Author: stitchesoftime

Hello - I'm a very happy 50 something and I live in Yorkshire in the UK. I have 2 lovely children, Ellen who is 28 and Jacob who is 25 . By day I am a teacher trainer but am also a medieval re-enactor and a passionate stitcher, knitter and quilter! I love camping and am happiest in a field , preferably one with a view of mountains!

Ashmolean treasures

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In the summer when we went to Oxford we visited various museums including the Ashmolean and I wanted to share with you some of the wonderful textiles there. There were various exhibition sections and one of my favourites was Mediterranean Threads, showcasing 18th and 19th century Greek embroidery.

The light was understandably not good enough to take many detailed pictures, but they have got a detailed look at the exhibits at this link here. This was one of my favourite pieces, there is so much detail here.

There was also some stunning Japanese silk embroidery, the sheer scale of the pieces and the fine work never ceases to amaze me, I was lucky enough to see an exhibition of this on one of my visits to China and it is incredible work.

I have been really enjoying reading the theses about Bess of Hardwick and the museum had some treasures from that era as well.

The sweet bags I have seen before but the most interesting was this set of wooden serving boards for sweetmeats, that had verses on the back that could then be read aloud.

This set comprised 12 boards in a storage box and dated from 1600. I can imagine that Bess may have had something similar for her table at one of her many houses.

We ate at a stunningly decorated restaurant one evening, Comptoir Libanais, that we found by just walking past. The food was as stunning as the décor and you can see more at their Instagram. I can heartily recommend a visit if there is a branch near you. I love the use of colour and tiles everywhere.

Craft wise I am still knitting, am onto another rabbit at the moment, but have plans to do some more cross stitch soon. Last summer I discovered Readly, a fantastic app that gives you access to lots of digital magazines for one small monthly fee, so I have been enjoying looking at lots of embroidery and cross stitch magazines. I used to do mainly cross stitch when the children were young but have not done much for years apart from the Christmas ornaments. I have found some gorgeous little caravan and camper patterns in one of the magazines so am planning to start that soon.

We have spent part of this weekend preparing the campervan as we are off on a little jolly to the Peak District tomorrow. I was looking back at the other post that I did about Oxford earlier and was reminded that was my very first retirement trip, although it took place before had officially finished work for good. This upcoming one will be my seventh adventure, (counting all of the camping ones last summer as one big one), not bad for just over 6 months of retirement! It makes me very, very happy to be able to do the things that I had planned and I am very grateful to be able to do this.

We have various walks planned including one to the Dragon’s Back, near Buxton. I doubt the weather will give us views like this but we are excited to be away and outdoors anyway. Picture and walk details from here.

I hope that you have all had a good week and have not been too battered by storms if you have been in the UK. It was interesting having a driving lesson in high winds yesterday but everything was fine here. Have a good week ahead, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Tudor times and city beauty

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I am currently living in the city of Worcester, a place I know well. Ellen was at university here and my sister has lived here for about 16 years so we have visited many times. It is a very beautiful place with a wealth of fantastic Tudor, Georgian and Victorian architecture.

I have been wandering around taking pictures of some of the lovely buildings and thought that I would share them with you. Yesterday was also the Living History weekend here so I visited the Lypett Household at the wonderful Greyfriars, a National Trust property where Ellen had her first job when she was a student.

The Hopmarket is a wonderful example of Victorian building and is where the hops used for brewing were originally sold from. There are some lovely cafes and shops here, including a very cute little wool shop that I have just had to support.

Some of the buildings have been repurposed, the Hopmarket used to be a hotel and bank and the church below is now a branch of a pub chain, the inside is still as beautiful and Ellen and I have been here many times to eat.

I have not yet been inside the Guildhall, Kerry is due to visit in March so I am saving that for her but it looks amazing, look at these gates!

There are so many beautiful buildings on the main street as well. We also visited a gorgeous tiled Victorian pub last weekend.

The Tudor group looked wonderful inside Greyfriars, the outside of which is pictured above. I have visited a few times before so did not take many pictures as Kerry and I are visiting there as well, so I shall post more after that. I had a great time talking to them about their costumes, weaving and natural dying techniques. It was so nice to be with re-enactors again.

