Category Archives: interiors

kantha curtains and gentle stitching

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I’m not very good at sewing – too impatient, I think – but I have always loved textiles, which makes for a somewhat frustrating state of affairs. Over the years I have amassed a stash of lovely fabric in the hope that one day I will feel confident enough to do something with it all. In my mind’s eye I can see quilts, cushions and clothes, whilst my real eyes rest on neat stacks of untouched chintz and ticking. Unlike knitting, which can always be unravelled or ripped back, you reach the point of no return with sewing the minute you get going with the scissors, or at least that is how it feels and it leaves me in a state of creative paralysis.

Two months ago these Kantha quilts were part of that guilty stash. I bought them on a whim, seduced by their colours – the contrast between the faded fronts and electric backs – by the charming wood block designs and most of all by the characteristic rows and rows of running stitch. Once home I tried to convince myself that I had a plan for them – cushions, perhaps – but I quickly realised that I really couldn’t face cutting into them. They were too special. So I draped them around the place instead, slightly regretting my hasty purchase. And then I had one of those lightbulb moments: with only the tiniest bit of entirely reversible sewing, my quilts could become a pair of mis-matched bedroom curtains.

A quick rifle through the rest of the stash threw up some faded velvet which I used to lengthen the quilts by creating a deep hem at the bottom. At the top I used discreet metal curtain clips in order to attach them to traditional curtain rings. It took a morning.

Every day I admire the miles and miles of tiny stitches, and every evening when I close the curtains I enjoy the quirkiness of their not matching. I often wonder how long it took to create each quilt, and although I know that running stitch is not exactly difficult, the overall effect of those tiny stitches suggests a very complex piece of work. The sort of thing I’d usually file under ‘impossible’. So it will come as no surprise to learn that I had never thought about having a go at Kantha embroidery myself. Until last week that is…

when I got my hands on Jane Brocket’s latest book The Gentle Art of Stitching, which includes two very lovely Kantha projects – both quilts, but small’ish, one for summer and a blanket-backed version for winter. I immediately saw possibilities for my stash, but without the back-breaking cutting that a patchwork quilt entails (this one was fun to make, but the cutting part drove me slightly demented).

I must also add that I was further inspired by Jane Brocket in person when I went to hear her talk at the Malago WI (I’m not a member, but outsiders are welcome and I would recommend an evening in their company which included Champagne and cake).

Having heard Jane’s entertaining and fantastically straightforward account of how she came to create each of the 40-odd projects in The Gentle Art of Stitching, I came home convinced that I am not lost to sewing. And more specifically, that even someone with skills as limited as mine might just be able to attempt Kantha. Watch this space.

NB I meant to add that quilts like this are widely available online. As a general rule prices vary from quite pricey (but affordable if you compare against a pair of readymade fully lined curtains), to really very expensive depending on the age of the pieces and the quality of the work, though I imagine you can pick up a bargain on ebay if you are lucky. Mine came from La Belle Boutique on Picton Street in Montpelier, and they are pretty old, with lots of lovely patches here and there, though probably not strictly antique.  

most convenient

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Back in May I visited architect Laura Clark’s extraordinary home in South London, which I mentioned briefly in this post, promising an update as soon as it had been published. Here it is, in all its glory, as it appeared the Telegraph Magazine two weekends ago.
If you click on the images they will enlarge so that you can read the feature properly.

I am a fantastically nosy person and never happier than when poking around someone else’s house. Rather convenient then that my work as an interiors journalist allows me to do this rather a lot. Over the years I have visited many hundreds of homes ranging from country houses with vast estates to council-owned flats on vast estates. I’ve seen church conversions, pub conversions, but I have to say that this loo was a first.

Despite the misgivings of all my friends when I told them what I was writing about – their biggest concerns being that it might smell or be dank or dark or poky, or all of these things  - I was completely won over by Laura’s home, particularly by the amazing light which floods into the space through the little glass bricks set into the pavement overhead.

I would be lying if I said that I loved each and every one of the places I’ve written about, but I can truthfully say that I have been inspired by all of them in one way or another: the clever use of space, the canny use of cheap and simple materials, or maybe a fresh and unusual take on something ubiquitous like an Ikea bookcase or a length of ticking. But what always impresses me, regardless of whether or not the interior is to my personal taste, is the way in which these homes so clearly reflect the personalities of their creators.

In the case of Laura’s house (which, incidentally, I do love), it’s her sense of humour that shines through, and nowhere more than her wonderfully kitsch and risqué 70s porn wall in the walk-in wardrobe.

