Weekends in fields

August 6, 2012August 6, 2012 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Hello there

Hope you are all well and happy. I have just got back from another weekend in a field and am busy today sorting, washing (and drying!) bits of kit and tents.

We have had a lovely time at the Midlands Living History Festival and as befits a British summer managed to get sunburnt and soaked in the same weekend!Here is a picture of one very soaked and grass-covered medieval boot, off to dry out.

Generally though the weather was very good and we had two BBQs and bacon butties for breakfast in the sun both days – I love camping!

We are nearly at the end of the re-enactment season with only 2 more events to go which makes me very sad. I am seriously considering joining another group as well so I can have more fun in a field next year. I may do a different period so I can do some other types of embroidery!

This event was multi period so we got to watch a brilliant dark age battle on both days with lots of Vikings and Saxons from groups such as Vikings of Middle England. The battle was very good – scary to watch as they fight with no helmets and very little armour unlike our medieval guys. The pic below shows them at an earlier event and is one I ‘borrowed’ from the BBC website.

Unfortunately I have managed to break my camera (I am lethal with cameras!) and my spare one would not work either so I have no other pics to show you. It will have to be taken to the menders this week as I am lost without it.

I have got a couple more from last weekend – taken by my lovely friend Wendy who was being our official photographer for the weekend. This one was taken from the top of Ashby Castle tower and shows the camp with our activities. I am bottom right helping with the knighting of the kids after their sword training.

This is a brilliant shot of the tournament on the Sunday with me in my nun’s costume on the left.The boys’ armour and costumes look great – even in the rain!

I have got a quiet couple of weeks work wise and a weekend at home now so am going to be doing lots of sewing.

Have just made my lovely friend Kerry a chaperon (but forgot to take a picture of it before the camera broke) and have just sent off my Summer Exchange piece so will upload pics of that when it has been delivered.

Still working on a stitched baby gift and might just get around to making that new peasant dress that I have been promising myself for the last few years. I have also treated myself to some Blackbird Designs patterns after seeing so many lovely ones on the Seasonal Exchange blog so am waiting for those to arrive.

The one compensation about Autumn and Winter is lots of time to stitch as I seem to have done so little just recently. Also I am really looking forward to the start of the new term as I will be going to China with work again twice before Christmas – how exciting!

Take care and have a relaxing week whatever you are doing. Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

Summer is here!

July 8, 2012July 8, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Well no not in terms of the weather – though it has been very nice this weekend which is a welcome respite from two days of torrential rain, thankfully we have not been flooded!

I have just had this lovely piece sent to me as a Summer Exchange from Lisa through the Seasonal Exchange blog. It is a JBW design which as Lisa knows is one of my favourite designers and she has used the same sparkly evenweave that I love to stitch my designs on, it is beautiful Lisa thank you.

I have been spending the weekend mainly stitching and watch disaster movies on TV – there is an extreme weather disaster movie weekend on Movies 24 which is very appropriate give all the strange weather we have been having lately. I am currently working on my Summer Exchange plus a baby gift so nothing I can show yet.

I have some additional links to share with you for lovely pics of re-enactment events, Red Zebra Photography were taking pics all last weekend at Harewood and there are some great shots including some of Swords of Mercia walking in the parade amongst the hundreds of pictures.

I met the photographer, Nigel, from Wallace-Iles Photography at the Tatton event – he takes some lovely shots of single re-eanactors and the effects he puts on them make the really artistic.

Next weekend we are off to our biggest re-enactment event of the year, Tewkesbury Medieval Festival – please pray for fine weather for us!

Thanks for visiting and see you all soon.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – June

June 28, 2012 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello there

I am posting this a bit early as I will be away for the weekend – hurrah!

I took some of these pics in Spain, some at our last event at Tatton and some at home, I have had lots of fun trying to think of unusual ways to meet some of the words and am very pleased with my ideas for a couple of them. The kids have now got used to me saying ‘oh that will be brilliant for the Scavenger Hunt’ as I dash off to take a pic.

Thank you so much to Kathy for continuing to post words for the hunt, I am still really enjoying it and it makes me think about photography in a whole new way.

As always click on the pic above to see the other pics at Kathy’s blog.

At night

This is the painted ceiling of Valencia Cathedral but on my second visit there I bought some posters of the angels so last thing at night what I see is this beautiful artwork on my bedroom walls.

