New quilt and New pure 100% wool

This week I started a new little patchwork quilt and then my sewing machine decided that it needed a break. The machine is now being repaired by a very friendly old man that cuts hair by day and fixes machines by night. I am quietly confident that soon I will be sewing again.

Also this week a new lot of wool arrived. It is "Escocesa", 100% Portuguese new wool. The factory that made this wool no longer exists and so I am trying to buy as much as I can find so that I have enough wool to keep on weaving.

This week it rained for 2 straight days and the temperatures dropped quite dramatically. Even thought it is only just the beginning of Autumn and the leaves on the trees are not yet going yellow, every night we have lit the fireplace.

With the sewing machine out of action and while waiting for the wool to arrive, it was a week for other things.

And so the list went:

-collecting firewood- check

-picking quince to make quince jam/marmelade- check

-planting cabbage and lettuce in my wicking chest- check

-drying figs- check

-suspicious cute little cat- check

-friendly neighbour making illegal firewater (the whole town smells like a brewery)- check

Berries, pie, Schnapps and scarf

So Summer has all but gone now but there are many fruits to collect and savour and preserve for the colder months. There are still many wild blackberries to be picked though many have started to wither and dry. And the figs are also just starting to ripen on our tree, a little later than normal but very welcome just the same. I decided to make a pie with them. If you want to make a pie it is the simplest thing on earth. I bought the fluff pastry and the nectarines from the supermarket. You can use any fruit that is juicy and sweet. I imagine peaches, plums and pears work well... well it is really up to you, but I would use seasonal fruit because it just makes sense. So... line your oven proof tray with your pastry, leave lining paper. Sprinkle the pastry with a tiny bit of brown sugar and then make a first layer with the berries, just throw them, no need to arrange them in neat rows. I think the berries work best underneath the rest of the fruit because they remain nice and juicy. Then cut the rest of the fruit and arrange in neat rows, this helps with even baking and restoring some order to the universe, and sprinkle again with a little bit of sugar. Bake at medium heat and check it now and then, when the pastry begins to cooks around the edges and turns a nice and golden, it is ready. Yum!

There are many Hawthorn trees, near our place by the creek, and I decided I needed to make something with the ripe berries. Schnapps... yes...of course. It will be ready just in time for the super cold months and the Christmas and New Year festivities. I have never made Schnapps before, but I am sure nothing can go wrong here. I followed this Hawthorn Schnapps recipe and it seems to be doing what it is supposed to do... but maybe on second thought I should make some more. All you need for this recipe is time, berries and vodka. The Schnapps you see is only one week old and the colour is already so beautiful, you can see how the colour has all but gone from the berries to the vodka. Triple yum!

To end the week... another scarf finished.

Release the hens!

Yesterday was a good day. We finally got our little chickens. The coop is ready to receive its guests but it still needs some final touches. But I think it looks pretty good already. The floor we covered with chopped up bits of dried grasses and pine needles. There are eleven chicks and they seem happy with their new home. Well... they were behaving like chickens should anyway, scratching around, stretching their wings open and catching some sun rays, pecking about looking for what I don´t know.

The five little egg shaped dishes I got from the antique fair in Guarda about a month or so ago and they had been inspiring me. I hope our chickens are happy enough to lay lots of eggs, if they come out in pastel colours they would be very handy come Easter time. The embroidered children´s bib is also very fun with the girl feeding the chickens and such a creative design. The bib belongs to Sra. Rita, she is now in her 80´s.  I might make one for me as a top and wear it to let the chickens know I am only there to feed them. I can´t get my head around the thought of eating them.

More weaving.

And one massive beautiful cloud to end the day.

Quilts and Hazelnuts

I started making two new quilts in bright colours. For the first quilt I used some antique hand woven linen which works very well for texture and breathing space. The stars in the star quilt are made from left over bits and pieces of extremely vibrant cotton used in the popular embroideries from Viana do Castelo. The quilts are far from finished but for now I am missing a few fabrics and so it is better to take a break. And there is much work to be done on the loom. I just got a new lot of wool and am ready to weave my way into the coming winter. Soon you will be able to order scarves and wraps online. 