You can see Laura’s home as it was when she first started work on her blog, Crystal Palace Toilets, and more fabulous photographs of the interior as it is today on James Balston’s blog.

Laura’s house will also be featured in George Clarke’s new series Micro Designs which starts on Channel 4 some time in November.

on the buses

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Crystal Palace Radio Transmitter

Six years on and, to my horror, I find that I am now a tourist in the city that I called home for the first thirty-eight years of my life. Actually I still call London home, but it doesn’t always feel very familiar, as I discovered this week on a work-related whistle-stop visit.

The sense of being a stranger in town began the minute I arrived. As I faffed about trying to top up my oyster card, it occurred to me that my ineptitude would have driven the London-living me completely insane if I’d witnessed it. Next I found that the tube map in my head – something I had always taken for granted – seemed to have been erased. No longer necessary I suppose; God knows the storage space in my brain is pretty limited, but if I’d had a choice, that’s something I might have kept. And then there is the city’s skyline which looks different on every visit – Strata one year, Heron Tower the next and now the Shard glinting in the heat haze.

But some things remain reassuringly familiar: namely the general scuzziness of South London (and I mean that in the nicest possible way, always a fan of a little bit of grot), and the key bus routes of my childhood. My heart always leaps a little at the sight of the 137, the 37 or the 88 which, for some reason I always think of as the original Clapham Omnibus (as in the man on the Clapham Omnibus).

And on Wednesday morning I was transported back to my teenage years when I caught the number 3 to Crystal Palace. I don’t think I’ve been on this route since I was about 18, but nothing has changed, and as the bus wound steadily up the final hill before pulling into the bus station, I was delighted by the sight of the Crystal Palace radio transmitter - surely London’s answer to the Eiffel Tower.

I was in Crystal Palace to meet up with my friend the photographer James Balston, to discuss some projects and to visit a remarkable subterranean home that he is photographing and I am writing about. Below is a tiny taste of what we saw and the rest I’ll post later when it’s been published. Incidentally, James has a lovely blog here, which is dedicated to life high on the hill in SE19.

Interview over, I hopped back on the number 3 and from the front seat on the top deck I enjoyed the show as we sailed back down the hill towards the West End via Herne Hill, Brockwell Park, Brixton, Kennington, Westminster, Trafalgar Square and then the grand finale – Regent Street festooned with bunting and Union Jacks.

 

retreat

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I’m not getting very far with the post-holiday cleaning blitz. The house, particularly at the top, in the girls’ bedrooms, is a tip. It’s not just a case of needing more bin bags unfortunately. Though that would help. The problem feels bigger, more fundamental than that. I always knew that we were a family of collectors – our house is a minimalist’s nightmare – but I worry that without realising it we have actually become hoarders, which is a far more disturbing state of affairs. I am chipping away at the hoard and the hall is filling up with fat sacks to go to charity, but it’s a thankless task.

In an earlier post I likened the process to an archeological dig, but I was wrong, it’s more like a war. The war against Random and Unnecessary Stuff, a lot of which seems to be broken pink plastic, but which the girls insist they cannot live without. Battles are being fought on more fronts that a single person can manage. The insurgents are driven off each morning (figuratively, that is, I make them walk to school), only to return in the afternoon, full of vigour and ready to throw themselves into the challenge of regaining the ground I’ve conquered in their absence. It is driving me mad.

But I have devised a new strategy: after an energetic skirmish in the morning, which usually sees a few key items being carted off to the car, destined for the charity shop or dump, I beat a retreat to the sofa and immerse myself in a book for an hour. I find this restores my mental health, and I can enter the fray for a final round before the opposition troops return. I am currently flipping between Madame Bovary and New Selected Stories of Alice Munro. I am ashamed to say that I have never read anything by Alice Munro before (ditto Flaubert), and I find her a complete revelation. Sharp-eyed and witty, Munro draws deft descriptions of people and places, and somehow expands the form so that each story has the weight and power of a novel. The real revelation for me, though, aside from her elegant prose, is that however hard I might try, I can never see where her stories are going – quite how this incident will connect with that, or what the significance of that turn of phrase or detail might be. This is a feat of extraordinary brilliance, I think, in a short story, where so often it can feel as though the text has been marked up with red pen, so that the reader can be in no doubt where the plot is heading.

