimsy: if you'd like to go for a ramble around my favourite stomping ground you can download a site-plan here: Site map for visitors

The closest underground stations are Chiswick Park and Turnham Green.

If you come by car there's a convenient car-park just off the A4. It's pay-and-display and, from experience, the traffic attendants are pretty quick to give you a ticket should your time run out. They also get a bit twitchy and ticket-tastic if you don't park in one of the outlined squares. Parking on the grass or the cobbles is a no-no unless you're in the business of collecting parking fines. Here's the info sign so that you can come with the right coins to pay the meter.

  Happy hound-walking,

Bonny x