Before

These two were taken at Tatton medieval event – here is the leg of lamb on the spit before it was cooked …..

After

And here it is fully cooked some 5 hours later. Literally 30 seconds after this pic was taken the wind blew a huge deluge off the roof of the canvas awning over the fire, soaking the lamb and putting out the fire! Luckily the group managed to rescue their dinner, we saw them later in the evening and everything was fine.

On the edge

Of the pool outside the Science Museum in Valencia – it was so hot that day, 33 degrees that I did manage a sneaky feet in the water!

Out of reach

The Angora sheep we fed at Tatton Home Farm trying to get their noses into bags of food which are just out of their reach.

Close

Right up close to the door of Elche cathedral – what a wonderful door knocker!

Crown

There is a new group of bronze statues outside Elche cathedral, one is of the Virgin with this beautiful halo / crown.

Diamond

Not quite the Koh – I- Nor but a big sparkly stone on my summer sandals.

Bunting

On a truck at Tatton Home Farm

Majesty

To me nothing beats the majesty of medieval religious art – this pic shows a Bishop from the museum at Valencia cathedral

Sleep

This month old foal was dozing next to his Mum at Tatton Home Farm – so sweet!

Symmetry

The beautiful symmetry of Spanish ironwork – taken in Valencia

Photo Scavenger Hunt – May

May 27, 2012June 6, 2012 stitchesoftime16 Comments

I am posting this a little early this month as I am off to Spain tomorrow, lucky me! I have been working very hard in the garden today in all our lovely sunny weather, my little plea in the last post worked as it has been wonderfully hot here for the last week, there have been BBQs eaten and sandals worn!

As always click on the pic to go to Kathy’s blog to see the other participants in the Scavenger Hunt. This month my pics come mainly from my travels for work locally in Leeds and Bradford here in Yorkshire.

Good Things

Double good things – chocolate which is always good and this is very delicious and Fair Trade which is even better.

Small packages

I always love the small packages that contain my stitching exchanges – this was the latest one.

Fragrance

A display of lovely smellies from one of my favourite shops – The Body Shop.

Station

Leeds railway station during one of my visits this week.

Currency

I have kept these from my visit to Nepal – currency from Dohar which is the prettiest I have ever seen!

Nose

I hoped to take a pic of one of the neighbourhood cats as I think cats have the cutest noses but did not catch any when I had my camera with me. So this is the nose of very cute Tatty Teddy snapped in Leeds, his nose is blue as he has been left out in the cold!

Beverage

My favourite takeaway drink.

Nine

Pieces of cake for my students as it was their last session – not baked by me due to lack of time – courtesy of Mr Sainsbury!

Do you see what I see?

Are they walking on water? In the centre of Bradford, the pond and fountains.

Historic

A pillar on a building I walked past in Bradford. This building is in an area called Little Germany which has lots of beautifully decorated Victorian buildings.

Yellow

A beautiful Spring dress in a shop in Leeds.

Front page

An advert featuring our lovely Princess Kate in Leeds – I know that isn’t her real title but she is every inch a princess!

Spring – wherefore art thou?

May 20, 2012 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Well I hope you have been having better weather than we have – it is apparently only 2 weeks until the official start of Summer but we have seen very little of any nice sun. I am itching to wear something other than a thick coat and gloves and hide from the rain.

However I am very lucky as I am off to Spain in 8 days so I will get some sun there.

Spring things have been happening though – I have been clearing out my garage as part of a bit of a Spring clean and there has been Spring stitching.

As I mentioned last week not much has been going on craft wise due to general busyness but I have done a bit of knitting this week and have done the latest piece for my exchange through the Seasonal Exchange blog . My Spring Exchange piece for the exchange has just arrived with Lei in the USA so I can reveal it.

It is another design from The Workbasket site called Quaker Tree and I have stitched it with Silk Mill threads as usual.

The fabric is some that I have had in my stash for a while, I think it might be Tanya Whelan but I bought it from my friend Lydia’s shop Spun a while ago. I thought it was lovely and bright and I decided to do a new type of finish for me with a little pillow. Lei likes it which is very good.

I have also just got this wonderful pillow from Lisa in the USA as my Spring Exchange ornie, she must know my tastes very well as she has stitched me a lovely design from The Workbasket site, I love their pieces and this is fantastic. It is called ‘April Quaker’ it looks so lovely with my other ornies in the conservatory.