So, if you are fighting similar home-front battles to mine and you find yourself in need of a little mental stimulation, I cannot recommend this collection of stories highly enough. I ought to add, too, that even if your life is battle-free this book will do you good.

backlane designs

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Before we moved here, Joe and I made regular trips to Bristol to stay with his parents, Sue and Steve. Sue is multi-talented and incredibly creative (she’s run her own knitwear design business, a garden design business, written a book on allotment gardening and now blogs about it too), and on each visit I was always keen to see her latest project: a room repainted; a table stenciled; the garden redesigned; some new knitwear.

On one memorable occasion, Sue revealed a fabulous light installation fashioned from a collection of old boxes which, lit from within with fairy lights, became a Manhattan skyline. These charming buildings sat on top of a kitchen cupboard twinkling away for many years until Sue grew bored with them. None of us can remember when she threw them out, probably because there was  something new in their place.

But last November the cardboard buildings returned. Only this time the slightly wonky tower blocks had undergone a glamorous revamp and, not only that, they had a name: City Lights Yemen.

The idea for the new look buildings came to Sue whilst she was admiring a neighbour’s photographs of a trip to Yemen. Struck by the beauty of the traditional architecture, and particularly the soft glow of the alabaster window panes – a feature of so many Yemeni buildings – Sue was reminded of her shoe box skyline. And, as is the way with such moments of inspiration, she quickly saw the possibility of producing not just one set of little Yemeni houses for herself, but of going into small-scale production.

Having had this light bulb moment, Sue asked another neighbour, Helen Phillips, who has a degree in 3D design, to help her realize the project. They set to work with cardboard and craft knife, and before they knew it Backlane Designs was founded, a local manufacturer had been signed up, and City Lights: Yemen was launched.

Following the success of Yemen, Helen and Sue have now launched Warehouse, below.

I love both designs, and think that even when unlit, they look rather wonderful. And at £15 for a set of three, I also think that they are incredibly good value.

To mark the launch of their second design, Sue and Helen are planning a giveaway of one of these sets and Sue will announce the details on her blog this Friday. In the meantime, you can visit the Backlane Designs website for more details of their products, or find them here at Not On The Highstreet.

to net or not

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Despite our devotion to them, we are not, as a nation, very good at net curtains. By which I mean that all too often they look gloomy and grimy, and the designs are usually bland and uninteresting. Personally I have very mixed feelings about them, but I can see that for houses which open directly onto the street, and there are many in Bristol, a curtain of some form is they only way to ensure privacy.

This summer I found myself fascinated by the delicately embroidered panels which adorned almost every window we passed in La Rochelle, and in the villages around the Charente Maritime. It took me a while to realise that the crisp white panels I was obsessively photographing were in fact the French answer to the British net curtain.

I was almost tempted to buy some. But I resisted, reasoning that little boats, hearts and fish, whilst charming and unaffected in the weathered windows of seaside cottages in France, would only look twee in the windows of a Bristol town house.

But it made me wonder why we don’t have better equivalents here. Since our return in mid-August I’ve made a point of looking out for interesting net curtains and largely drawn a blank. Perhaps as a nation the French just have a greater sense of style when it comes to window treatments – they even seem to do cobwebs with a certain flair.
But then the other day I spotted this lovely example in my own neighbourhood.

These curtains were put up on the fly by a friend who wanted to shield the tv and computer from prying eyes whilst they were on holiday. With no time to fashion anything to fit the windows exactly, she raided her stash of vintage tea towels and pressed four of the best into service without much thought and just a few drawing pins. It was conceived as a quick, temporary fix, but they work so well they’ll probably remain in place.

They not only look lovely from the outside but, because they are not a perfect fit, they allow one glimpses of the street from within. They provide privacy without the slightly claustrophobic gloom that comes with floor to ceiling net curtains.

cornwall

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I packed the girls off to school this morning, fresh-faced and jolly after a glorious week in Cornwall. Phew! Another holiday down and a clear run, I hope, until the big one – though I do know that there’s an inset day lurking there somewhere, like an unexploded bomb. I won’t go looking for it just yet though.

Just in case the description of glorious Cornwall sounded far too smug and cheery, fellow parents will be pleased to know that things got off to the obligatory rocky start. First there was a bleak welcome to Cornwall as we crossed the Tamar Bridge. I tried to photograph Brunel’s strange and wonderful Royal Albert Bridge which runs alongside the road bridge, but the sheeting rain was against me. (Brunel’s bridge, with its ‘eyes’, always makes me think of the advertising hoarding for a failed optician in The Great Gatsby. I’m probably miss-remembering Fitzgerald though, as the last time I read Gatsby was over twenty years ago when I was revising for my A levels).

