Addison Embroidery
at the
Vicarage

Zimsterne

Almost all my favourite Christmas biscuits are of Germanic or Italian origin. 2 years ago I made lots of  Gingerbread, Kipferl and Lebkuchen while last year it was amaretti. This year I’ve made plenty of amaretti but I also discovered a simple and delicious recipe for cinnamon stars. The recipe is by Edd Kimber and is to be found on the BBC Good Food website.

2 large egg white

1 tsp lemon juice, plus zest 1 lemon

200g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting

250g ground almond

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

Heat oven to 150°C/130°C for  fan oven/ Gas Mark 2.

Line a couple of largish baking trays with baking parchment.

With an electric mixer whisk egg whites until foamy. Add the lemon juice and whisk again until soft peak stage.

Gradually sift in the icing sugar and carry on whisking until the mixture stiffens. Set aside about a quarter of the mixture for the meringue topping. To the rest add the almonds, cinnamon, ginger, lemon zest and mix until a stiff, slightly sticky dough results.

Zimsterne on an Anthropologie tea towel

Gather the dough together and place on a piece of  baking parchment which has been lightly dusted with icing sugar. Sparingly dust the top of the dough and place a second sheet of baking parchment over the top. Roll out the  dough to a thickness of about 0.5 cm. Peel off the top sheet of parchment and with a little bowl of icing sugar standing by in which to keep dipping your cutter cut out the biscuits. They won’t spread much at all so they can be 1-2 cm apart and you will get quite a lot on a tray. (As usual, I made them quite small – c. 2.5 cm across). Place on prepared tray. Cover the top of the biscuit  with the meringue mixture set aside earlier (you may need to loosen this with a few drops of water but I didn’t). Put in oven for about 10 minutes (12-15 if you have used a 5cm cutter). The meringue should be set but not brown. Allow to cool fully before putting in an airtight container where they could in theory be  kept for up to 2 weeks.

Zimsterne carol services are over (about 90 people at each of the villa

Both North Stoke and Ipsden had their carol services on Sunday late afternoon/evening and both saw turnouts of about 90 people (one village has a population of about 220; the other is just over 300).  Mulled wine and Christmas delicacies follow the services and goodness was there plenty. So lavish was mulled wine production at Ipsden that not only was there enough for those in the church but a full flask came home with us too.  The rest of the evening was consequently very relaxing and we all slept extremely well – but previously …

I had just begun reading the first lesson at Ipsden, when the smallest member of the family achieved a noisy breakout from his pew, did a rather fine dummy run past me at the lectern (rendering me helpless with ill suppressed giggles and the beginnings of tears), raided the crib of a goat and two sheep and made his getaway back the way he had come. I think I may have amended Genesis to the tune of noting that it wasn’t only the voice of God that could be heard in the garden and for a moment I did wonder whether I would be able to continue in anything other than a strangled half laugh/half cry of a voice. The parents, after a valiant attempt of containment decided perhaps the walk home was in order – the next target would have definitely been the vicar whose appearance in a dress has proved to be so exciting that the small person feels he has to keep tugging at it while lovingly looking up and interrogatively repeating, “gumpa?”. People were very charitable about him and several came up to afterwards saying he should have stayed and children should be welcome in church and in principle I agree … in practice … well, lets just say he will be 2 on 29 December…

Zimsterne and Anthropologie tea towel

Last night, the vicar had a more informal celebration in the ruined church at Mongewell and even there there were probably well over 50 people (and possibly 70) crammed into the old apse which is all that remains weather tight.

The vicarage is filing up with the first instalment of family as the politicos dragged themselves away from Palace of Westminster and settled themselves into rural life (if you don’t count going back for a drinks party this evening). Now I must get back to finishing the latest jumper for someone’s Christmas present – why oh why did I go for multicoloured stripes? Am I really going to bother weaving in all those loose threads from the end of the stripes? (And since Penny from Norwich left a comment telling me that Kaffe Fassett used to leave his ends dangling free I almost feel that’s all the precedence I need.) Slovenliness is creeping into the Christmas preparations…

Hand towels with embroidered J monogram (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

I have just finished embroidering a couple of linen hand towels for a friend to give as a Christmas present. I’m a bit uncomfortable about hand embroidery on such things as hand towels. However, as this was what was wanted, I tried to make something that would withstand rough treatment and a high temperature wash – which shouldn’t be too difficult when you consider how well all the vintage embroidered linens you see around have endured and survived what was probably a much harder life.

Design for J monogram for hand towel

I was asked to come up with a design very like some of the embroidery seen on the blog, in particular this one done in chain stitch on cushion and for a while I played with the idea of using chain stitch again. But those vintage embroideries kept coming back and I realised that a padded satin stitch, giving the whole design a bit of 3 D would probably work best.

C19 German letters, after C16 Renaissance Alphabet (from Historic Alphabets & Initials, Woodcut & Ornamental: ed Carol Belanger Grafton, Dover 1977)

For reference I went back to the alphabet I’d used for the cushion mentioned above which had come from Historic Alphabets & Initials Woodcut & Ornamental, edited by Carol Belanger Grafton (pub.: Dover 1977). For all the wonders of the internet at our fingertips, there are still times when books come up trumps and this one in particular is a stimulating source of ideas for ornamented lettering. You can see from the photograph below that I’ve taken elements here and there from different letters and used a quite different style ‘J’.

Hand towel No 1 with J monogram in Renaissance style (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Hand towel No 2 with J monogram in Renaissance style (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

The towels themselves were sent to me already made up and before I began I washed them on 60 degrees to limit any shrinking of the linen after embroidery. I scaled the design to the size wanted, went over the lines with a fine tipped black pen and then, with a light box beneath, traced the design onto the linen using an ordinary pencil, which I find is fine as the pencil lines get lighter and lighter as I work on it. I then outline the whole design in running stitch, or stem stitch, in just 2 strands of  embroidery cotton. (If I have  made a mess with the pencil and it’s still very visible or grubby, I will often wash it again at this stage.) All the solid areas I fill with chain stitch, stem stitch or running stitch for depth and padding before I go over them with satin stitch. Sometimes I remove the original running stitch for things like stems where I want to make the embroidery look fresh or where I want to use another stitch. The holes of the previous stitches will still be visible so you can tread in the old footsteps without having to draw a line again. As I sew I often make a few changes to the design.

Hand towel with J monogram in Renaissance style (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Making 2 of anything can be a bit of a challenge as they never come out exactly the same (and I could play ‘spot the difference’ with the two designs). But that’s handmade for you. My husband’s sermons are just the same. Having 2 services on a Sunday, the sermon at the second is always very different from that he gave first and sometimes he spontaneously departs entirely from what he said before – same notes, but different recipients and this too is as it should be. (The one thing we can rely on is that they are never too long and for this we are all grateful.)