Happy People At Happisburgh

Except it isn’t pronounced Happys-Burgh, but Haze-Bruh. Bob and I visited this Norfolk coastal village on the last day of our holiday.

William Cowper, the poet, came in 1795, and he “ate Apple Pye at the Hill House Inn, the worst I ever tasted” Well, in 2015, I must tell you their coffee, and fresh scones were excellent. Hill House is clearly the hostelry to visit, and full of history. It seems that dozens of famous people called in here.

Daniel Defoe visited this ‘shipwreck coast’ in the 1720s and looked at the treacherous Happisburgh Sands. This was after he’d written Robinson Crusoe.

Next up was Joseph William Mallard Turner, the artist.

When he stayed, in 1834. he produced three pictures of “Hasbro Sands” which in recent years have fetched very high prices at auction.

Sixty years later, the landlord was one Mr Cubitt. His son Gilbert liked cyphers, and developed an alphabet of stick men, which he used to sign his name. This intrigued Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and led to one of his famous Sherlock Holmes Stories.

Not surprisingly, the local brewery calls itself after The Dancing Men.

Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic Explorer, dropped by in 1908, to give a lecture about his travels, accompanied by lantern slides – the Church Hall was packed [after all, there isn’t much to do on cold winter evening’s in Norfolk]

And then more artists turned up

In the 1930s, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and other up-and-coming British sculptors spent their summers at Happisburgh. The were particularly fond of finding large ironstone pebbles on the beach and polishing them “They are good for carving and polish up like bronze” one of the artists wrote. I cynically wonder how much they sold these pebbles for when they got back to London…

I am intrigued as to why so many notable people have popped in to this tiny place, population less than 1500. But for the past ten years, an archaeological study, “the Happisburgh Project” has been going on here. And two years ago they discovered footprints which were believed to be around 900,000 years old! The earliest human footprints ever discovered outside of Africa.

Here’s a picture showing the British Museum archaeologists’ idea of a summer morning for Stone Age Man on the beach at Happisburgh. Clearly Happisburgh has always been a popular destination

When we visited on April 13th, we did not eat our picnic there.We went a few miles along the coast to Caister. We bought a bag of chips, and sat on the sand to eat them, looking at the boats and the windfarm, under the watchful eye of the lion!

All in all a very informative day out! [and more great scones]

Knitting For Victory

When we visited Blickling Hall on April 11th, we discovered that in one of the outbuildings is a small museum dedicated to RAF Oulton, which was a wartime outpost of the much larger airfield at Swanton Morley. Rooms in Blickling Hall were requisitioned to be the Officers’ Mess, and some USAAF crews were there too. When we went round, enthusiastic chaps talked to us – and there were displays of newspapers reporting of successful bombing raids which flew from Oulton – including this one about Bombing Berlin in June 1940.  Then I spotted a tiny article at the bottom of the front page of the paper.

Dear Miss Furnish- knitting for the soldiers when she was a teenager in 1853 [Crimean War], then getting out her needles again at the turn of the century, when she was 60 [Boer War] and 14 years later [WW1] – most women would have felt they had ‘done their bit’ by then – but the noble Elizabeth was still casting on and off at the age of 101 to produce ‘comforts for the boys’ at the start of WW2. She deserved her Royal Birthday Greeting, I think! She would have certainly taken this poster to heart [also displayed in the RAF Oulton Museum] – but she’d died before the USA entered WW2

Knitting for the troops really started during the Crimean War. The Crimean winters were bitterly cold. Lord Raglan, who had lost his right arm at Waterloo, gave us a style of sleeve, designed for his greater comfort by his tailor and later taken up by the world of fashion. And then there was the Balaklava helmet. And the other big thing was that Queen Victoria herself liked knitting. It had earlier been seen as a man’s pursuit, but her involvement made it fashionable.

Then the Boer War came along, and Lord Kitchener [he of that poster] When the campaign for home-knitted hosiery for the troops got going, he declared that men could not march on lumpy socks, and so ‘Kitchener Stitch’ was invented, to give a flat seam which was more comfortable [I suspect Lord K got one of his back room boys to do it, I doubt he sat by his oil lamp, struggling with a needle!] By WW1, more and more women were casting on to knit hats, socks, mufflers and gloves – and again in WW2.

Look, here’s a photo of Queen Vic, and another of our own dear Queen with her Mum and sis, doing their patriotic duty!