By the way The Silk Mill is having a sale at the moment to celebrate their 10th anniversary with at least 10% off depending on how much you order. I am planning to go and add to my stash as I can’t resist a bargain.

Well I hope that you have a great week and see you all again soon, thanks for visiting.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – March

April 1, 2012April 1, 2012 stitchesoftime12 Comments

I am still working on sorting out all of the pictures from China but have done these for the Scavenger Hunt so this is a little taste of what I did there.

Morning

The view from my hotel room in Guangzhou – from the 11th floor overlooking the park.

Button

Am emergency button in the hotel room bathroom.

Square

These beautiful boxes of tea were for sale in the hotel I stayed in – sadly I did not have enough weight allowance to bring one back this time but I will when I go again later in the year.

Kitchen

This was one of the wonderful restaurants I visited – a famous beef restaurant where you had a personal hot-pot on each table to cook all of this lovely stuff!

Theatre

We visited a historic house and museum where they had this beautiful puppet theatre with goldwork hangings.

Street name

I have started learning Chinese – being in the country surrounded by signs made it much easier, like this road sign outside my hotel – ‘shan’ means ‘mountain’.

Fancy

The chairs in the lobby in the hotel I stayed in.

Landmark

This is the 5 goats statue in Yue Xie park in Guangzhou, this is linked to the story of the founding of the city. Here I am with my colleagues Mo and Chris on a rather wet day out.

Fashion

It was easy to see what was in fashion in China as washing was hanging everywhere, this is one of the student dorms on the campus in Guangzhou.

Words

Loads of lovely Chinese words everywhere which were so beautiful, these were at the back of the classroom where I was teaching, these symbols mean ‘teacher’.

Half a face

One of the things that was strange in China was that all of the adverts featured very Western looking women with pale skin which is very prized in China. This was a picture outside a beauty salon. Seems strange that in my town there are lots of beauty salons offering spray tan and in China the most popular thing is whitening masks!

City

A picture of the other city in stayed in , Shantou. on display at a museum we visited – a small city by Chinese standards at about 5 million people.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – February

February 26, 2012February 26, 2012 stitchesoftime12 Comments

I am posting this early as I will be away in a few days so Jake has strict instructions to upload this post to the link on Kathy’s blog so you can all see it. Most of these pics were taken in Spain again. This completes a year of taking pics for the Scavenger Hunt and I am still really enjoying it, I love taking pics and get very excited when I get something good for one of the words!

Lots of the Spanish houses have beautiful ceramic house number tiles so here is a number 5 from my street.

Music

This is on one of the roads I cycle along in Spain, the local council have recently fenced the road and painted the fence in multicoloured blocks with lots of musical notes along it, no-one seems to know why this feature has been chosen but it looks very pretty.

Train

Not strictly a train but a train track and station. I took a couple of quite boring train pics which I was planning to use then came across this model railway on one of my cycle trips in Spain which was in someone’s front garden! It was a large layout about 10 feet in total with a little model village as well as this train station. I can only imagine the owner has a very understanding wife!

Love

This was really hard as there are so many things that I love, my kids, my family, Spain, camping, travel, embroidery but I decided that I would post about something I have not posted before. The first thing I fell in love with would have to be reading and I still think books are the most marvellous thing. One of the great things about being on holiday is the amount of reading I do and this was the pile of literary love that I treated myself to at the airport – they were wonderful and I read the whole pile in 3 days!

Cupid

This was the only Cupid I saw in the whole month, not a very good pic but from a local shop window.

Food

Sandwiches Spanish style – the lunch that Mum and I shared on our trip to Elche.

Empty

The road down to the beach on one of my cycle rides.

In the sky

Nothing but blue! Taken from my terrace on Feb 13th.

Crowded

A picture of a crowded lemon tree taken on one of my bike rides.

Heritage

How spectacular is this – the front door of the cathedral in Elche.

Black and White

The Spanish love ironwork on gates and balconies and this is from one of the neighbouring houses.

Leap Year

This is quite a boring pic but a very exciting event – on the 29th Feb Leap Year Day I will be flying to China for nearly 3 weeks with work. I am very, very excited as you can imagine and will of course take lots and lots of more exciting pics than this one!

