It took me a while to get the hang of cooking in the “Tales of the Shire” computer game, not so much the actual techniques — though of course that is at times not at all like real-world cooking! — but of balancing ingredients and seasonings for the optimal flavor combinations that the game developers have set up for each dish. The hardest thing for me was to not think like I do in my own kitchen, where I would never add, say, garlic to my raspberry jam (!!), but in the game I might actually want to do that if I need a spicy jam and garlic is the best choice at hand. And so, because I depended rather a lot in the early days on more-experienced players’ advice — and all of the resources I found were beginner TotS cooking tips, not advanced — I want to return the favor as well as give some tips to those players who will come after me!
Starting to assemble the border blocks for “Lucy Diamond”. The grey I chose is Kona Solids’ “Overcast” — rather fitting for the June gloom we’ve been having here lately, though it wasn’t really my intention to link the two!
These seem to go a bit slower than the full-diamond block, partly I guess because the odd number of pieces in every other row means that I sometimes have to leave a piece behind on the table (as it were), instead of chain-sewing pairs all of the time. But since I don’t have to choose fabrics, I can cut the fabrics in strips, and it actually does take less time to sew up the half-diamond block, as logic would imply, I finished three more today. (I got better with matching the points!)
Went at Farmer Cotton’s urging to a shockingly early meeting at the Ivy Bush inn for a BIG VILLAGE MEETING (“make sure you use capital letters for that Orlo BIG VILLAGE MEETING”) to hear the Shire Assessor’s judgement read out. More wrangling between Farmer Cotton & Sandyman, all attempts from Miss Brandybuck & Mrs. Cotton & Fosco Burrows to keep the peace only partly successful. Feelings certainly running high. The letter from the Shire Assessor disheartening – Bywater is not a village. I was surprisingly distressed by this announcement. What can be done to help make Bywater a proper village?
After the meeting broke up, Orlo suggested that I walk along with him. He must have wanted someone to talk to, for after some idle conversation he admitted that he used to daydream about being someone important – “not with loads of power or anything, just to be useful.” It turns out that he isn’t the official postman at all, he simply does it because it needs doing. I think he has a very kind heart.
Foraged in the evening – Hedge Mustard, various mushrooms, some delicious Raspberries far out at the western edge of the village. Hah, I do think of Bywater as a proper village!
Thursday. Fine.
Talked with Nora about setting up a Foraging Club. She thinks that Miss Brandybuck would be the ideal hobbit to lead it, but that she (Miss Brandybuck) is too modest to think that anyone would want to learn about foraging from her – but I do! I’ve been picking up things here & there, as one does of course – mostly mushrooms & berries – but there must be much more to learn. Nora also suggested that little Daisy Took would be interested, & so first I legged it up to ask her & Willow (the cunning plan being that the more of us are interested, the better, but that a youngster like Daisy might be less alarming to Miss B!).
Saturday. Fine.
When I asked little Daisy if she would be interested in joining a Foraging Club, she jumped up & down & said, “Yes!” “Well, that settles it!” I laughed. “Erm, what’s a Foraging Club?” she wondered. Walked with her to Delphinium’s – she thought it was funny that my steps were much longer than hers, & so I made her laugh by taking three big steps, waiting for her to catch up, taking three big steps, waiting, all along the way. She is puzzled by a “ridder” that Nora had given her: “In the eye of the lake, there stands a tree. And in its roots, you’ll find what you seek.” Will have to think about that one.
Delphinium agreed shyly to our request, & we three students – Nora, Daisy, & I – were set the first task, of foraging three items around the tree under which is Delphinium’s home. I suspect that it was only three items because of Daisy! I went the furthest, to give Daisy some extra time, & found a Wild Beef & two Chanterelles. And so we have a Foraging Club!
Nora asked me to talk with Old Noakes about a fishing club, & Delphinium suggested that I invite him for a meal, & to ask Marigold Potts at the Ivy Bush for some advice about getting round him. Dashed down to the Ivy Bush, & discovered that Marigold Potts worked ten years at the Prancing Pony in Bree. That Marigold Potts! Well, of course although we have never met each other, we are already friends now – she was at the old Pony, who’d have thought? She laughed about Old Noakes’s crossness – “Is he threatening to use you as bait? That means he likes you. You’ll be alright!”