More recently, a Welshwoman called Tina Selby, set up a charity in October 2010, with the aim of sending 500 woolly hats to British soldiers in Afghanistan, where it gets very cold at night. Within 18 months, 5000 hats had been sent. When the charity was wound up last year, and the troops finally came home, more than 14,000 hats had been made, and Tina was awarded the British Empire Medal.

If you want to knit for somebody else, check out the UK Handknitting Association website [here] where you will find lots of good causes, assorted free patterns, and all the information you need. And many of the patterns are both easy, and good ways of using up oddments. I’ll stop knitting soon, as my hands get too hot in summer. Maybe it is like eating oysters, knitting is something which should only occur when there is an ‘r’ in the month!

Pom Pom Ponderings

No, this has nothing to do with my friend Karen’s blog of that name [here] – although I can recommend PP if you want a bright and cheery blog, full of colour and delight. She shares great pictures of her artwork, her garden, her grandchildren and much, much more. No, this is another Wedding Decoration Tutorial. Steph mentioned she’d like large white pompoms. They are all over the Internet

Some are fluffier than others, some are dyed pastel colours –most are made of tissue paper or coffee filters. Because I am that sort of crazy lady, I bought 1000 coffee filters for £2 in a sale a few years back*. Some got used here

I had more than enough to experiment with, and over Easter I used a method from Martha Stewart Weddings – but it really didn’t work. So here’s my 1st attempt. You need 17 filters per pp.

If you buy a pack of 200**, use just 16 in four of the pps, to get a dozen pps in total. Use less than 16 filters, and they look a bit ‘thin’

You also need a needle and some strongish thread- I used some button thread. The first, very tedious, job is separating out the filters, as they really do stick together. Put twelve on one side.

Fold all the rest into quarters. Stack them in heaps of EIGHT [**a few may be just 7]

Now cut a length of thread 5’ long, and thread it double through your needle. Make a firm know at the end.  Poke the needle through the corner of the stack of eight, and pull through, gently but firmly. Then take one of the spare unfolded filters, put it behind the stack and push the needle through the centre, out to the other side.

Turn the paper over, and thread a stack of 8 more on the other side. Knot the thread as close as you can to the papers [make a sort of embroiderer’s French Knot] then do a line of large running stitches out to the edge of the ‘flat’ filter. Leave that end of thread for hanging [it’s double, so knot the ends]

Now take your first completed pompom, and carefully unfold each of the quartered filter papers. You should have a good fluffy pompom, and if you hold the thread, it will hang neatly, with the ‘flat’ filter in a vertical position.

IMPORTANT TIP  - now you know how it works, carefully re-fold those filters so you have a flattish round stack again. Fold the big filter in half, tucking that long thread inside, so it doesn’t knot or tangle.

Below are two such stacked pps, which I flattened under a heavy book.

Notice that the hanging thread is hidden inside. Make all the pps you need, and then you can either store them like this in a box, or gently roll them into cones and put into a bag [which is what I have opted to do]

These will store in minimal space, and can travel safely up to Kirby, where it will take a minute or so to unfurl and fluff up each one, before hanging it from its thread.

My dozen pps have cost less than 50p in total – but even if I had purchased the filters online they wouldn’t have been too expensive. DO make sure you buy the pleated ones, not the flat filters, these ones are about 9” across when flattened.

*No, I had no idea when I got them that this was how I would use them – they just seemed an unmissable bargain at the time!

My Summer Project?

After waiting twenty years for me to knit him a jumper [here] , I am beginning to wonder if I should perhaps crochet something for Bob instead? Catherine taught me the skills when I went to Belfast a few years back and I haven’t really done much with my hooks yet. I just found these on the internet.

The stripes would mean I could use up all the random balls of yarn in my stash. [But naturally I would insist he wore a tee-shirt, to cover his manly chest] What do you think?!

Giving And Receiving

There seems to have been a lot of that round here in recent weeks – here are just some pictures- in no particular order

Top row

A lovely handmade quilled birthday card [from a dear blogfriend. Perhaps I should spell that Kwilled]

The French Market Bag I gave my SIL Marion, after she saw mine and said “Can you make ME one, please?”

The personalised ‘flat-pack’ Easter egg I gave Bob [Fairtrade chocolate, naturally]

The little red jacket I am passing on to a friend who has just found out her new baby will be a boy.

Middle row

National Trust 3-fruit marmalade, from two kind friends. Having given up my breakfast grapefruit since going onto statins, this lovely preserve is a real treat which I CAN eat

The colourful woven Peruvian shoulder bag is a birthday gift from BIL & SIL in Warwickshire.