And yes, that time of the year is fast approaching and we will soon be saying "goodbye" to Summer and "hello" to Autumn, and so like a good little squirrel would I have started to collects nuts. For now we have hazelnuts. I never knew they grew out of these bud like husks. They are so pretty. I have to leave them to dry before we can eat them.  

Weave away

 

I was given a rigid heddle loom by a lady here in town who had brought it over from France about 20 years ago and had not used it since. It was missing a few crucial parts and was designed originally to rest on a table. With the expert help of Manuel Neto we restored and improved on the design by building an adjustable stand and a few tricky little additions to make the weaving process easier. These kinds of looms are relatively easy to use and perfect for beginners. So I was set to weave. We also made a warping board to get the right number of threads and the right length of threads etc. I was given some books that helped with the setting up and also found lots of information on the net. Yet not all my problems have been solved and setting up the loom is definitely the most complicated and time consuming part of the process, the rest seems to come quite easily and the whole process is very intuitive. I am still learning. But once I started weaving it was impressively quick to finish a 2.5 meter length. Originally I wanted to make a jacket and that will be my next project. Meanwhile I have decided that maybe some workshops would be very useful and I have my sights on a couple of teachers :-).

All this to say, weaving is wicked! 

Two shawls/ wraps/ cosie wool things later and now I just need to figure out how to finish the fringes... macrame? simple knots? as is?... decisions, decisions.

Both shawls were made with 100% Portuguese wool. They measure 2.5m and 2m in length respectively by 60cm in width. The first I decided to keep but the second is for sale. If you are interested you can get in touch with me.

Wool + antique linen = cushion

In my last post I showed you the beginnings of the first cushion shown here. It was in part a salvage project because I wanted to embroider a flower similar to the cushion shown in the first image which is basically falling apart. It was also an opportunity to learn the basic stitches. Originally I wanted to do a round cushion but in the end I changed the design and added leaves and so I decided to adopt the more conventional format.

Inspired to do something from  my surrounding landscape I found this small blue lilac flower that began to fill the fields in my Spring walks. It is only a small flower but very intricate when you get a close look, and I wanted to see if I could capture the feel of it but simplify it at the same time. For this embroidery I drew a basic original sketch to start to abstract the design and then embroidered onto the linen without drawing the whole flower in one go. First I worked the inner circles and then embroidered pretty much freehand the rest of it. The bonus of doing it this way is that it feels a lot more organic and less planned which I think is good, on the other hand I would find it almost impossible to replicate this design exactly, which I guess ends up being good also.

The last cushion was me basically feeling a bit over fussy embroidery and wanting to really just simplify and organize and not think so much. Actually looking back this does not really make so much sense seeing as the more organic design should have been the one with less regimented thought and in fact I think it was although it was also very planned, whereas this last one even though more basic in design is definitely more logic, i.e. equally as thought out.

I am very happy with all these designs. All the cushion fronts were embroidered with Portuguese wool on antique hand loomed linen also from Portugal, and the backs are made from cotton and fasted with 3 vintage buttons, and are approximately 50x50cm in size. If you like them let me know and if you would really really like to own one of them please do get in touch with me. Soon I´ll have some available to sell online, but till then you can custom order if you like :-).

Studio up and running

The new studio is finally in full swing and we even have electricity now, a luxury it seems, to be able to use my sewing machine. But I have to admit, and you will probably catch on to this anyway, that I have not posted for some time so the next posts are going to be me trying to catch up to real time. And so, because there is no excuse not to work just because there is no electricity I occupied most of the last 4 months with projects that require no electricity at all. The first project as you can see above was an embroidery project, a cushion embroidered with wool on antique hand loomed linen. More projects of the same nature followed which I will show you tomorrow. Then I was given a loom, not an antique one and not a super professional one either but super sturdy and excellent for the projects I have in mind. I will show you those soon also. And then there was Spring and flowers and all sorts of pretty things to collect from the fields. Now with electricity there is also the sewing machine and iron, so of course it seems natural that there are some patchwork quilts on the way. And it seems there are so many things to catch up on.

The days have a tendency to evaporate here, in a good way, and many things are achieved. I will try and update you throughout the next week.