Winter Exchange

February 4, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Well how are you all and are you lovely people in the UK snowed in yet? We have had small flurries on the hills all week and today the promised snow arrived with us – very timely as this morning I had a lovely parcel all the way from Australia (where of course there will not be any snow!) containing this wonderful ornie from Lisa V.

Lisa must know my tastes very, very well as what she stitched is perfect for me and as you can see looks very good hanging next to the little stocking on the doors with the snowflake stickers.It is Heritage Stitches design and is stitched on hand dyed Silkweaver fabric.

The snow was just starting when I took the above pic put we are nice and white now – good job I am holed up indoors tomorrow!

My exchange piece was sent this week to the USA and as soon as I hear that it has been delivered I will post pics of it.

I decided that I would make a Spring ornie for me this week rather than a Winter one as it had got a bit milder outside (the bulbs are all coming through in the garden) so have finished all the stitching on one of the Quaker Tree ornies that I mentioned last post. Just got to add beads and turn it into a little pillow ornie.

I will leave you with the some recent pics of Ellie on her nights out with friends Hannah and Becky – she did mention that there have been no pics of her for a while so will have to rectify that! The theme for one of the fancy dress nights was ‘bugs’.

Hope you are all keeping warm (or cool!) depending where you are.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – January

January 29, 2012 stitchesoftime13 Comments

Well here we are again. Kathy has very kindly kept going with the Scavenger Hunt , click on the pic above to go to her blog and see everyone’s pics. I joined last March so this will be nearly a year of taking pics.

Some of these are from my last visit to Spain at New Year topped up with a few extras that I have quickly done today. Lots of scope this month for interpretation so it will be really interesting to see what other people have done.

A pair of beautiful doors in Cartegena.

Blur

It was good to have this as a category this month as most of my New Year’s Eve firework pics came out as a blur and here is one of them.

Company

One day I hope to be able to turn my hobby into a business, got the business cards and the company name, just need more time!

Entrance

Now this could be interpreted differently depending on how you say it – I have chosen it as the opposite of exit so here is the entrance to my house.

In my bathroom

Strictly speaking this is the downstairs cloakroom but here is my collection of postcards from some of the lovely places I have been lucky enough to visit.

In season

No I haven’t gone mad, in Spain ice-cream is always in season, this is the selection Mum and I had on Jan 5th – coconut and mango yum, yum!

In the distance

It has to be my favourite subject of mountains, taken on one of my bike rides in Spain.

Information

Part of the map of Cartagena – you have to love a place with roads called Paseo de las Delicias and Santa Florentina!

Mess

Sadly there are lots of old abandoned farms and smallholdings in this area of Spain and this is one that I passed on one of my bike rides.

Odd

These are sort of like Horse Chestnuts but with a suntan! From one of the verdes in Spain.

Soft

My Mum voluteers at a local dog shelter and takes the dogs walking one afternoon a week so I went with her in Jan. This is little Martha who had such soft ears and such a cute face it was hard not to take her home!

Warning

On the back of the antibiotics for my ear infection.

Happy Blogaversary to me – a giveaway !

December 2, 2011 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Well today is the 4th birthday for my little old blog and I thought that this pic that I found was very appropriate to celebrate 4 years here – as it contains two of my fave things, red wine and cake.

Sadly my giveaway does not include red wine or cake, both being a little bit difficult to post but as is traditional now for me being Dec and so near Xmas with my blogaversary I would like to offer a small selection of my ornies to the giveaway winner.

To enter please comment on this post by Sun 11th Dec and I will choose a winner at random.

I have had such good fun in the last 4 years of blogging, made lots of new virtual friends, travelled all round the world from the comfort of my sofa, learnt new skills in lots of different areas including cooking and photography as well as my original goals of textile work and thoroughly enjoy my life as a blogger! Thank you for sharing all of this with me.

I would also like to offer a special giveaway to someone who has followed my blog for a very long time and who has posted a lot of comments, she was one of the first people to comment and it was lovely to know someone else was reading my blog. I have just hit the magic 500 comments of which she has made 55 of them so thanks to Jane – please mail me with your snail mail address so I can send you some Xmas ornies as well.

See you all soon and thank you to all of you for visiting – 103,152 times!

Stitches of Time

I have created this blog to share my interest in all forms of stitching, quilting, sewing, knitting, medieval re-enactment and costume making – particularly my love of historical embroidery. I also love travelling,especially when it also involves any of my other interests.

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