Currently Coveting....Laura Carlin Ceramics

I just love love love these exquisite ceramics by Laura Carlin, a little bit too divine for words.

I came across the very talented Laura Carlin as I was leafing through the latest edidtion of World Of Interiors magazine where you can read all about her,or follow my link to her blog on my 'Blogs I Love' section.

I just love her sense of colour and pattern, I'm thinking she must be influenced by textiles for sure, or maybe just loves textiles, judging by the patchwork themes of these two bowls.

The pattern on the bowl below reminds me of Josef Frank fabric.

I love the naive quality of her illustrations, I'm secretly thinking I might just have to save up for one of her pieces...I haven't quite got the courage to email and ask how much they are.

Or maybe just get on down to a ceramic evening class, which I've actually seriously been thinking about doing lately , and these have inspired me further.

For Miracle over at Athena's Train.

I found this beautiful voice today while I was clearing some cobwebs, it sounded familiar and seemed a little lost. So I coaxed it into this bottle where it is now safely stored for you.

Delicious Feast!

So here it is...all ready to enjoy, and still some sunshine left to sit outside, I used my pretty covered dish as a soup tureen.

Couldn't resist a picture of the lovely Jane Wellens bowl, and through tthe trees in the distance you can just about see the moor.

Without it's lid, the dark green nettle soup with a sprinkling of chopped wild garlic.

Spring-time lunch at the hide-out!

My inner hedge- witch can hardly contain herself today as I gather and prepare for a spring-time lunch. It's so warm in the garden and the first dandelion flowers have appeared. So I'm very excited to be gathering herbs.........

We'll be having nettle soup and I havn't decided yet on wild garlic salad or wild garlic and walnut pesto.....or maybe both.

Which will be followed by lemon balm tea....the sweet lovely Melissa, and crystallised primrose flowers, which I will crystallise using rose water and unrefined caster sugar.

All the while I can enjoy the beautiful Helebore and Snowdrops on my kitchen windowsill and the amazing green vibrancy of the nettles which I also felt deserved to be among the display and honoured for her many marvelous medicinal qualities, never ever even whisper the word weed within ear shot of the queen of the way-side.

I'll just leave this dandelion flower steeping for a while in some wine for later as a digestive apperitif!

Ways with Walnuts and antidotes to dullness

Last week a French woman , Sandrine, came to stay with her two children, her father is a farmer and she bought with her vast amounts of walnuts grown by him and the yummiest, mildest, softest goats cheese (which i normally hate) , also made by him from his own Goat's milk.....are you conjuring the image?

So here are some of those walnuts displayed with my previously featured favourite nut crackers. I've been munching my way through a fair few of them, while admiring the beautiful shells I was wondering what I could do with them, so I sawed a few in half and thought they reminded me of tiny fairy sized boats and then had this image in my mind of lots of them like little floating candles sailing down a tiny stream at dusk.

So this morning I thought to myself I'd try to make some tiny floating walnut candles and was quite delighted with the results I have to admit, and just couldn't resist making a tiny little lace sail for one of them. Here it is below in a mossy setting waitng to launch!

Just to prove that they actually do float I though I'd better try them out, I was going to do it in the stream but it's blowing a gale up here today, so I made a little harbour for them to sale around in an old hollow of a tree trunk in the garden.