There are also some very cute tea-shops in the city so I am on a mission to visit as many as I can before I leave. This one is called G and Tea and is very near to Greyfriars. The cake was excellent and I particularly loved the little tea strainer, I remember those from my childhood.

I have had a very productive week working on my novel. It is set partly at Hardwick Hall which is an Elizabethan mansion, so it was a fitting end to the week to meet this group, some of whom also have an interest in Bess of Hardwick. I have found quite a few PhD theses about Bess and the hall and am looking forward to reading those over the coming weeks. It is nice to be using the academic skills for something very pleasurable and I am really enjoying the research for the book.

We were able to go to a gig on Friday to see some of the singer songwriters that Jacky loves and had an excellent evening. It was so nice to be in the company of people and hearing live music and there were some excellent songs played. It is wonderful to be able to do such normal things and I am very grateful that things are happening again.

I am working on a gift for my niece at the moment, well two of them but won’t be able to reveal one for a while. I am putting my new machine to good use and will be able to show you some more knitted cuteness soon.

I hope that you have all had a good week and are looking forward to the week ahead. Have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Stepping back in time, in many respects

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This post is going back to some of my travels this past summer, to tell you about all the loveliness from museums that I did not have chance to post about when I was travelling. As you may expect it involves re-enactment and historic costume 🙂

Our first trip was a very special day out to visit our friends in our re-enactment group, Swords of Mercia, most of whom we had not seen for about 2 years. We were not able to join in the full event at Nottingham Castle, due to number restrictions because of the virus, but did have a very lovely day in Nottingham.

We found a beautiful location for lunch, completely by accident, just wandering through the city centre. The Nottingham Secret Garden is one of the many venues that have adapted brilliantly to outside eating and drinking, despite the British weather and we had a delicious tapas lunch there. The interior rooms are also beautiful, though I don’t think that they are open at the moment.

The encampment at the castle was smaller than usual, due to the need to keep distancing but it all worked really well and our friends had a lovely time doing both show and tell and small fight demonstrations. There were people from lots of groups there, all representing different time periods in the castle’s history.

We have some hugely talented people in our group and both of our leatherworkers have spent the down time due to the pandemic refining their skills. Symon and David both do exceptional work making scabbards and bags. These are some of David’s beautiful sword scabbards. If you ever need anything like this, or a decorated leather bag, or a beautiful bespoke hair ornament do visit Buffy Historical Leatherwork and Lionhead Leather.

We were also excited to visit the newly refurbished museum within the castle. After a quick stop in the café for a gluten -free cream tea and a look at their fabulous button wall, we headed for the lace and costume displays.

Nottingham is famous for its lacemaking, firstly hand made lace and latterly machine lace so the displays were fascinating. There were some gorgeous garments from the last 150 years.

They also had lots of samples of lace and the jacquard machines and hole punch cards that were used to make the fabric.

One of my favourite things was this panel commemorating World War 2. A small but really well thought out exhibition with lots of information and very interesting pictures of the lace makers and their craft. Well worth a visit.

We have been invited back to Nottingham Castle to do another event this coming July, fingers crossed we can all go this time, so looking forward to it. Hopefully all of the events that are planned will be able to go ahead this year.

Jacky has been doing some work to the campervan as we go away again in a couple of weeks which is very exciting. I have had a busy week with trying to perfect reversing into parking spaces on my driving lessons, continuing with my very enjoyable creative writing course on Zoom with the WEA, and working on my novel. I have now written 11, 958 words so far and it is really starting to take shape. It takes me back to the days of writing the doctorate, thankfully over a year ago now. It so lovely to be writing things just for me and I am thoroughly enjoying the process.

I hope life is good with all of you, and that you are enjoying your weekend whatever you are doing. I will be back soon with more lovely museum textiles so until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Caceres – Moorish influences

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One of the things that I love about Spain is the history and architecture inspired by the conquest by the Moors. I have only visited Morocco once, (so far!), but love the art and design elements that come from there, and the influences on ceramics and particularly lanterns. If I had the space my little house would be full of hanging lanterns as I love their designs so much.