A mysterious box- containing green cake colouring [along with a Lakeland voucher] from best friend Christine, after I said I’d be making a green wedding cake!

This superb teepee print is a close-up of my birthday pjs from Liz & Jon

Bottom row

FairTrade Felt Flowers from good friend Elisabeth back in Leicester [how I miss our regular tea-and-cake dates!]

A silver button, from BIL & SIL in Surrey. It came as a key ring – but I have swapped the ring for a silver chain to make a pendant. Isn’t it cool?

Haberdashery sweatshirt and teeshirt, birthday gifts from Steph & Mark – two more items recognising my love of needlework.

I was really spoiled this year on my birthday – so many cards and gifts.  Thank you one and all. So often you hear people say “The best gift to give is one you would like to receive yourself”. I am not sure I agree with that – I am inclined to say “The best gift is the one which shows you have thought about what the recipient would like to receive”. Things which are Hand made, Fairtrade, Edible or Haberdashery-related all make me very happy – and I am grateful for friends and family who know me so well. Their love is far more important than any gift.

A Man Of A Thousand

Now here's the thing, I have always thought that Swanton Morley [the little village where Cornerstones is] had just one big connection with the USA, namely that Abe Lincoln's ancestors came from SM. But this month I discovered an older link, and one that I find fascinating because it involves nonconformity, hymns, and Biblical Scholarship [all of which are important to me] Back in 1571 a chap called Henry Ainsworth was born in the village, of humble farming stock. But he was clever, went to Cambridge, and studied theology. He joined the Puritans, and eventually had to flee religious persecution, and settled in Amsterdam. He was incredibly poor [ it is said that he lived 'on ninepence a week and boiled roots'] but worked hard translating the Psalms and making them 'singable'. His friend was a printer, and produced Henry's "Book Of Psalmes; Englished both in prose and Metre". [didn't know it was a verb!]

 Here's where it starts to get more interesting - Henry's great friend in Holland was a chap called William Brewster. He went across on the Mayflower, with the Pilgrim Fathers, became chief elder of their church in the new Plymouth Colony...and took his Ainsworth hymn book with him.
So the first hymnbook used by the Christians in the USA was a book of Psalms written by a bloke from my little village in Norfolk!

If you visit the Plimoth Plantation, you can find out even more, and see a shelf of Brewster's books and pewter plates - and there is HA's psalter, 400 years old. Henry was a great Hebraic scholar, and made friends with many rabbis whilst in Holland.

However, he wasn't always popular with the other 'separatists', and often disagreed with the Anabaptists. But despite that, at his death, one of those who disagreed with him on points of theology described him thus  "A man of a thousand…He was a man very modest, amiable, and sociable in his ordinary course and carriage, of an innocent and unblamable life and conversation, of a meek spirit, and a calm temper, void of passion, and not easily provoked….He had an excellent gift of teaching and opening the Scriptures; and things did flow from him with that facility, plainness and sweetness, as did much affect the hearers…. he was most ready and pregnant in the Scriptures, as if the book of God had been written in his heart…teaching not only the word and doctrine of God, but in the words of God, and for the most part in a continued phrase and words of Scripture…….In a word , the times and place in which he lived were not worthy of such a man."

C H Spurgeon even refers to Ainsworth's's Psalter in his "Treasury of David" [but then Bob says CHS quotes everybody in T of D!] I am just pleased to have discovered somebody with a Norfolk connection who loved the Psalms too.

btw the clip at the top is a re-enactor at the Plimoth Plantation. She is singing HA's version of Psalm 3. Not that sure about the tune - prefer Kendrick or Townend myself!

Bunter, Buntress, Buntle, Bunting ?

Bob was trying to find a word for someone who makes miles of bunting. We have ruled out “Bunter”.

Billy Bunter aka “The Fat Boy Of The Remove” may have been popular for the first half of the 20th century, but now he is definitely out of favour, for so many reasons.

“Buntress” is slang for an ugly woman “Buntle” is urban slang for ‘little bits of grit that get between your toes, then deposit themselves in one’s bed”. And “Bunting Tosser” is naval slang for a signaller [can you confirm that one, Jane and Chris?]  None of these terms seems very polite. Whatever the term is, I have made 150 metres of the stuff now and I am calling a halt to the exercise!

But what’s this? This looks suspiciously like rows of rectangular pink and black bunting. But it isn’t – it is mass production tissue holders!

