Taking time to live well
March
MEND
BYO project party • Why we love a pie • Bare earth wisdom
How to patch things up • Tender tops & new shoots salads • Chai pancakes
Scrapheap sheds & lost gardens • Rhubarb tipple • Typewriter art
Loose ends
INVITE FRIENDS TO BRING ALONG A PROJECT THEY HAVE ON THE GO, FOR A CRAFTERNOON FILLED WITH FOOD, DRINKS AND THE ODD DROPPED STITCH
Recipes & styling: KAY PRESTNEY Photography: REBECCA LEWIS
Remember that cross stitch you started before Christmas? How about that quilt you’ve been meaning to finish off? The knitted jumper that was going so well until you dropped a couple of stitches and chucked it back in the cupboard? Or even something from the ‘to be mended’ pile? All makers have an unfinished project lurking somewhere, so why not gather a group of likeminded friends so you can finally complete that project (or at least move it on a little) and enjoy some good food, drinks and company at the same time.
Food needs to be easy so you can nibble as you craft (and chat, of course) so start with soup served in a mug before moving on to chicken skewers, spicy wedges and a feta dip that ’s so good it ’s in danger of distracting you once more. A pick-me-up is always a good idea to get you over the finish line, so tuck into pear and chocolate muffins before packing away and relaxing with an orange hot chocolate (as boozy – or not – as you fancy).
We’re betting this get-together proves so much fun it ’ll become a regular event in the diary, to work on existing projects or to learn something new. Either way, you can all help each other out and enjoy tying up loose ends. »
Dig out long-forgotten projects and gather around a table to spur each other on
– place your bets on which will be finished off first, the knitting or the skewers
SPRING ahead
ANGELA HARDING CAPTURES THE SEASON’S BEAUTY, WITH ARTWORKS THAT ARE RICH IN MEMORIES AND CELEBRATE THE JOYFUL UNFURLING OF NATURE
SPRING TULIPS AND LAMBS
(Linocut and silkscreen)
“Waking to see the first light of a spring morning is, for me, the best way to start a day. Our bedroom has a beautiful view of rolling hills, sheep fields and gardens. You can also just about see the top of my studio roof. Behind the studio, the fields slope down
to a valley with a small stream. On cool spring mornings, the drama of a 5am start is aided by bands of thin cloud that turn the trees into just visible fingers that poke through a curtain of fog. On these mornings, the colours are so beautiful: rose pinks slanting into slate grey and soft blues, a watery palette of softness that means it is going to be a beautiful day.”
CUCKOO
(Linocut and silkscreen)
“At one time, it was thought by the residents of the village of Marsden in Yorkshire that they could stop the return of winter by capturing a cuckoo. It’s a strange coincidence because my home village of Wing has the same myth. Because of this, the villagers of the past were known as ‘Wing Fools’. Perhaps this same story is being told in villages all around the UK.”
“BERT THE BLACKBIRD COCKS HIS HEAD TO ONE SIDE, THEN DARTS IN AT MY FEET TO COLLECT WORMS”
SPRING BLACKBIRD
(Linocut and silkscreen)
“In our garden we have a very tame male blackbird, named Bert. He is my gardening companion. When I’m digging, he will come so close you could almost touch him – he cocks his head to one side then, quick as a flash, darts in at my feet to collect worms and any other tasty thing he has spied in the soil. Bert has the remarkable ability to sing while still having a mouth full of food for his young. Male blackbirds look after their young for longer than the females. Bert is a great single dad.”
»
T ipping p oint
AS THE LAND BEGINS TO WAKE UP, RACHEL DE THAMPLE MAKES THE MOST OF THE SEASON’S SAPS, BUDS AND SHOOTS TO CREATE NOURISHING AND REVIVING DISHES AND DRINKS
Take a basket and head out for a day of foraging and fresh air. And if that wasn’t rewarding enough, you’ll have delicious ingredients to bring home and savour
Words: RACHEL DE THAMPLE Photography: ALI ALLEN
The energy rising with spring is reflected in the landscape’s shift from bare branches to buds of green. Beneath the trees are shoots and leaves unfurling. We can embrace this seasonal transition and enjoy the welcome arrival of an awakened palate as new food opportunities are teased out by the gentle warmth of sunnier, longer days. A foray outside becomes a chance to gather a few wild things for your dinner. A tonic in every sense.
Tree sap syrup
Branch out from store-bought maple syrup and discover the subtle sweetness of reduced tree saps from sycamore and birch. Birch is most commonly tapped in the UK but sycamore sap has a richer flavour as a simple sap and moves into delicious butterscotch territory when reduced to a syrup. To reduce sap, place it in a saucepan and boil until it thickens and darkens. If you’re reducing more
than 1 litre, the process can take about an hour. But note, this is a project, as it can take up to 5 litres of sap to make just 50ml of syrup (this is why you don’t see it commercially available – and the process will make you completely value the high price of pure maple syrup).