When I got home, I realized that I’d completely neglected to water my garden at all! Thank goodness for that rain the other day!
Later. – Went out after my supper to forage something to serve Old Noakes & Marigold tomorrow. There is a ruined old tower atop Orlo’s hole, & I climbed up the stairs inside. What a view! How many turns of the moon has that old tower stood here, I wonder. It’s seen better days, certainly. But I could see the curves of the hills, the birds flying in to nestle in the trees, the ripples from the wind raking across the grass – beautiful.
I quite forgot about foraging anything, & had to run home in the dark.
Sunday. Fine.
Luncheon here with Old Noakes & Marigold – made Cool Taters & Beans & a Rich Rhubarb Pie. The latter was I suspected a bit sour as Marigold pursed her lips after taking her first bite, but it was edible at least, & she bravely said it was quite good.
Talked with Old Noakes afterwards about leading the fishing club. He wanted convincing to do it. Began to quiz me & of course I knew next to nothing, but that proved my point & I said how would we ever learn if he didn’t lead the club?
Farmer Cotton was quite the opposite, when I spoke with him at his Award-Winning Pumpkin Patch. (He said it like that – but with justification, to be sure.) Mrs. Cotton thinks that he has too much to do already, & that Young Tom can’t really do it as he’s busy enough himself. “But it has to be run by a Cotton!” Rosie Cotton, standing nearby with a determined expression on her face, said, “I’ll do it, Dad. I know a lot about gardening.” Well, Farmer Cotton doesn’t think so, & it was therefore agreed to have a competition for the leadership & that I would give Rosie a hand. More likely the other way around, but there it is. She seems awfully confident, does Rosie Cotton. Well, when I’ve harvested something special, I’m to bring it to her.
We are delighted to publish these fragments of a Third-Age Shire diary, now housed in the Gormadoc Brandybuck Collection at the University of Bryngwyrdd. The manuscript is in a fragile and at times sadly damaged condition but is unique and fascinating not only for its descriptions of a hobbit’s daily life in the Westfarthing, but also for the paintings which the diarist included on almost every page. We thank Dr. T.S. Bracegirdle, archivist at Bryngwyrdd, for bringing the manuscript to our attention, and for generous help in translating and transcribing the entries.
Sunday.
First day in Bywater. Met the local postman, Orlo Proudfoot, a stout fellow with an amiable, earnest countenance. He pointed out his own home, just down the hill a little ways, across a little footbridge, & therefore he is my nearest neighbour.
He showed me around Old Ruby’s place – well, my new home. Was very kind about Ruby – “Lovely, she was,” he said, “I have a lot of happy memories.” So do I – & though I miss her dreadfully, I feel hopeful about making her home my own new one.
We looked around – Ruby had boarded up many of the rooms, there being only herself, & so there is at present only a kitchen & pantry to one side of a sort of hall, with a sitting/dining-room & a small bedroom each leading off that. The pantry is huge – & not completely empty at all, but with a few things brought, I suspect, by Proudfoot – beans, taters, an onion, some rhubarb, &c. &c. Was suddenly famished, & made a rhubarb porridge for second breakfast – I remember Old Ruby cooking it for us younglings when she visited us – shared it this time with Proudfoot.
There was a note in my letter-box from a Farmer Cotton, inviting me to meet at the Green Dragon. The note was clearly dictated to Proudfoot, as it read, “Make sure you write Green Dragon, Orlo, & not the Ivy Bush, or he’ll get confused. Then write ‘From Farmer Cotton.’ Stop writing everything I say, Orlo!” We went at once to the Green Dragon, met a very nice lady who turns out to be Mrs Farmer Cotton – I mean Mrs Cotton – who also runs the inn. “You won’t find a more cosy & cheerful place in the whole Westfarthing!” she said proudly. She gave me a chicken to cook for my supper – very kind, indeed.
