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First published 2024 by: Bustle & Sew Station House West Cranmore Shepton Mallet BA4 4QP
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WelcometotheOctoberMagazine
Two weeks ago we were in Corfu, having left England while it was still summer, or so it seemed. The evenings had not yet darkened, the leaves were heavy and green upon the trees and though the conkers were beginning to fall from the horse chestnuts in our garden, they were still quite small and there were not very many. We returned this weekend to autumn as, while we were away, the year had turned without us. Now the conkers are falling thick and fast, their green prickly cases bursting open to reveal plump shiny nuts, the daylight fades earlier each day, and there is even talk of lighting the stove this weekend should the rain continue.
All of this means of course, that Christmas is just over the horizon, and before that comes Hallowe'en, so there's plenty to occupy us indoors over the next few weeks. This month's Bustle & Sew Magazine includes projects for both these festive occasions as well as some more autumn-inspired designs. I particularly enjoyed stitching the Chinese Lantern Plant (Physalis) notebook cover which I think works well as a pair with the Bugs and Blossoms cover from the August Magazine.
Both of these would make great gifts for lucky loved ones! As well as the usual six projects, this month in the last of our short series on orchard fruits we look at the "Forbidden Fruit" - the apple of course, I share some tips for embroidering on clothes, take a look at the anatomy of the embroidery hoop and much more besides. I do hope you’ll enjoy this month’s issue, both the projects and the articles.
The November edition will be published on Thursday 31 October, in FIVE weeks time. Until then…
Very best wishes
October
October brings beautiful glowing colours to our hedgerows - jewel bright hips, haws and berries festoon the increasingly ragged looking bushes and trees whose arching stems and scrambling ivy create a haven for wildlife, including the noisy chattering sparrows that visit the feeders in our garden every day. I am especially pleased to see these little birds, so common and so familiar in my childhood as they are becoming increasingly hard to find - rather like the hedgehog, whose numbers have plummeted in the last few years.
There are some late fruits at this time of year that traditionally need to feel the frost to be at their best. Damson and medlar are two examples..
Sloes, the blackthorn berry, should also be harvested for sloe gin after the first frost in October though, with the warming climate in recent years waiting for a frost in October may be pointless. Sloe is a native fruit that has been consumed in quantity in this country since the Iron Age. They are also a staple food of winter birds and so, if any remain on the hedgerows, they will be eaten by the song thrush, mistle thrush, blackbird, fieldfare, and redwing.
Here in England, October is the main month for applepicking and cider-making. To promote the growing and eating of traditional British varieties, 21 October has been celebrated as Apple day since1990. Events organised on or around this date include guided tours of orchards, apple tastings and advice sessions for fruit growers as well as fun activities such as contests to produce the longest unbroken pieces of peel from a single apple. The introduction of Apple Day led directly to the rediscovery of many apple varieties thought to have been extinct, as well as inspiring Damson Day in Westmorland, Plum Day in Worcestershire, Pear Day in South Yorkshire and others.
From the Wind in the Willows, 1908 by Kenneth Grahame
Halloween: TheWitching Hour
Your Embroidery Hoop
An embroidery hoop is made up of a pair of rings that fit tightly inside one another when the mechanismusually a metal screw - on the larger ring is tightened. Embroidery hoops come in various sizes and are generally small enough to hold with one hand and work with the other. Hoops were originally made of wood, bone, or ivory while modern versions are manufactured from wood or plastic.
Unless you are working with materials that may be crushed or damaged by your hoop you don’t have to choose a large hoop that your whole piece of work will fit inside as it’s normally possible to move your hoop around as you complete different parts of the design. A smaller hoop is generally easier to handle and will keep your fabric more taut than a larger one. You should always remove your hoop from your work if you won’t be stitching for
a while to avoid it permanently marking your work.
Hoops are generally available in sizes ranging in one inch increments from 4 inch to 12 inch diameter. If your work is smaller than the hoop you have available then don’t despairthere is a good way to make it fit.
Simply find some spare fabric that fits your hoop and baste your work into the centre quite firmly. Back stitch works well for this. Place the inner ring of your hoop on a clean flat surface and place your fabric on top face up with the embroidery on the top.
Loosen the screw on the outer ring and press it down over the fabric. Tighten the screw, pulling your fabric taut. Now turn your work over and with a pair of small sharp scissors trim away the spare fabric from the back of the area you want to embroider.
You can remove the remaining fabric from your work by snipping the back stitches when your project is finished.
The best hoops are made from a quality close-grain beech wood that’s been steamed and bent into a circle. My preference is for Elbesee hoops made here in the UK. Whatever you use, don’t be tempted by cheap bamboo hoops as these don’t hold your work securely and aren’t very nice to work with. As I’ve grown older I’ve also begun to find that bamboo hoops feel too heavy in my hand for comfortable stitching.
Goodfoodand warmth…
Early October brings that glorious last vivid display before nature falls into its long winter sleep and brilliant colour becomes a rare sight in the British countryside. All around the fields are ploughed and bare, whilst birds, squirrels and other wildlife are making the most of the wild harvest by stocking their winter larders before the cold weather arrives.
In the hedgerows the field maple waves orange and red banners, the leaves of wild cherry glow like fire, the sycamore dons a scarlet cloak and the countryside is vibrant with autumn berries and fruits. But this display doesn’t last forever, as soon the leaves will begin to fall and lanes, lawns and woods will wear a picturesque carpet of autumn colours.