TAPPING THE SAP
You will need:
2 x 2 ltr bottles (or 1 x 5 ltr bottle) 1.5m-2m tube (about 19mm wide, or a width that nestles securely into your bottles)
A drill and a drill bit to match the width of your tube
Section of dowel plug to stop the sap flowing
1 Find a healthy tree with a wide (30cm circumference or larger) trunk and lots of growth. A tree with lots of space around it is best as it’s likely to produce more sap.
2 Look for cracks in the bark to see if you can see sap oozing from it –the best time is mid-February to mid-March, just as the temperature and sap start to rise.
3 Drill a hole in the tree about 1 metre up from the foot of the tree, and about 6mm deep.
4 Check that sap’s coming out of the hole – a droplet should form within 30 seconds. If you don’t see any sap after 1 minute, plug the hole with your dowel and return a few days later
5 Once you’ve established that the sap is running, drill the hole at a slightly upward angle, as wide as your tube and about 50mm deep. Clear any loose shavings from the hole. The sap should start flowing more readily at this stage.
6 Insert the tube about 10mm into the hole and place the other end into the bottle (trim the tube if it’s too long – the bottle should sit neatly and securely on the ground with the tube in a neat curve pouring down from the tree into the bottle.
7 Leave the bottle and tube for up to 24 hours (in which time, it’s possible to harvest up to 4 litres). After removing the tube, insert the dowel to fit neatly and tightly in the hole. »
HOME ECONOMICS
Patching and stitching
HANNAH PORTER SHOWS HOW TO REVIVE JEANS, SHIRTS AND OTHER WARDROBE STAPLES WITH SOME EMBROIDERY THREAD AND A BIT OF TIME, AND SHARES WAYS TO KEEP THESE HARD-WORKING ITEMS LOVED FOR LONGER, TOO
Photography: CATHERINE FRAWLEY
Patch ing things up
I’ve always found beauty in mending clothes. It was never an option to throw away when clothes get tired as I adore the process of upcycling and turning clothing into bespoke pieces. While my mending journey began with darning (see our Home Economics on Mending Woollens in TST148), as I began to research other interesting repair techniques, I learned about Japanese mending – Sashiko and Boro stitch – which can be worked on woven fabrics and looks great patchworked on to a holey pair of jeans. I discovered this was a more beginner-friendly way of repairing compared to darning and knew that I wanted to share my knowledge and skills of repair to teach others. Items made from woven fabrics are some of our hardest working – think of your favourite jeans, or cotton shirts, worn so many times they’re showing signs of being loved. However, they can be fixed in creative ways that celebrate their imperfections. These are ways to care for them that either help them to last longer or give them a new look. There are so many other ways to improve your clothes in a few hours, tatty hems can be smartened up with crochet, new buttons can be added to change the style of a piece of clothing. Whatever you do, take your time, and get settled with a cuppa and something to listen to while you stitch.
WOVEN WORKBOOK
MEND: Satin & Boro stitch patching
MAKE-DO: Sashiko, Blanket stitch, crochet-hem jeans
STASH: Buttons
CARE: Washing well
YOUR TOOLS
Pair of snips/fabric scissors
Box of dressing pins
Sewing needle/Sashiko needle
100% cotton embroidery thread
Scrap fabric of any woven fabric cut into rectangles
Fabric pen (wash out)
Sashiko design templates (you’ll find lots on etsy.com)
Embroidery hoop
Wool
4.5mm crochet hook
Tape measure or ruler
Home economics needn’t mean stretching the monthly budget while being tied to our work baskets – it can mean a new way of thinking about our wardrobes and homes, honing our skills and caring for our things so they last. Reviving timehonoured wisdom about household management means valuing all our resources: time, materials and the money we invest in them. And it makes us feel good, too.
LOST FOUND
&
ALL GARDENS AWAKE IN SPRING. BUT SOME HAVE SLUMBERED LONGER, GIVING THEM STORIES AND MAGIC UNIQUELY THEIR OWN
Words: SANDRA LAWRENCE
Illustrations: LUCILLE CLERC
Gardens fall into shadow. Nature’s greatest desire is to reclaim its own and humans can only hold back the inevitable for as long as they care enough to fight. Wildlife, weather, weeds, pestilence, conflict and, that most cruel of destroyers, fashion, can obliterate a garden in mere months.
Lost gardens and civilizations fascinate us, and always have: Atlantis, El Dorado, Shambhala, Avalon. One of the Seven Wonders of the World was a lost garden, and John Milton’s hugely influential Paradise Lost describes the ultimate lost garden, Eden. Fake classical temples in 18th century gardens, often built as ruins, represented the lost Arcadia of ancient Greek mythology. A broken garden represents nothing less than our own lost innocence, a hazy past when everything was better.
Part of the romance of buried treasure is in knowing there is more out there to be discovered. Horticultural wonders lie sleeping, their grottos filled-in, their exotic species choked, their walls crumbled. But some – often thanks to the passion, persistence and hard graft of volunteers – are being brought back to life. Here are a magnificent seven gardens, some once lost, but now found and open to visitors.