Steph wants to give each of the guests at her hen party a goodie bag – and so she and Liz have blagged a load of freebies from various sources [cosmetics and toiletry samples] and thought a handmade gift would be fun too. It doesn’t take long to run these up – particularly if you sew them in a line and trim later. I’ve done loads in the past and taught others to do it too. You can find loads of easy tutorials on the net, with ideas for personalising too.

One useful tip – they turn out so much better if you trim the triangle at each corner.

Some of my more enthusiastic pupils cut rather generously – and snipped a hole in the pouch.

So I taught the girls this tip – hold the corner with your finger and thumb just on the edge of the stitching, so that when you cut, you do not cut into the seam!

Turn them out, and load them up with little packs of tissues. Job done! By the way, my rectangles of fabric are 6” x 7”, and I sewed on the trim before sewing the final two seams.

I shall deliver these black and pink treasures to Steph next weekend, and possibly have some more handmade items for the goodie bags. Prototypes are under way [ok, they’re all over the lounge] right now. Poor Bob has abandoned all hope of me doing Proper Housework whilst I’ve got these many and various Wedding Projects on the go!

What I Did On My Holidays

Frugal Queen shared her quilt error last week – and asked if we had any epic fails with our sewing. I had a bit of a knitting hiccup whilst we were away at on holiday at Cornerstones. Usual story – I was trying to use up some leftover yarn. I had two balls of red DK. I thought at first they were from the same batch – but in certain lights, one ball was clearly more orangey than the other.

I decided to knit up this pattern from my Debbie Bliss book. Its done on one circular needle- and I figured that if I added a stripe of white at the chest, and around the top edge of the sleeves, it wouldn’t be so obvious.

The lace edge is knitted separately and stitched on at the end. So here’s the jumper, and the edging. As you can see, this does not look at all good- the pretty lace edging is completely wrong for the red and white stripes. This definitely counts as a disaster.

I thought again, and decided to do simple moss stitch bands.

Now it reminds me of one of those American College Boys’ Jackets.

How I loved watching Happy Days back in the 70s. Wirth Ron Howard and henry Winkler as Richie Cunningham and The Fonz. When I thought a bloke with a leather jacket and a motorbike was the epitome of cool… [and I still do!]

My other knitting projects on holiday were more successful. I had a large ball of random yarn and knitted another BSJ [they’re addictive]

There was enough left to do a Cobblestone Vest.  Liz shared this pattern with me- it is a great baby vest, knitted in one piece and buttoning at side and should [so no need to pull it over the baby’s head]

I love the fact that with fewer stitches on the needle, the random yarn knits up into much wider stripes.

But the holiday is over and I am back in Dorset again – knitting has been put away and the sewing machines are out again. I have one more load of bunting to complete!

Bring Me Sunshine!

This is such a delightful piece of news, I thought it was worth sharing. Having muttered about Pantone’s rather dull choice of Colour of the Year for 2015 I am so glad they have just brought out a new shade, the first one ever to be tied into a movie franchise.

Pantone Minion Yellow

You can read more about it here

“Based on the Minions from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s Despicable Me global film franchise, including the upcoming prequel Minions, PANTONE Minion Yellow is an illuminating, energetic, friendly and fun-loving yellow shade that immediately calls out to you.

Just as the sun’s rays enliven us, PANTONE Minion Yellow is a color that heightens awareness and creates clarity, lighting the way to the intelligence, originality and the resourcefulness of an open mind – this is the color of hope, joy and optimism," said Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director, Pantone Color Institute.

Here’s hoping your day is a bright and sunny one!!

Cruising Along

Dear Mr Cunard, it is very kind of you to invite me to Southampton to see one of your liners [£50 for half a day- that includes lunch. You do have to take your passport – but the boat doesn’t sail anywhere]

 

…but honestly, I am not inclined to take up your expensive offer. I am happier pedalling along on my bicycle, with its new red panniers. Only £9.99 a pair from Lidl*, and they help me to feel much more balanced when I collect my library books.

 

My ride yesterday took me all round the town – library, chemists, Parcel Office, and then finally I called in at UCF. The building work is coming along beautifully- last week they poured the concrete** into the trenches and now the bricklaying is well underway. Look at the glorious blue skies. God has been so good to us with the weather!

* four different designs- I chose the ones with carry handles and a shoulder strap. They clip on and off my rack easily – and have nifty little nylon rainproof covers hidden in a neat zip pocket, as well as a useful small zip pocket on the side.**thanks Josh for concrete photo1