A Study in Bartlett

Dear Mom,

Three weeks ago I started taking a watercolor class. I'd been playing around on my own and having fun pretending to be Susan Branch. Let me stop right here and say that painting, drawing and ART are not things I was ever good at, or even considered doing for fun. Bonnie Jo was always the artist of us kids. Anyway, here I am, 54 years old, and learning a new trick. And very surprised that this is the trick I am learning.

I am challenged. Completely outside my comfort zone. Stretching my brain. And having fun. I don't have any realistic aspirations to be a famous artist. Only imaginary ones.  I also don't consider myself very competitive, but I caught myself realizing that I didn't want to be the worst one in the class. It didn't take me long to go from "This will be fun! I have No Expectations!" to " uhoh. what if i can't do this." to "Oh Yes. You can and you will and you will Figure It Out. Dammit."

So last weekend I buckled down and practiced painting pears.

Maybe I am in denial about this competitive thing.

After the first class, Cindy, our teacher, sent us home with a picture of a pear to try painting. I painted a few pears. They were not very good.

There were more. These are the best ones. I am trying to learn "value".  About all I can say about these is that I am rather pleased with the stem on the pear on the far left.
 Clearly drawing is a whole 'nother issue, and one I probably shouldn't try tackling while I am pretending to be a watercolor artist, so on Saturday I traced a whole peck of pears and started painting and trying to get my "values" right.

I may have an obsessive compulsive disorder. A noncompetitive passive obsessive compulsive disorder. NCPOCD.

I painted seven pears on Saturday.

My Pear Period
February 2015

I experimented. I think I am getting better. Or I think they look better because the shapes are traced and uniform.
My teacher said I could graduate to pomegranates or apples or something. I decided to try cherries.

These are not quite right. I feel more cherries will be painted before I am satisfied. Those leaves are pitiful.
I also tried painting a cake. I think I will not be painting any more cakes for awhile.
Yesterday I started a series of tea cups.
I am telling you they are tea cups so you'll know what they are and not have to pretend.

And speaking of tea cups…
About a month ago I ordered a special tea trio from an etsy shop. It arrived yesterday, having travelled all the way from Ireland. I fell in love with this china pattern while watching Larkrise to Candleford.
Dorcas Lane has a hutch filled with Royal Doulton "Countess" china.

Look at the beautiful detail on the handle! Tea time just got even more special.

Love,
Kim

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Dear Mom,
Yoohoo!
A Victoria Sandwich cake is fresh out of the oven!

Won't you come and join me for tea?
I used This Recipe, but put the batter into two 6-inch cake pans and baked them at 375 for 25-30 minutes. For the filling I used the home-made strawberry jam which My Hero declared "too sweet", and rather than adding more sugar I blended the jam with a stick of butter. Worked and tasted just fine.
Keep Warm!
Love,
Kim

Enjoying Life's Detours

Dear Mom,
We left for our scheduled haircut appointments on Saturday morning, thinking we might stop for lunch on the way home.  A rare day with Nothing else planned. We had an entire sun shining Saturday before us. Before we knew it the shadows were getting long and it was time to be home, tucked in for the evening. The hours had flown by.
We discovered a new (to us) tea room and had a delicious lunch in a charming atmosphere,

surrounded by tea pots and anglophile delights.

Our Derbyshire chicken salad sandwiches were perfect with our pot of Prince of Wales tea

 and we strategically ordered two desserts to share: an orange scone (with clotted cream and lemon curd) and an almond-y tart that I can't remember the name of…. a Bakewell Tart maybe?… so we could taste both. I purchased the owner's Scone Recipe Book and baked blueberry scones on Saturday night. This afternoon I baked cranberry scones. The recipes in this book are easy to follow, with simple basic ingredients, and the recipes yield about 1/2 dozen scones- which is a nice amount to bake and enjoy. I managed to get 8 scones out of today's batch.

After lunch we strolled a couple of blocks to a favorite antique mall and browsed the afternoon away, hunting and finding treasures. I brought home some editions of Tom Swift for My Hero's collection, a set of six coaster-sized, crocheted doilies and two things I'd been keeping a look out for.
The first is a lowly old potato masher. I had My Hero hang it on the side of the cabinet next to the sink. It now functions as a very capable dish towel hanger.

