Month: July 2014

A wonderful view (when you get to the top!)

stitchesoftime3 Comments

We are very lucky and we get to camp in some amazing places, castles and historic venues and this weekend we had an event at Peveril Castle in the Peak District. The views were amazing and well worth the very long climb (with tents and lots of kit!) to the top of the hill.

Peveril the castle 2

Peveril view

Peveril the gorge

Peveril tent and view

Due to the nature of the site we only took modern tents rather than authentic as we had to take the tents down each morning as well. The picture below shows Mark and Shane climbing up on Saturday morning with their kit, it was a long steep hill!

Peveril Castle

But this picture just sums up everything I love about re-enactment, breakfast (bacon butties of course!) in the sunshine outside the tent.

Peveril Castle

The weather was brilliant – despite my fears that this might be a very wet weekend, it was actually a little too hot on the Saturday, we girls were ok in the shade down by the entrance to the castle doing our head dress talks but the boys were sweltering at the top and did a brilliant job of running the events in that heat.

Thanks to Wendy, Kevin, Philip and Daniel for these pictures that they posted to our group Facebook site.

Peveril show

Luke had a new cotehardie to show off – he looks brilliant and I love this picture.

Peveril event

I also really love this one of the girls looking at the view.

Peveril the sisters

Peveril Me and Ellie

Here are Luke and Jamie doing a dagger display.

Peveril Luke and Jamie

This is the arena from the top of the castle.

Peveril event

And here am I with Luke’s very impressive horned helm.

Pevril me and view

Pevril Sisters

Peveril Luke and Mark

Peveril Paul and Jamie

Pevril me and king

Peveril end of show

We were all so tired that after a trip down to a pub at the bottom of the hill for a very nice meal Saturday evening we only had a little sit round the campfire before bed.

A really excellent weekend and a great way to finish the Swords of Mercia events for this year. The Sisters still have a few events left before the tents go away for winter 😦

Ellie is now here for a week’s holiday so we may do some days out later in the week, we do have a trip planned to a textile museum en route to moving Jake into a new flat in Middlesbrough.

Hope you have all had a good weekend and thanks for visiting.

Christmas in July

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello and I hope you are having good weather – we are having a minor heat wave here which is very nice.

Hope it continues for the weekend as we have our first ever show at Peveril Castle and we are not going to have much shelter as it is right on top of a hill so the tents will be miles away!

Spent last weekend at home so decided to have a ‘ Christmas in July ‘ afternoon with friends from my knitting group here in sunny Marsden.

Sue, Sharon and Sammy (other people with names not beginning with S were invited but couldn’t make it) all came round for a few hours of crafty loveliness and a bit of light refreshment 😉

I showed them how to do the lovely baubles from Springwood House Designs and my little stocking designs and we were away playing with fabric.

Xmas in July Sharon

Xmas in July Sue

Xmas in July Sharon and Sue

They were very talented, Sue made a beautiful blue and silver bauble and Sharon proved herself to be the fastest bauble maker in the West (Yorkshire) with two produced that you can see on the left here, one traditional holly patterned and another Scandi style burgundy one.

Sammy’s is the red and gold bauble on the right and I stuck to my good old traditional colours for the one at the back – I do love a bit of red, green and gold!

Xmas in July Ornaments

We had a little seasonal feast as well with mince pies, ginger and chocolate cupcakes , rocky road and crispy cakes and pigs in blankets accompanied by Prosecco and mulled wine (which tastes very good cold!)

Xmas in July

A lovely afternoon and one we will repeat a bit nearer the actual festive season as we have lots of things to make for friends, family and fund raising at craft stalls.

Thanks for visiting and will be back next week with hopefully some pictures of a lovely sunny re-enactment event!

More Spanish loveliness

stitchesoftime1 Comment

On our recent trip to Spain we visited the little mountain town of Novelda again – I have posted before about going to Casa Modernista and we went back to show that to Ellie and my Aunt Maureen.

The church was open this time as they were having a fiesta so I got to take some photos of the wonderful inside, like many Spanish churches it has a tiled blue roof and some restoration had been done on the stonework with new inserts into the pillars which were beautifully carved.

Spain June 2014 Novelda Church

Spain June 2014 Novelda Church 2

Spain June 2014 Novelda Church 3

Spain June 2014 Novelda Church 4

Spain June 2014 Novelda Church 5

Spain June 2014 Novelda Church 6

The rest of the town was very pretty as well with an unusual tower on the town hall and gorgeous Art Deco benches.

Spain June 2014 Novelda

Spain June 2014 Novelda 2

Spain June 2014 Novelda 3

Spain June 2014 Novelda 4

We also went to visit a small local museum where they store the Moors and Christians costumes for the re-enactments of the Reconquista that are held all over Spain.

Spain June 2014 Novelda costume

Spain June 2014 Novelda costume 2

Spain June 2014 Novelda costume 3

Spain June 2014 Novelda goldwork

A fab time as always, I do so love Spain, the people buildings and lifestyle, I am very lucky to be able to go so often and can never wait to return.

Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

On an (elephant) roll

stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello again

Just a quick post to show you the second of my Little Cotton Rabbits  knitted elephants.

Bonnie elephant Spain

Meet Bonnie – short for Bonita as she was completed in Spain which is why she is posing among the bougainvilleas at my house. She has been sent to live with Becky, Ellie’s best friend from University, who loves elephants.

Am now on with the third elephant – have done 9 bunnies so far – I love knitting these just as much as people like receiving them!

Thanks for visiting.

A brilliant weekend

stitchesoftime3 Comments

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. A very hot and relaxing holiday in Spain followed by one of the best Tewkesbury weekends ever means that blogging time has been severely curtailed.

Anyway here I am with some costume stuff to share and battle pictures courtesy of Pat Patrick who does such a fab job at all events.

Firstly here are the fruits of the sewing weekend we had in Feb. You may remember this being cut out, well it turned into the outfit below that Kerry on the right is wearing.

Tewks -Ellie and Kerry

The one that Ellie wears is a dress Kerry made some years ago. Apologies for the very non-authentic background, my Photoshop skills are not good enough to replace it!

They looked splendid walking round the market in the morning, even though it was very hot they made a sterling effort to look cool and elegant.

We had our newest member Sadie with us and she really enjoyed the battle. We spent a lot of time pointing out to her all the exciting bits, literally as Pat has captured!

You can just see us at the back of these photos – Sadie in green, Ellie in burgundy. me in blue and Kerry in brown, pointing out where our boys are fighting.

Even though it was really hot all day there was quite a rainstorm during the battle but the boys in armour never felt a thing! Here is the King and his retinue – look at that goldwork!

Tewks - battle in rain

Tewks - battle in rain 3

Tewks - battle in rain

A very excellent time and can’t wait for more events. Now on with some further kit making, in the week before Tewkesbury I managed to make a shirt and brais and mend some hose and an arming jack, now on with an arming waistcoat and then I am going to make some kit for me!

Take care and thanks for visiting.