Oh – & there was a bit of a kerfuffle going on between Farmer Cotton & the miller – something about Bywater being or not being a proper village, & someone else – I forget who, now, so very many new faces – said something about a Rule Book that Old Ruby had had, that should help to settle the question. Miss Burrows – I think it was she – said that she thought she’d given it to Old Noakes, something about fish – dear me, perhaps I should carry my pocket-book to note things down.
Felt like having a nap after luncheon, but spent some time tidying up instead, & looking around. The garden is much larger than mother’s & father’s back home in Bree. But no – this is my home now. My own garden! Wonderful sweet flowers? Fine vegetables? Vegetables first, I should think – the pantry will get empty awfully quickly. To be sure, there’s lots of work to be done!
Met Mr. Noakes in the afternoon. He is an old & rather dishevelled fellow, browned from the sun, with a halo of grey hair around a bald pate. He was a bit, well, grumpy. “Answer me this,” he demanded, “How can you tell where Mister Fishie is swimming in the river?” I thought for a moment & replied, “Erm, swirling shapes in the water?” wh. it seems was the correct answer! He gave me an old fishing rod – “it was cluttering up the place,” he said & I can well believe that – & took me to Old Ruby’s pond, just a hop, skip, & jump down the hill from my front gate. “The fish are all stupid there. You’ll get along well with them,” Mr. Noakes growled, & said that when I’d caught three fish I was to come back & tell him about it – then, with a brief bit of instruction, left me to it. To my utter amazement, I caught – three fish!
Am quite exhausted – time for bed!
Monday, Second day of Summer. Fine.
Woke early, I guess from the unfamiliar sounds of the house & the birds outside.
Went to show Old Noakes yesterday’s catch, with wh. I was unconscionably pleased. Two Stone Loach – “Those live down at the bottom of the water, eating whatever’s going on between the rocks. Got no meat on them, so not much use. You hear me? Throw ‘em back!” – & a Bywater Bleak. He was somewhat less disparaging about the latter, saying, “It’s small but there’s usually more around. Try again, get more. One’s rubbish. Pretty blue colouring, though.” I wonder if he is like this with everyone.
In the Village Square, Farmer Cotton asked me if I’d found that missing Rule Book yet – Old Noakes had said that he’d had it but it was all wet & so he’d given it to someone called Daphne – no, Delphinium – because it had pictures of flowers in it. This Delphinium lives across the stream to the east of my house, on the edge of the Forest, & so I dashed up there – she said she’d tried to press some flowers in it, but that didn’t work because the pages were all wet (!), & she’d given it to Willow Took because the book had a picture of an Oliphaunt in it.
She also told me, by the way, that there is much foraging to be had in Bywater. “The fields & forests are full of riches,” she said, “Look after the land & all the animals in it. That’s how you pay for what the land gives you” – a pleasing thought.
Willow Took’s place is not far away & so I legged it over there in search of that book, but no joy, as it seems that she gave it to Mrs. Cotton because it had some recipes in it. Willow Took lives with her little girl Daisy just across from my garden gate, the tumble-down blocked one that I can see straight out from the kitchen door-yard. It seems there is no Mister Took. (& no, I am not looking for romance, thanks to that jilt Lobelia Brockhouse back in Bree.)
Tuesday. Rain.
Another busy day! Had the Burrowses here for breakfast. Very complimentary of my efforts at a dish of Cool Taters & Beans & another of Very Good (if I may say so myself) Fish Cakes.
They – the Burrowses – used to come here when they were little, for Ruby to teach them their letters – Proudfoot, too, but Miss Burrows said that he preferred fishing to reading & writing! I had thought that they were husband & wife, but they are in fact brother & sister. I like them both – will certainly ask them here again. Miss Burrows says that new memories of this old place will push away the sad ones of missing Old Ruby. As we talked at my gate, she was fiddling with an old key in her apron pocket – her brother twitted her about still carrying it around. It meant a lot to young Nora, that key, she said, because Old Ruby had given it to her to keep her from fidgeting during lessons. I think I gasped aloud – an old key of Ruby’s! – what about that locked drawer in the desk?
And so it proved to be just the thing to open the drawer, & there it was. The Book of Rules. It is an absolutely massive book – I can hardly believe it fit into that drawer. Went out directly & nearly ran straight into Proudfoot just coming up the path from the Mill. I showed him the book, & he thought I ought to take it to Miss Burrows. Felt a bit like a bouncing ball!