And the second "treasure" is a very old, somewhat beat up but still in working order, scale. For a long while now I've thought a scale would be an interesting "something" on my kitchen island. This one had a handsome face and was the right price. I laid a crocheted doily on it, a domed plate on top of that and my scones have a keeping place.

I think a small flower pot with ivy or herbs would look nice balanced on the scale, too. The little checked tin next to the scale was a previous antiquing find. It is an old lunch box with a previous owner's name scratched into the lid. We use it to hold Olive's dog biscuits.

 “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” 

― William Morris

Our Saturday together and lunch last Thursday in the warm home of a new friend/kindred spirit have gone a long way to re-awaken, affirm, and invigorate my love of home and home-making, the importance of hospitality and the joy in life's simple pleasures.

“The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” 
― William Morris

 “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

― Maya Angelou

Love, 

Kim

Winter Weary

Dear Mom,
Okay. We've all had enough. I've lost track of how many school days need to be made up. I think we can probably count the number of FULL school days in January on one hand. And I am not sure that any of those have happened consecutively. I hope the Young Lady's Sophomore year ends before her Junior year starts.
The thought of double digits sounds warm. Strike that. The sound of temps above zero sounds warm. Double digits might feel tropical at this point. We will not be discussing wind chill.

At least the sun is shining. And snow is sparkly.

In the meantime…..

THIS is THAT Sweater is on the needles. I have my iPod loaded with good books.

I wound a warp and started dressing Donna Reed with a new ( and hopefully more successful) napkin project yesterday.

Fresh flowers were delivered over the weekend, from a thoughtful friend….

and My Hero brought more home last night to celebrate my birthday.

For variety's sake, I have a shawl in the works with some handspun yarn. This is pure comfort knitting.

My first needle punch project is back from the framer. I was unsuccessful in finding a new project at any local shops. Very discouraging. Especially, after calling my NOT FAVORITE quilt shop (name withheld to protect the guilty) and was told "Yes, we have needle punch" only to drive the 30 minutes ONE WAY and discover that they literally had the punch needles and NOTHING ELSE. As if THAT makes any sense. I should have asked if they had needle punch projects. I drove back home all disgusted and fuming mad. Needless to say, I am Not Going Back There Again. I ordered three small kits online, and they've arrived, but don't have the nice Valdani floss that this first project had. Still, I like the change of pace this needlework offers. I'll work on these and keep my eyes out for more kits.

I received a new tea cup and a new tea pot for my birthday, too. Isn't that cup pretty? The colors are perfect in my kitchen. They are "me" colors.

Sometime before Christmas, my dear Brown Betty suffered an accident when something- I can't remember what- threw itself out of the cabinet and landed on her. I thought we'd escaped tragedy when I saw no obvious damage. Unfortunately, over the next few days, I noted a slight incontinence issue with Brown Betty. In denial, I convinced myself that the puddle was just a little overflow from brewing and steeping the pot, and that it was all my fault. I told myself this story more than once and kept Betty on duty. She is was? my favorite teapot, after all. Sadly, I could not continue this fairy tale and on closer inspection saw a hairline fracture under Betty's handle. She would have to be retired- but not thrown away. Betty deserves a quiet, dignified retirement after all her faithful service. I can always line her with a cup and use her to display flowers. I am sure we will come up with fun things for Betty to do. Hearing of Betty's disability, you, My Mother Dearest, so thoughtfully gifted me with a new, bigger, 8 cup Brown Betty for my birthday.
Big Brown Betty and I have become fast friends. Don't tell the other Brown Betty, but Big Brown Betty's spout is actually better. It stands straight up so I can fill her to the brim and she doesn't spill over! I need to knit a new tea cosy for Big Brown Betty because the cosy I have is too small. There are LOTS of tea cosy patterns out there to peruse. ( More distraction from the weather and from the housework I should be doing…..)

Fresh flowers work miracles.
Especially on winter weary days.
Keep warm. Daydream about digging in the dirt and planting vegetables, and about Branson and Mrs. Hughes, and smocked dresses on little girls, and windows open to warm breezes, Olive laying in a sunny patch on the patio, reading in a comfy chair on the screened porch……
Those days are coming. Hang in there, everybody!
Love,
Kim