The first frosts may well arrive this month, though this is less likely than in my childhood, growing up in the sixties and seventies in rural Warwickshire. I remember my dad, who grew a lot of his own vegetables, telling me that you shouldn’t pull your parsnips until they’d experienced at least one good frosting, this, he said, helped turn the starches to sugar and ensured they’d be nice and sweet. It was a fine balance though, as if the frost was too hard he wouldn’t be able to dig them out of the ground in time for our Sunday lunch!
October is a good time of year to begin planting out garlic, which does need a period of cold weather in order to grow well. Planting in the autumn also enables the roots to take
advantage of the summer’s warmth remaining in the soil to develop and become strong before the plants puts out leaves in the spring.
Garlic is very easy to grow, requiring very little attention when grown in the right conditions. Although it's best to plant garlic from bulbs specifically grown as seed stock, you can also grow usable bulbs from some grocery store garlic. The garlic found in grocery stores may not feature the high quality or disease resistance of seed garlic, but it will usually sprout and produce bulbs.
Pumpkins hog the limelight in October and are perhaps most familiar when carved into lanterns, to brighten doorsteps with their spooky faces, but are also delicious, nourishing and easy to cook too! Baked slowly in the oven, their hard rind will soften and their interiors transform into a buttery mash. No need to boil - just scoop out the seeds and discard them. Season the flesh with salt and freshly ground black pepper, put a large knob of butter in each and sprinkle over some freshly grated nutmeg. Most squash and pumpkins are interchangeable in recipesapart from spaghetti squash - so experimenting with unfamiliar varieties is fun!
Don't forget less showy seasonal fare however! Celebrate the game season with slow-cooked pheasant, wild mushrooms and hearty root vegetables.
Method
PumpkinSoup Ingredients
● 2 tbsp olive oil
● 2 onions, finely chopped
● 1kg pumpkin or squash (try kabocha), peeled, deseeded and chopped into chunks
● 700ml vegetable stock or chicken stock
● 150ml double cream
● 2 tbsp olive oil
● 4 slices wholemeal seeded bread, crusts removed
● handful pumpkin seeds
● Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large saucepan, then gently cook 2 finely chopped onions for 5 mins, until soft but not coloured.
● Add 1kg pumpkin or squash, cut into chunks, to the pan, then carry on cooking for 8-10 mins, stirring occasionally until it starts to soften and turn golden.
● Pour 700ml vegetable or chicken stock into the pan and season with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 mins until the squash is very soft.
● Pour 150ml double cream into the pan, bring back to the boil, then purée with a hand blender. For an extra-velvety consistency you can pour the soup through a fine sieve. The soup can now be frozen for up to 2 months.
● To make the croutons: cut 4 slices wholemeal seeded bread into small squares.
● Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan, then fry the bread until it starts to become crisp.
● Add a handful of pumpkin seeds to the pan, then cook for a few mins more until they are toasted. These can be made a day ahead and stored in an airtight container.
● Reheat the soup if needed, taste for seasoning, then serve scattered with croutons and seeds and drizzled with cream if you want.
● 4 big scoops good quality vanilla ice cream, to serve
● Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Using a sharp knife, score a line around the equator of each apple. Put them into a baking dish with a small splash of water in the bottom.
● In a bowl, combine the ginger, cinnamon, prunes and sugar. Stuff the mixture into the apples so that they are well packed. Top each with a knob of butter and bake for 35-40 mins, or until cooked through. To test, pierce with a sharp knife – it should slide straight through. The apples can be cooked up to a day ahead, then warmed through in the oven or microwave before eating.
● Remove from the oven and baste the apples with the liquid left in the dish. Serve hot or warm with the ice cream.
TheForbidden Fruit
God pointing out the apple tree to Adam and Eve. Illustration dated 1445
Many, if not most, children’s (English) alphabets choose the apple as the image to accompany the first letter of the alphabet - indeed Kate Greenaway used the image of an apple pie for her complete alphabet book - from which the images on the right are taken.
This, the third and final instalment in our series about orchard fruit takes the apple as its subject, and I’m sure that if you asked most people what fruit they most associate with orchards then their answer would be “apples.” This shouldn’t be too surprising as they are the most commonly grown orchard fruit in northern Europe and hold an important place in Western culture. As well as the English and Americans (as American as apple pie is a very well known saying!) Many other nations love apples too, think of French apple brandy (Calvados), Belgian fruit beers or the German appefelstrudel.
Although they may not have grown in the Garden of Eden, apples have been around for a very long time. It seems most likely however that they originated somewhere in, or near, present-day Kazakhstan. The name of its capital, Almaty, can actually be translated as “the City of the Apples.”
In Genesis 3, a serpent tempts the woman, Eve, who eats of the forbidden fruit and gives some to Adam who also eats. They become aware of their nakedness and make fig-leaf clothes, and hide themselves when God approaches. When confronted, Adam tells God that Eve gave him the fruit to eat, and Eve tells God that the serpent deceived her into eating it. God then curses the serpent, the woman, then the man, and expels them all from the Garden of Eden.
In Western Europe, the fruit was often depicted as an apple, but there is nothing in the Bible indicating that the apple was indeed the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge.
● I added a tiny white stitch over the black eyes to add a little bit of life and sparkle.
● Add the black socks to the outside of the legs. I do this last as I find them a bit fiddly to add, and prone to becoming damaged and detached during the wiring and stuffing process.
● Finally stand your fox up - you may need to twist or bend him slightly to make sure his paws stand four-square on the floor.