We visited a small museum in Caceres called, ‘The House of the Arab’, a small building which has been owned by the same family for centuries and which displayed Arab life and culture.

Many of these things have been absorbed into Spanish culture, particularly the use of water and beautiful secluded and tiled gardens. This house was a lovely collection of rooms that demonstrated life before modernisation, including the original well and underground bathing chamber in the house. Absolutely fascinating and well worth the 2 euro entrance fee.

The house was located near to the Jewish quarter so a wander around there led to an encounter with some of the re-enactors who were at the market. We had a lovely chat with them about what they did and watched their fight demonstration later in the day.

There were also several visits to the Arab tea tents, these are always a very popular feature of any medieval market, serving sweetened mint tea, and you get to keep the little glasses they are served in. I love mint tea and have been drinking more since my visit. I use the little glasses as wine glasses as they are so pretty.

We had an excellent journey back from Caceres, I love just sitting watching the scenery and there were some brilliant mountains to look at, some of which I managed to capture in photos which were not too blurry. We also had a beautiful sunset on the way back past our local salt lakes, with my lovely mountains in the background.

I am so looking forward to more adventures on Spanish soil when I return in a couple of months. Today marks my six month anniversary of being retired and it is so much better than I ever thought it would be. One of the nicest things, aside from planning and going on all of these trips, is knowing that I don’t have to come back to lots of e-mails and piles of marking, it makes it all the more pleasurable! I am very, very lucky to be able to have this lovely life.

I am still doing a bit of crafting in between everything else, I have made some Barbie dresses for my great niece and am still working on knitted foxes. My new machine is very lovely, I have not had chance to do much with it yet as I don’t have much fabric here but am looking forward to doing a lot more with it in the coming months.

I hope that you have had a nice week and have an enjoyable week ahead. We shall be carrying on with a little bit of swimming and increasingly more social events as the weather gets warmer.

Whatever you are doing have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Caceres – traditional costume and incredible embroidery

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As I have mentioned there were many palaces in Caceres that have been turned into museums. One of the first that we visited was the Fundacion MCCB, set up by two local residents Mercedes Calles and Carlos Ballestero. As well as some great photography and paintings by local artists about fiestas within the city, there were also some gorgeous artefacts and paintings.

The one that I loved the most was a painting of a young girl, wearing the most amazing traditional costume, she looked so happy that I was thrilled when I managed to buy a small mirror with the image on in the gift shop.

There was also some information and personal items from the couple, Mercedes was born in 1915 and clearly had a very interesting life. I would love to find out more about her, and as I am planning to write a book set in Spain one day, may research more about the area in the future.

One of the other palaces held a brilliant collection of traditional costume from the surrounding area. What was especially lovely was that there were photos of people wearing the costume next to each item.

This was particularly interesting when looking at how they sat wearing the very full skirts. This is where ethnographic sources like this are so vital.

This wonderful hat was used for everyday wear to shade workers from the sun, rather than just being for fiestas.

This photo shows the local people at the opening of the museum in the early 1920s. Even though the picture is blurry it is wonderful to see them all in their best clothes for the occasion.

There were so many lovely embroidered costumes from the surrounding villages, each one slightly different but all with an emphasis on colour. It was really interesting to see this, as previously I have only seen the sorts of costume that are worn at the large fiestas, which are more based around what looks like more formal hooped dresses.

The following day we were lucky enough to see the local folk group who still wear versions of these costumes, complete with matching masks at the moment!

The linen work was incredible, I could have been there for hours just looking at these pieces. They were so finely done and it was very interesting to see the same motifs come up as I have seen in many other countries, and reinterpreted in a lot of Quaker inspired cross stitch designs.

As well as other displays of weaving, spinning and embroidery, there was the ubiquitous Singer sewing machine.

I love seeing these in museums, it always makes my little heart so happy to see them and to think about the women who may have used them. I have more pictures from another Caceres museum to show you but will save those for a later post.

Life here with my sister has settled into a nice routine. I have finished two creative writing courses and have started two more. One is a group class with the WEA using Zoom and I am really enjoying it. I never wanted to have a Zoom meeting ever again, after last year’s teaching. However, it is much more fun when you are a student, rather than the teacher worrying about losing people in the ether. There are lots more courses that I like the look of so will do more in the future. It is lovely to study informally with no deadlines or pressure, and I am finding that it is really helping with the progress with the first book.