THE ITALIAN GARDEN AT GREAT AMBROOK, DEVON
A retreat from late-Victorian society, designed to be both private and beautiful.
The son of a wealthy merchant, ‘loner’ Arthur Smith Graham bought Great Ambrook in 1899 and made a retreat for himself and his friends, somewhere they could be themselves. Graham was gay, and in late-
Victorian society, homosexuality was a serious offence. His Italian Garden was surrounded on three sides by drystone walls up to 4.5m in height, yet with a terrace and two-storey summerhouse presenting 360-degree views. Swimming pools, cisterns and small dipping pools brought coolness. Stone paths edged with tiny rills filled the air with the constant tinkling of running water. After Graham’s death, subsequent owners continued to look after the garden until the late 1940s. But by the 1960s, when Ken and Doris Rees bought the
estate’s coach house, they at first had no idea they also owned an Italian Garden beneath the encroaching vegetation. They began uncovering their strange treasure from the late 1980s, but after Ken died, the garden fell back into slumber.
In 2020, new owners inspired a group of volunteers to work with them on making the structures safe and protected from further damage. Now an asset for the whole community and inclusive of all, today’s garden is something of which Graham would have approved. »
FLOWERS IN THE HOUSE
Bringing blooms indoors: it’s what every home needs
Primroses
It’s easy to think the name of these flowers comes from them being ‘prim’. Although they’re neat and petite, the root of the word is actually from the Latin prima, meaning ‘first’, as primroses are some of the earliest blooms of spring. Celebrate the increasingly sunny days by bringing a pot indoors, or pick a few for a small vase. According to folklore, primroses placed in a doorway keep faeries away, but there are few things more welcoming than a bowlful of these sunny little blooms.
COMING IN ALL SHAPES, SIZES AND TASTY COMBINATIONS, THERE’S A PIE OUT THERE FOR PICNIC OR PARTY, HANDY LUNCH OR HEARTY DINNER. HERE ARE SOME FAVOURITES FROM THE SIMPLE THINGS
“I love walking along the canal. You see kingfishers, and, in the spring, there’s always a pair of swans that build a huge nest in the reeds to raise their cygnets,” says Lou, who loves to stroll around the town. Dower House Coffee (right) makes a great resting spot for Lou on market day.
MY NEIGHBOURHOOD
MOVING TO A HISTORIC MARKET TOWN HELPED LOU RICHARDSON CREATE AN IDEAL PLACE TO WORK WHILE ALSO FINDING A BALANCE BETWEEN RURAL LIVING AND CITY LIFE
Words: LOU O’BRYAN Photography: SIOBHAN DORAN
Lou runs her stationery business from a Scandiinspired garden studio, however, she takes care to enjoy a good work/life balance, with plenty of trips into town to enjoy the shops, eateries and beautiful views
MY PLOT
Building a sanctuary
FROM REPURPOSED WINDOWS TO POTATO SACK CURTAINS, SCRAP MATERIALS SAVED FROM THE TIP HAVE BROUGHT JOY TO AN ALLOTMENT AND A NEWFOUND LOVE OF GARDENING
Words & photography: REBECCA BOULTER
Looking for room to grow, Rebecca Boulter took on an allotment in north Norfolk, and – using reclaimed materials and her partner’s building know-how – created a shed that provides storage space, a refuge from the elements and also, ahem, a ‘powder’ room. More than that, it’s the centre of their plot – a place to plan and plant, to warm up with a flask of tea, and to chat with neighbours. Follow Rebecca on Instagram: @becksboulter
Story so far
My childhood home had a lovely big garden, to which my parents were devoted. Rows and rows of veg, colourful flowerbeds, fruit bushes and fruit trees. I’d love to tell you my passion for gardening started there, but no, gardening was “boring!” (like Radio 4, and tea). I much preferred smashing it to pieces with wayward footballs.
But eventually it happened. As I tiptoed into middle age (to the soundtrack of Radio 4’s You And Yours), a passion for gardening was unlocked. In 2021, I moved from London to north Norfolk, and into a lovely cottage with a cute courtyard garden. After a year, the plant pot situation was out of
control, space for humans was diminishing, and it was time to expand. But how? Where?
Step in Bill and Joe, two lovely old boys my partner Charlie and I had befriended in our local, both experienced allotmenteers who suggested we take on a plot of our own. What we inherited was essentially a large field in which a crop of couch grass had been thriving, hiding the ridges and furrows below. Mowing was impossible. Navigation was tentative. Ankles were harmed. We began by creating no-dig beds for brassicas, salads, beans, sweetcorn, root veg and cut flowers – nothing too difficult. And in the centre, tantalisingly, a space was cleared… a place for our potting shed.
Rebecca’s potting shed is the beating heart of her plot, and a cosy sanctuary from which to map out her planting schemes, including her prize-winning dahlias, safely guarded by Nelson the cocker spaniel