Caught some more fish in the afternoon – saw Old Noakes, who demanded to know what I was doing with his fishing rod! His rod – I like that! “What’s your name?” he wanted to know. I remembered what he had said when we met the other day, & replied, perhaps a bit pertly, “Newcomer!” This seemed to amuse him a little, & he gave me some more tips about fishing, especially to keep at it, for practice will tell. “Then you can say you’re a proper Fisher-hobbit.” Pause. “You can say it. I won’t.”
Remembered a note that was in my post-box this morning, Mrs. Cotton asking if I would be so kind as to check on her lad Tom, & so I stopped by the Village Square just as the stalls were closing for the evening. Young Tom is indeed a bit upset, as Farmer Cotton’s prize cow is missing. Tom was hoping to keep his dad from discovering this before Tom had a chance to go & look for her, & so I offered to do the looking while Tom distracts him – I wandered about for quite some time & at last found her lying contentedly smack in the middle of the East Road, quite at the opposite end of Bywater from the Cottons’ farm. No wonder Young Tom couldn’t find her! Nothing would shift her, not even my sweetest entreaties, but luckily some Puffball mushrooms I’d put in my pocket did the trick! Got her home eventually, for wh. Young Tom was exceedingly grateful, & he gave me some eggs as a thank-you.
Wednesday. Fine.
Letter box full this morning – thank-yous from each of the Burrowses for yesterday’s meal, a second from Fosco offering some furniture for my place. Had Proudfoot & Mrs. Cotton here for elevenses – cooked Fish Cakes again, as it was pretty much all I had available. Note to self: Stock pantry! Mrs. Cotton gave me the recipe for her Amazing Autumn Tart (sic!), wh. does sound delicious – must try it soon.
Bought some vegetable seeds off Farmer Cotton – got turned around on my way back & went up the wrong path, but found a package on the steps to my blocked gate, & thus clearly not for me. Couldn’t read the direction, but it was from the Mathom-house in Michel Delving, wh. made me think of Fosco Burrows, & so I took it down & found him in the Green Dragon. It was indeed his package – something he’d meant to give his sister, & so he thanked me profusely.
He says, by the by, that I should smarten my place up a bit. This had not occurred to me. “My dear Hobbit” – I suspect that he talks this way all the time! – “of course you do. Old Ruby was lovely, but she was also very old & didn’t need a lot of furniture”! & so he sent round a tall candlestick & a rather handsome sofa (!) with blue cushions. Quite generous!
Got home as the sun was going down – knocked my head against the roof bracket beside the kitchen door as I dashed by – stuck the seeds into the old garden beds, but am a bit at a loss as to what to do next.
I’ve had the dickens of a time the past couple of months, choosing fabrics for my “Lucy Diamond” quilt. One of my difficulties as a relatively-new quilter is, well, let’s call it fabric insecurity, that feeling that you’re not really as sure as everyone else seems to be that a certain fabric is going to go well with other certain fabrics. I fell in love with “Lucy” because of its cheerfulness, really, the bright, modern colors — despite the fact that my usual modus operandi is rather subdued reproduction fabrics, and so most of what I have in my stash didn’t seem to go with “what I had pictured in my mind,” i.e. the Treehouse original. I confess that I found myself wondering sometimes if I could really “do” cheerful!
So the past few months, as I say, I’ve been buying fat quarters and fat eighths and remnants here and there, and scrabbling through my stash for the odd bright fabric, even through the “rag bin” of worn-out shirts and blouses, and carefully cutting out diamond-shaped pieces of freezer paper templates to sew up the big diamond blocks. I’m actually very pleased with some of them, moderately pleased with others, hate none of them — and so on the whole, I think I’ve done fairly well (!). I showed the first one (very pleased) a few posts ago, and this is the last of the thirty-two full diamond blocks (ex-dress shirt of David’s across the middle) —
(moderately pleased).