Fortunately the weather improved an hour or so later, though the same could not be said of the children’s behaviour. I find that the first 24 hours of any holiday involve intense whinging and bickering. Whilst the girls are generally pretty imaginative in their play, they prefer the comfort of well-worn themes when it comes to fighting and moaning. I think it’s safe to say that the script they chose for the start of the holiday would be familiar to most parents with more than one child. “It’s soooooo unfair, X has had much more/less/longer/better/bigger … and here you can insert whatever you like… than me!” We endured arguments about who sat where, who looked in which direction, who spotted a thatched roof first, who got to choose which songs were played and in what order etc. But by the time we stepped off the little passenger ferry that took us from Polruan to Fowey on Sunday morning, all their gripes and irritations had blown away.

Over lunch in Fowey we wrote a list of all the things we wanted to do and then diligently worked our way through it, happily crossing stuff off at the end of each day. This had the miraculous effect of short-circuiting any nagging. If a cry of “mum-can-we-have-a…” went up, I’d whip out the list and add it on, and somehow that was enough. By the end of the week we had ticked off a cream tea, crabbing at Polruan, Lanhydrock House and Cotehele, ice cream, Cornish pasties, mussels, a long walk, buying fudge, a day at Readymoney beach, a few board games, some knitting, a bit of reading, shell collecting …. and so on. We also managed to half celebrate a birthday. Matilda was 12 on the last day of our break so she got presents whilst bleary-eyed at breakfast, but had to wait until yesterday for her cake.

Sybil, who’d spent the week at kennels, decided to tick a very doggy thing off her to-do list and ate a huge chunk of cake whilst my back was turned. Luckily it had only just been cut in two, and not layered up with jam, cream and raspberries, so all was not lost.

Or at least not much of it once I’d tidied up the chewed edges and sandwiched it together. I will post more about both Cotehele and Landhydrock later this week, along with the Headland Garden at Polruan. I ticked all three off as a very lazy nod towards the RHS revision I should have been doing, and which starts again in earnest this week.

treats

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Some nice things arrived in the post this morning: a few post Christmas treats that I’d ordered for myself. I am determined to get going on a quilt, and have discovered the perfect course at the Folk House – A quilt in a day. It’s not until March, so in the meantime I thought Jane Brocket’s wonderful book, The Gentle Art of Quilt-Making, would inspire me, while the mini quilts from Whip Up would stop me losing my nerve. I also have plans for some embroidery and, having enjoyed Alicia Paulson’s blog over the last couple of years, decided that it was time to get her book. And then I received these, by special delivery, just ten minutes ago…

a little parcel of Echeveria glauca plants from Glenhirst Nursery. Not a very good photograph I’m afraid, taken in haste, and only now that I’ve loaded it, can I see that the first two plants were wrapped, rather aptly, in an ad for a Plant Theatre… which reminds me, I also want to get some of those crazy-edged auriculas. But that’s a whole other post, I think. Once I’d finished unwrapping my goodies, Sybil got going on the boxes.

potions

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At last! Half term is over. Does that sound mean-spirited? The fact is, I started the week on the back foot and never really caught up. By yesterday it looked as though burglars had rampaged through the house. The mess was all ours, of course, and now the bathroom door won’t open fully because a mountain of washing has collapsed behind it. 

But there was beauty to be found in the chaos. Above and below are the strange potions the girls and their cousins brewed up over the course of the weekend. Little plastic bags of box clippings and petals came from a day spent with grandparents and were supplemented with stuff from our garden and bits and pieces gathered around the neighbourhood.  As I write, a large mixing bowl filled with dead leaves, clumps of earth and a decorative sprinkling of petals is brewing by the back door. I love the way the children can entertain themselves like this – and not just for hours at a time, but whole weekends.

But there is a downside: my children tend to limber up for this sort of creative marathon by trashing the entire house first. It seems that imaginative outdoor play can only flower fully once they have built dens on every landing, shredded all my printer paper as bedding for imaginary pets and made some preliminary potions from grated soap, expensive shampoo and the inner bits of felt tip pens. 

And of course I have my part to play in all of this. I just can’t be arsed to do endless trips to the local science museum/gallery/special half-term play event or whatever. The park is as exciting as it gets around here. 

So our house is a tip and an hour ago the first wave of builders arrived. This is very exciting – a new kitchen is on the horizon and a fresh start to the garden. Building work is also the perfect excuse not to bother too much about cleaning.