Teal to Love

I am totally in Love!
with these prints for my pillows : )

Available now on Etsy: teal-peacock-patchwork-bolster-ooak 
SOLD
and teal-floral-deluxe-accent-pillow-cover

teal-floral-pink-patchwork-pillow-cover

A glorious statement pillow in Teal to treasure!

SisterBatik One Of A Kind pillow covers with our own creative patchwork design on the front.

Using genuine Dutch wax print batik - 100% crisp cotton. Additional inside lining of neutral cotton give our pillows a luxury decor fabric feel - superb quality.  Our pillows are all professionally serged/ over locked.

Rectangular - 12" x 22". Concealed phlox zip at base.

This longer length pillow is perfect as a feature for a stand alone armchair.

Super comfortable and huggable!!

Links to decorating with shades of Teal:

coreasotropa

bathroom-ideas-design

bedroomdesigndecor.blogspot.com

decorativehomeinterior

Family dumplings

Preparing food can be a pleasure, so I learnt.

My sister and I, from time to time, get together to make Gyoza (Japanese dumplings), some destined for the freezer and some to eat fresh, with whomever shares our table. 

After coveting their more-ishness in restaurants for many years, I was over the moon to discover a good recipe for it.  The recipe, I learnt from my brother, who dictated it as I watched him prepare it, pestering him for quantities that don't formally exist, more intuitive estimates and portions - get a taste for it, change it, flavours are malleable.  He in turn had learnt it watching someone before him.  I had to work fast to get it written down (apologies for the handwriting); I get an idea of what it must be like to be an apprentice in his kitchen.

In Italy, traditionally girls with their mother and grandmother would set time aside to wrap gnocchi (dumplings) for a large Sunday lunch - they call them parcels of love.  The act of folding and repetition, wrapping each individually to be enjoyed and shared amongst many, really is an exercise of great affection.

Some destined for the freezer.

Some destined for the plate.

 

(Missing from the bottom is Japanese Rice vinegar to be combined in the dipping sauce) 

This was the best video I found to demonstrate wrapping on youtube: youtube.com/gyoza wrapping

NB  When packing to store in the freezer, put cling film between each layer of gyoza, to prevent them all sticking together.

Enjoy preparing these and enjoy Eating them even more!

You might like to read:

sticky-and-rich 

lets-do-bibimbap

Collier Campbell Design Sisters

 There is currently a free exhibition at the National Theatre of the design story of the Collier Campbell sisters, prolific painters onto fabric.  It is well worth poking your head around this exbition and being utterly charmed and understanding their footprint on English textiles and bohemia; it is quietly and leisurely tucked away: collier-campbell-exhibition

The exhibition is a celebration of 50 years of Collier Campbell.

Their bold use of colour, clashing compositions and immediate florals played a part in the burgeoning British bohemia in textiles during the 60s, rejecting the subtle and traditional depictions of English gentility, they brought the colours of Matisse and foreign lands to their paintings and prints.  Working initially for Liberty's of London and also feted by design houses such as Yves St Laurent, they now licence their prints to many British department stores, for home decor, crockery, paper goods as well as producing an independent line.

Susan Campbell has said that she "wanted to be a painter, but was no Matisse".  I loved seeing the Sisters' paintings on pieces of brown parcel paper and corrugated cardboard included in the exhibition.  Reminding me of times when I would paint on anything to hand, scrap cardboard mostly and directly onto the back boards of old picture frames.

It is easy to see their influence on English designers who followed, such as Matthew Williamson, who is famous for his bohemian and colourful designs.

 

(photograph from Collier Campbell)

To:  Susan Collier, 12 October 1938 - 7 May 2011

Tangerine Summer

Spring is here but I am already impatient for summer : )

I want to open my French doors wide and sit out on my tiny balcony, and have the branches of the tree limber over the bars.  I want my lavenders to singe ever so slightly and as the heat dries, to sublimate.  And the cherry tomatoes to roast ever so slightly, to sweeten, as I imagine them picked, and sat beside red snapper and capers in the oven.  The fox gloves that I carefully seeded last year to bloom and grow strong and tall.  My arid plant to be reminded of the heat, which is its idyll after I absent mindedly forgot to bring it in over winter, for which I am so sorry. 

 Available on Etsy: tangerine-stripes-deluxe-large-cushion 

This summer, orange is to make a big statement in fashion and home styling.

And this one is perfect as a scatter pillow for indoor/ outdoor living.  For the patio or pool house, garden, decking or porch, as picnic or al fresco seating......

In a large fun size 18" x 24" - superb quality and comfort.

Here is a treasury I made to : orange