It has been very cold here, though sunny, so apart from trips to the gym I have been cuddling up with cat, writing, knitting and sewing and generally enjoying the peace and quiet. Jacky and I have just booked an amazing trip to Scotland for August, we are going to Loch Lomond, Skye, Harris and Lewis, and North and South Uist, following in the footsteps on many of my favourite travel vloggers. We also have camping in the Peak District booked for February half term. So we have lots of exciting adventures to look forward to!

I hope you are managing to stay warm, or cool, depending on which season you are in. Have a good rest of the weekend, and a great week ahead. Have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Amazing lights, beautiful city

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Edinburgh was so beautiful, as expected. We have both been before, but to be there at Christmas was just magical. We stayed in a very central location, just near the castle so it was within walking distance of everything. The apartment was beautiful, here it is on Air bnb , if you are ever interested in visiting Edinburgh. Last two pictures are from the listing.

We spent most of the first day we were there just wandering around admiring the buildings and looking in some nice shops.

We were stunned by the amount of beautiful Christmas lights on all the shops and hotels. There were some absolutely gorgeous displays, including some very innovative light displays on the buildings.

We had tickets for the Botanical Gardens light event on Boxing Day which was also wonderful, a trail through with all different lights shows and music, the photos so not do it justice really as most of the light installations changed colour as well.

One of the best things was the number of gorgeous places to eat, so many stunning architectural gems as well as the food and drink being great. We had delicious gluten free pancakes in the old Assembly Rooms, a company called Stack and Sill, and Bailey’s hot chocolate in a lovely café called Tiles which was the previously the reception area for the Prudential insurance company.

We also visited the gorgeous Café Adaluz for a tapas lunch and had an evening meal in a restaurant, Angel’s Share, that I did chose for its amazing tin tile ceiling and chandeliers. Luckily the food and cocktails were nice as well!

We had a ride on the big wheel and a lovely couple of tours on the big red tour bus which is always a great way to get around a city and find out lots about it.

Another highlight was a visit to a cat café, Maison de Moggy. We had been planning to visit one of these in Japan, so spent a lovely hour having some very delicious Turkish Delight hot chocolate and cake. The visit was a chance to pet the ten cats they have there, including a beautiful Maine Coon, Pauline, that had the most amazing lion like face. This photo at the bottom of her is from the web site as I couldn’t get a good picture while we were there.

I am enjoying my time at my sister’s, I have bought a new sewing machine, with 99 stitches so am looking forward to using that and am knitting my first Little Cotton Rabbits fox.

I am enjoying cuddling up with her lovely cat as well, Scully, she is my sofa companion when I do my studying for my writing courses.

Jacky and I have also been to the gym a few times and I have done my first aquarobics session which was fun. We are having a quiet weekend at home as the weather is a bit rough. My sister is a primary school teacher and has had a busy first week back at work so it is nice to have some quiet time.

I hope that you have all had a nice week, and have a good week ahead. I will be back with the first of my museum series of posts, as I have lots to share with you from all the lovely costume and textiles things I have seen since August. Until then have fun, take care, stay safe, and thanks for visiting.

Bright lights, big city!

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Happy New Year to you all, let’s hope 2022 is a year when we can do the simple things like meeting up with family and friends more often without worrying, and plan things without the risk of them being cancelled.

I have been lucky enough to meet up with lots of people over Christmas, seeing all of my ex work colleagues and friends in Marsden before a lovely time in Edinburgh over Christmas with Ellen. I am now staying with my sister in Worcester for a few months and start driving lessons again in a couple of days so wish me luck!

I will post later about Edinburgh but wanted to show you the lovely things in Manchester first. This was a last minute decision as I was going to stay with my brother, but due to the fact that he had to isolate when coming back from Spain decided to go there for a little tour of some of the places I had never visited.

I stayed at the Salford Quays development in a very cute little room in an Ibis Budget hotel. This was only a short tram ride from central Manchester and I got to admire all of the amazing tower blocks on the way in to the city.

