Free Jigsaw Download - and Future Giveaway

I am very lucky to have this 1991 calendar with 12 gorgeous large colour images of samplers in the Bristol Museums and Art Galleries Collection - including the Hannah Searls Ackworth Sampler - how about that! In fact I am so excited about it, I can't keep it to myself - so watch the blog for when this is offered as a free giveaway. In the meantime please all enjoy this free jigsaw. However, sadly, this is not going to work for Mac users. Instructions: Click here next Click Open, then click the .EXE file name and click Run, when you see the jigsaw puzzle, click Play Too many pieces? Try clicking on Trays on the top tool bar to create any number of resizeable trays to sort your pieces ........ you can also click the Cheat button and watch the puzzle solve itself! The software is by David Gray designer of Jigsaws Galore - the powerful jigsaw player and creator for Windows.

Sarah Harris Progress

It is such a pleasure to keep popping in to look at the Sarah Harris and Hannah Gilpin Stitchalongs and to see your different approaches and read your comments. I have just picked out Pat's Sarah Harris because she is probably more progressed than most and so you can have some intimation of how this very extraordinary and fun Quaker sampler will take shape. Pat says: I have to admit that I am enjoying Sarah, even though my friends tell me that it isn't "me". I've never been into bright colors, but Sarah may change that! I've only changed a couple colors, partly due to my choice of a darker linen.

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Watch Cloth and Temperance Sampler at Bonhams * 27 July

If you have been keeping a watch on upcoming auctions at Bonhams, I hope you haven't overlooked this interesting group of small needlework items that composes Lot 255 carrying an estimate of £300-£400. Here you can see a watch cloth that would have been stitched as a present for a friend to pop inside their fob watch to protect the glass from scratches. Maybe you can just make out the facing birds and the words - A Token of Friendship. It has been framed by someone as a decorative item.



Another unusual item is this temperance stitched cloth. It is not a sampler but something you would have on the wall of your parlour as a reminder to yourself and a sign to visitors that members of your house were committed abstainers from alcohol. Temperance societies started springing up in the UK from the 1830s - first it was simply to abstain from hard spirits, but later all alcohol was included in the remit when signing the Pledge. Quakers and Non-Conformists headed the movements and to this day many continue to be teetotallers, to the extent that communion is celebrated in their churches with non-alcoholic wine. This is Lot 242 with an estimate of £150-£250.


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Think Pink - Schiaparelli Pink Risotto with Hearts of Goat Cheese

Oh dear - you have got me thinking about food. I promise not to turn the blog into a foodie site, but maybe you would like to hear something about risotto before I hang up my pinny. Years ago when I worked in Milan, we ocasionally indulged in champagne risotto with truffles at Boeucc in Milan. It was the sort of thing one had to do because it could never happen at home. Could it? Well, I returned to London and my flat in a mansion block where I found I had a new neighbour. He was a translator and minor embassy official with a severe collecting mania for all things Russian - icons, books, music etc - even a Russian ballerina. Too beautiful to limit herself to just one admirer, the consequence was that there were almost daily deliveries of sturgeon, caviare and Russian champagne. Great in beauty she may have been but she was short in the fridge department, so quantities of all frequently turned up on my doorstep. When the cat, her bored nose in the air, started to walk away from the sturgeon, I would curry it - it is a solid fish and makes a wonderful curry. The champagne, of course, went into risotto or sometimes, even better, risotto made with pearl barley. Of course the affair couldn't last forever, and it didn't. Now, for two people, I juice 2 carrots, a head of celery (after reserving and finely dicing the white hearts) and two to four cooked beetroot - about 20 fl. oz. I toss two diced red or white onions, the diced celery heart with 5 oz of good Lombard rice - Carnaroli is nicest (but Vialone Nano will do at a pinch) in butter and allow to sweat for a few minutes before pouring 2 glasses of Vermouth. One I slosh in the pan with the risotto, the other gets a slice of lemon and some ice to lend power to the cook's stirring arm. Then I add the juiced vegetables ladle by ladle as one does - stirring diligently, admiring the great Schiaparelli pinkness of it all, sipping the vermouth, until the liquid is mostly absorbed when I take it off the heat and stick a lid on. Then I take a log of goat cheese which I have had firming in the fridge and I cut half inch slices and from these cut out heart shapes with a canape cutter. These hearts are mounted on the finished risotto when plated up. Don't try adding anything green, it just doesn't work. (The shards of left-over goat cheese can be eaten later with honey and either banana or dates on bread.) My Italian colleagues in Milan always phoned home 20 minutes before they were due to arrive in, to tell their wife to put their risotto on...now!