After that — well, during the selecting and sewing-up thereof a few blocks ago, for I knew it was approaching, as it were — I had to choose fabrics for the border diamonds. Treehouse’s original has, with the grey that is also the sashing between the big diamonds, a plain check/gingham in navy and white, a low-volume, and a small floral on white that is fussy cut —
I’m pretty sure that if you are not looking specifically for a small floral on white to fussy-cut, they will be everywhere, but could I find one when I wanted one?! The navy-and-white gingham was a bit easier, but when I saw a sort of “plaid” by Camille Roskelley (from her Blueprints collection), I thought “ooh!” and that was that. The low-volume fabric also did not take long, especially when I serendipitously came across a Dear Stella fabric with little books on it — I put that in my Etsy cart fast, I can tell you — and then after some agonizing hours trawling through florals on the Hancock’s of Paducah website, I chose “Peony Blossoms” by Lakeside Art Studio, which is much larger than Treehouse’s choice, and not quite as handsome as my first choice, which has much richer and darker colors, and is thus even less “what I had pictured in my mind” than the Peony Blossoms, but was just too big scale-wise. Never mind, these will do quite nicely.
But then when I opened up the package from the Etsy seller, what I’d received instead of little books fabric was in fact little pretzels. And thus the title of this post, that old saying in quilting circles, “When life gives you pretzels, make quilt blocks.”
Thus, a prompt-and-apologetic fix from the Etsy seller later, the next-to-last and last big-diamond blocks are done and I am ready to collect a quick yard of a Kona or Bella solid in grey and start sewing up these border blocks!
This is one of my long-standing WIPs that I had put on my list for this so-called “Year of Finishing Things”. I bought the pattern for Sense & Sensibility’s “Edwardian Apron” in December 2017, had the digital pattern printed for me in May 2021, bought some faux-Edwardian fabric and cut it sometime between then and January of this year, when I sewed it together at last.
I didn’t really fancy making my own bias binding, and so I went the shortcut route and bought some — which I had to do online, because Joann’s elle est morte — which took a couple of weeks. Now, I know that Wright’s double-fold bias binding is slightly longer on one side, so that you can attach the shorter side on the front of the garment, fold it into place and pin, then machine-stitch along the very edge on the front and it will catch down the longer side at the same time. I attach it that way even though I usually tack it down by hand because I like the softer feel of it without the additional line of machine-stitching.
Well — and you might see where this is going already — I began stitching down the miles and miles of binding by hand, which for some reason on this piece is turning out to be exceptionally fiddly and slow, and got one arm opening done (over two evenings) and about a hand’s length along the very long bit that goes from the nearly-floor-length hem all of the way up the back and over one shoulder, down the scoop neck and up over the other shoulder and down, down, down to the hem — and I thought, “oh! I’ll never get this done at this rate” and decided to do it on the machine.
After the ten minutes or so that it took me to pin that long, long length, I started sewing happily — “I’ll finish it at last! at last!” — and turned over the first bit I’d stitched to admire it —
Not a single bit got sewed down. Not one single stitch.
Our dishcloths are looking a bit, well, antique, so I’ve spent the last two days with my crochet hook smoking from the speed of whipping out four new ones. (The “Dahlia pan holder”, with the swirls, was actually on my Year-of-Finishing-Things list, having been sitting around for a considerable time with the ends needed to be worked in, so — check! done! I’ve written about the pattern elsewhere.) I lost my Dishcloth Gallery with TypePad’s desertion demise, but will have to figure out some kind of replacement or substitute, since I don’t think that WordPress has something like it. The purple variegated one at lower right and the purple and weirdly-pooling reds-and-pinks one (using up scraps of the cotton) are really just swatches, of even moss stitch and Suzette stitch respectively, but the other two are new-to-me patterns, Made by Gootie’s “C2C Moss Stitch” dishcloth at lower left, and Nordic Hook’s “Clara“. The latter I resized a bit, as with Lily Sugar ‘n Cream it would have come out about 9 inches wide, and I prefer smaller dishcloths. It’s still quite a handsome cloth, although again, the colors pooled strangely! The corner-to-corner one gave me a bit of trouble with the decrease half, but I think that was entirely my own fault, as watching the accompanying video after I think my fourth attempt, it narrowed down quite obediently!