The area was created out of the old dockland area from the era when ships used to sail as far as America via the Manchester Shipping Canal, as Manchester is a long way from the sea. It was one of the first urban regenerations in the early 1980s.

Within the modern shopping malls there were some lovely photos of the old docks and the workers are commemorated along the walkways with art and poetry. I spent a lovely couple of hours wandering around the new areas admiring the Christmas lights and the sheer scale of the buildings there.

My first visit was to the Manchester Art Gallery. Their fashion collection is still being developed but they had some beautiful art depicting costume, which I always love looking at.

There were also some very interesting other exhibitions looking at the role of ‘unskilled workers’, particularly during the pandemic.

That afternoon was a visit to the Manchester Jewish Museum, which is housed in the old Spanish/Portuguese Synagogue which was so beautiful. I have never visited a synagogue before so it was very interesting and very well interpreted with oral history recordings from the people that used to worship there.

There was also a separate museum with the history of the many people who had come to Manchester to settle, which was again full of the personal stories and belongings. I love museums like this that tell the history of ordinary people, it is so important that their stories are not lost.

I was also lucky enough to come across The Portico Library, a beautiful little subscription library that was founded in 1806 and had a quick look around. They had a lovely exhibition on ‘polite literature’ and they also have some resources on fiction writing that I am going to follow up on You Tube.

The final visit was to The People’s History Museum, which is a museum about the history of democracy and has many really interesting sections on the struggle for votes and worker’s rights. Some of these I remember well as they happened during my teens and early twenties. They also had a really interesting collection of banners, from the simple home-made ones of the 1970s and 80s to the very elaborate ones of the Victorian and Arts and craft era.

It was a lovely couple of days and it was nice to visit some of the smaller, less well-known museums in the city. After a busy few weeks I am looking forward to a nice quiet time here. I have bought a new sewing machine with lots of decorative stitches and am looking forward to trying that out this coming week so you never know there may be more evidence of crafting on the blog very soon!

I hope that you all have a nice week ahead, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

We interrupt this travel blog to bring you some Christmas stitching!

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I have been frantically stitching ten ornaments in the last few weeks and last night put the final stitches in the ribbons and breathed a sigh of relief. Two of them only needed a little finishing and making up but the others were done from scratch.

I did post a while ago about using some of Jenni of Elefantz’s bird designs with some new Scandi fabric but it was difficult to stitch them neatly enough on the felt I had so I decided to go with my tried and trusted JBW Designs.

I forgot to take pictures of the first two as I have left them in Spain for my aunt and mum but this one above that I did for them is one of my favourite designs and I will have to stitch it for my little tree in Spain. I kept a few of my ornaments to take with me and bought a tiny tree so I did have that up for a few days there before I came back. The picture is of my cute children when they were very small!

I love this design, most of the JBW Designs have these little motifs in them which are so cute. Some of the others I have stitched are similar to this, such as the tree one below.

This comes from another JBW Design set, I stitched all three of these this year, each one twice.

The last ornaments I completed were from a new book that I got from Create Nostalgia. They have the best selection of Judy’s designs in the UK and I was able to get this brilliant compilation from them. It is great value at only £19 including postage, as individual design cards retail for about £5 each.

I am planning to stitch more of the cute stockings and little mittens for next year’s ornaments and might find time to do some more of these for me.

As I mentioned previously I did not save any of my Christmas fabric when I was having my sort out of what to take to Spain so I needed to order some more when I got here. I found a great selection packs on Ebay at Fabric 4 Craft . The best thing was that they sell packs of small squares which are perfect for ornaments or little patchwork projects. I particularly love the fabric with all the little motifs on below.

I have been volunteering at the foodbank with Ellen for the last few days. It has again been a very interesting time and nice to do something very useful and worthwhile. They have been doing some more social media recently so here is a photo they did with my lovely daughter on the left.

I am off on a little UK tour tomorrow, mainly in Huddersfield but I will be having a mini break in Manchester and visiting a few museums there.

