Month: November 2016

A tale of two villages

stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello again

I am amusing myself after a very snowy day again earlier this week and torrential rain and flooding today thinking of happy sunny times in Spain so thought that I would add the rest of my photos from Tabarca.

At the other end of this little island from the wild rocky cost is a little village, just 4 streets at the side of the church, with some really pretty little houses, I took lots of pictures of the windows and doors.

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This was a house that has been turned into an art gallery, lots of inspiration for arty shots.

And there was some lovely crochet in the window of this door.A beautiful place and one I would love to go back to. They do have hostels and rental properties so would love to do that one day as a mini holiday within a holiday.

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The other little village is my growing collection of house pin cushions, have not made any for a while but have quite a few now. Not certain yet where they are ending up but for now they are just populating the craft room.

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Have really enjoyed choosing different fabric and buttons and flowers for these from my stash. Added the cute button headed pins to some as well.Apologies for shadows in the photos, the light was not good this weekend.

The fabric flowers come from some braid that I have cut into individual flowers. So cute! Have just had an order of very lovely flower buttons for the next lot of houses but those will have to wait until the ornaments have been done.

I have made the cathedral window ornament and several folded ones so will show you that next post. Ellie and I are of to the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show this weekend so looking forward to that and will try to be good and not buy fabric!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Here’s one I made earlier

stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello everyone

Hope that you have all had a nice week. I am settling in to the new role at work and am enjoying all of the new modules I am teaching. As I mentioned previously I have been doing some travelling for work and while in Liverpool recently went to the cathedral to see the Elizabeth Hoare Gallery.

The reason why I wanted to visit was that many years ago, about 10 I think but it could be longer, I did a piece of goldwork from a magazine which was taken from this collection. I was very pleased with this Tudor Rose design, my first major piece of goldwork and it sits on my mantelpiece. It took about 50 hours to stitch.

I promised myself then that I would visit the collection, well it has taken a while but is so worth it. The collection was started to preserve Victorian and Edwardian ecclesiastical goldwork and has always been housed at the cathedral.

What makes it very special is that when the cathedral was being built a group was formed to make all the things for the cathedral and those are also displayed there. So unlike other places where you don’t know who made the items it has all been documented.

There are also some lovely samples showing how the items were made and this silks case, complete with stitched colour names on each of the pockets.

The piece I made was taken from this beautiful altar frontal which you can see in its full size at the back of the case in the second photo.I think it looks absolutely stunning in the green velvet.I am very pleased with my version as well.

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There were so many other wonderful pieces, altar frontals, copes, chalice covers, you name it all of the glory that is church stitching was there. An absolutely wonderful collection.I am very pleased that made it there at last and plan to take Ellie there one day.

I have not been doing anything much for the last few weeks but plan to get cracking this weekend on the ornaments, am thinking of doing cathedral window ones.

I have found a couple of tutorials like this one here  and this one and some fab inspiration from Pinterest such as this one using vintage linen from Jo at MyBearPaw.

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Look at this gorgeous idea as well. Hope I can make something as lovely as this from Quilt Maven.

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Will report back on progress! Hope that you all have a lovely weekend.
Thanks for visiting.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside….

stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello everyone

I have come back very brown and happy from a lovely week in Spain with my Mum, a brilliant winding down week consisting mainly of sleeping, reading and walks along the beach with not only paddles but one actual swim in the sea.It was very warm all week, in the high 20s so I wore shorts for most of the time and now actually have brown legs for the first time ever in my life.

We went on a boat trip to the island of Tabarca on one of our days out, I have been a few times before and love it, it is a tiny island about 3 miles from the mainland which was fortified during the 1700s so has the remains of the walls and a little fort.The sea was such a wonderful colour.

It is a very different landscape to the mainland beaches with lots of rocky inlets and sea grass that has dried into huge clumps on the beach, very much like the Cornish coast and there are some great views and walks at the uninhabited end of the island.

This was the little graveyard right at the end of the island. At the other end near the village is the church, we have never been able to go in it as it has been being restored every time we have visited over the last 10 years but it makes a very imposing sight at the edge of the island and the stone looks amazing next to the sky and sea.

We stopped for a coffee so I got the chance to take an arty shot of these stools outside the bar.Love the colours against the sea.

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Later on we had lunch overlooking the sea with lots of cute stray cats begging for food, we saved some of our tuna for them and I got a quick picture of another  island stray for you, because there aren’t enough pictures of cats on the internet are there 😉

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We walked along the restored fortified wall to the other end of the island to peek through one of the defensive towers.

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It was such a lovely day with the sun sparkling on the sea, hard to believe that in the UK it was Autumn and it has been a bit of a shock to find myself back in winter time zones with it now getting dark at 5pm. Luckily the festive season is fast approaching, so I seriously need to get my act together with ornament making and I am very glad I have mulled wine and candles to keep me sane 🙂

Also I have all the Christmas events to attend, am really looking forward to spending Christmas with Ellie in Worksop as she has to work on Christmas Day so I get to go to the church service at Clumber Park chapel.

It will be the first time we have been to a Christmas Day service since our trip to Prague in about 2006 when I, ‘persuaded’, the kids to come to Mass with me on Christmas morning. It was a very cold cathedral and the hour and a half service was all in Latin, for some reason they were not inspired to ever let me repeat that experience. I call it character building!

I did sneak a Christmas Eve service in last year in Oslo cathedral which was lovely. Ellie is now quite happy to attend any church service in any country but Jake is still not amused by trying to sing hymns or carols in other languages.

Hope that you all have a very nice week, will be back soon with the Liverpool goldwork pictures and more lovely pincushions! Take care and thanks for visiting.