I just finished reading Sam Kean’s Dinner with King Tut, wh. I came across on the public library’s new-books shelf. It’s about experiential archaeology — there is in fact a short debate in the introduction about the term, but I prefer “experiential” to “experimental” which sounds to me like people are experimenting being archaeologists, not investigating the experiences of people in the past! Kean is exercising his novel-writing chops in this book, weaving fictional stories around his research into particular details of life in the past — mediaeval catapults, Polynesian canoes, Egyptian mummification. I’ve always enjoyed the “living history” series on television, from “1900 House” to the side journeys in “Time Team” about how a certain kind of snake bracelet was made, or Bronze-Age bread, and such, and so I found this book an easy and enjoyable read!
“Update on the 10th,” more explicitly, in a nod to the folks on the Petipointers list, with its monthly progress report. This is my Fereghan carpet, now most definitely past the halfway point, which is the line of small flowers to which the needle is pointing.
The first “Gilded Cage” mitt finished except for weaving in the ends! I’ve got the second one up to the point where I pick up stitches to work the thumb.
The first block in my “Lucy Diamonds” quilt-to-be. The funky daisies fabric is the almost-last pieces left over from one of the last projects I did with my Daisy Girl Scout troop quite some years ago now — Julia was in kindergarten! — and it makes me smile whenever I see it. I’ve sewn this up since the photo, along with four or five more blocks — I’m using the freezer-paper method for the first time, which seems to be working quite well, I’m happy to say, as getting all of these diamonds to line up neatly can be a bit of a challenge!
And some reading that I’m particularly enjoying — Ex Libris is an old favorite, and makes perfect bedtime reading. I read in a recent Slightly Foxed newsletter of their new reprint of Robert Westall’s memoir, and since he has long been a favorite writer of mine, I jumped at the chance, and ordered John Moore’s Portrait of Elmbury as well. I just finished the Westall, and enjoyed it very much, so full marks to both Westall and Slightly Foxed — have just started the Elmbury one …
It has been a long time since I took part in the “Six Degrees of Separation” meme, but I came across an old collage of mine buried somewhere in my computer, and thought, “hey, that was fun, is it still going on?” And it is, so here is mine —
This month’s book is Wuthering Heights. Never read it, can’t be bothered. Thus also, Moby-Dick. Big fish — well, sea creature at least, whales aren’t fish — leads to The Big Six, in which a huge pike plays an important role. The epithet “The Big Six” is a nod to Scotland Yard’s The Big Five, but since I don’t know off the top of my head of any book or novel featuring those real-life detectives specifically, I can only proffer that Ngaio Marsh’s detective hero Roderick Alleyn is in the CID. Patrick Malahide played Alleyn in the BBC series, and he also played Rev. Casaubon in the 1994 BBC adaptation of “Middlemarch” — an adaptation which, by the way, I liked better than the book. I was thinking of going in the direction of film adaptations I like better than the books, but those are pretty rare, and so I went with Victorian paintings used on the covers of modern paperback editions of Victorian novels (Middlemarch‘s is William Powell Frith’s “The Lovers” of 1855), thus leading (via Goodreads’ handy list, though that is specifically Pre-Raphaelite paintings) to an Italian translation of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, here with John William Waterhouse’s “Boreas” of 1903 (lovely but not Victorian! you say, and you are correct on both counts). Also on Goodreads’ list is another Victorian novel re-issued with a cover featuring a Waterhouse painting, this time Jane Eyre, with “Windflowers”. And of course a bonus is that this leads very neatly, I thought, with the Brontë connection, back to the beginning!
To mark the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration on this date in 1861, here are a few quotations from the man himself, and one about him:
“Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.” [Lincoln’s Peoria speech, 16 October 1854]
“To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.” [From a speech given 18 May 1858]
“I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.” [From a remark made to Joseph Gillespie, reported in a letter from Gillespie to the Hagerstown, Maryland Herald and Torch Light, 15 March 1876]
“Nothing discloses real character like the use of power…. [If] you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.” [From an 1895 lecture by Robert G. Ingersoll about Lincoln]
A Bluestocking Knits 