Until next time have a good week and weekend, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Caceres, the cathedral and church

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Unusually for us on a trip to any European city we only visited one church and the cathedral. There were so many other things to see in our three days there so I can share only a little bit of Catholic bling and goldwork with you 😉

The cathedral was in the main square where the market was and was beautiful inside, the light on the stonework was amazing. In contrast to most Spanish churches the main altarpiece was not gold, but a stunning wooden one with a painted ceiling above it.

There was a side chapel with a gold altar and some gorgeous icons, including one with lights which is something I have not seen before.

The museum had some excellent examples of gold work on the priests’ robes and icons. There were also some unusual painted robes, which were done on white satin, and the under robes had beautiful lace edging.

We climbed up a very narrow, twisting route to the bell tower where there were great views over the city. We did happen to be up there as the bells struck, but luckily it was only 1pm, it was very noisy but I love seeing bells in towers like this.

The other church we visited had an extensive collection of belen, nativities, from around the world and was in the process of building their belen, in the middle of the church. Although this was just a small church there were again some beautiful examples of lace and painted ceilings.

I will post about the museums and all the fabulous costume at a later date. I am going to be doing some volunteering this coming week at the food bank with Ellen and then hopefully on Thursday going to visit various friends in Yorkshire. It will be lovely to be travelling again, I have had a whole week in the house as I have been isolating until my Covid test result came through, which is very unusual for me nowadays. I am really looking forward to getting out and about again, though I have enjoyed doing lots of cross stitch for my ornaments this year.

I hope that you have all had a good week, and are looking forward to the festive season if you are celebrating. Have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Caceres – a step back in time

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I organised the trip to Caceres myself, rather than it being a coach trip, which meant a journey across Spain via Madrid on two of their marvellous and very comfortable trains. I love Spanish trains as they look often like birds which I think is deliberate given the name of the train company.

I found our apartment on Booking.com and it is called Apartmentos Turisticos Caceres if you ever fancy a visit there yourselves.

I have visited many old cities but none with the very unique character that Caceres has. As it was built as a walled city it has not been altered within the walls and so you get a very unique sense of what life would have been like. The centre of the city is crammed with churches, palaces and other historic buildings. There are 98 listed on the tourist map, though not all of them are open to visit, some being used as offices for the city. There are 1300 pieces of heraldry on these buildings, like the one below, which is partly why it is a World Heritage site.

We were staying inside this walled city so every step outside our apartment was like being back in the 1500s when the city was being built. The apartment was not decorated in a medieval style, which I would have loved, but was very impressive anyway, with huge thick walls and views across the city. These photos show the view from the apartment and the narrow streets that surround it.

It is also the perfect setting for a medieval market and I will post some pictures of that next time. We love these markets, and have been to many in Spain and this one was huge with lots of stalls and entertainment.

As well as wandering the streets, just soaking in the atmosphere, we also visited some of the palaces which have been turned into museums. I have some gorgeous textiles to show you as well in a later post, from the cathedral and the city museum which had a brilliant section devoted to traditional dress.

One of the palaces had a beautiful garden to visit, with this amazing old tree. I think it might be a fig tree.

We also spent time in the main city square, the Plaza Mayor, which is just outside the walled city. You go through an archway from the walled city and down the steps, past one of the many defensive towers which you can visit to walk round part of the walls.

As with many Spanish cities, the plaza was so lively with bars and restaurants, as well as entertainers who were with the market. We found a lovely tapas bar just off the square, which we visited twice to sample everything on their menu as it was so good.

It was all so beautiful and more than lived up to my expectations for the trip. You know how much I love medieval art and architecture. Although much of the ironwork was quite utilitarian, being defensive, I did find this beautiful door at the first tapas place we ate at, in the palace round the corner from our apartment.

I am now back in the UK, slightly earlier than expected due to a change in travel regulations, so am making the most of my time here at Ellen’s stitching the last of my Christmas ornaments and having a quiet week. Fingers crossed, (if the Day 2 PCR test comes back negative!), I will be off back to Huddersfield at the end of next week for a catch up with friends.

Meanwhile I will be making the most of time here, Ellen is going to try and teach me to crochet a snowflake, which is something I have wanted to do for ages, so watch this space! I will also be back with more of wonderful Caceres soon.

I hope that you all have a good week and weekend ahead, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.