What a lovely end to the season!

September 18, 2014 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Well we had a brilliant weekend away at the Mortimer’s Cross event at Hampton Court Castle.

I knew it was going to be a fab weekend when after a very pleasant train journey spent sewing more flower brooches I ended up pitching my little tent in a field with this view and settling down to a cold cider and my last evening meal in the open air for this year. A lovely end to a busy week.

The weather was perfect and so I had a wander round the gardens on Saturday in between the two battles.

We then had a tour of the castle before tea (contemplating how we would redecorate if we bought it as it is currently up for sale at only £9 million).

This is my new friend Angela who I first met at the Caldicot event.

I would keep these fabulous light fittings, they reminded me of the William Burges designs at Cardiff Castle.

There were two bands on Saturday night including a wonderful Celidh band with an excellent fiddle player so we danced lots and stayed up far too late really 😉

Sunday was more of the same, the weather held and the two battles that day were even better, everyone making the most of the last event.

Standing on the field with the guns going off and arrows raining down I couldn’t have been happier. Such a lovely time and an excellent way to end a very good season.

You can tell how happy I am in this picture as it looks like I am dancing with these two friends in armour. Thanks to Pat for the battle photos, he did a brilliant job as always of capturing the action for us.

This has to be my fave picture of the season, another one of Pat’s photos – a friend captioned this as ‘now we know that gunners have hearts!’

Looking forward to our first off-season kit making weekend, the Sisters Kerry and Ellie plus friend Jamie will be here.There will be linen everywhere and hopefully completed shifts at the end of it!

Meanwhile there are more brooches and Christmas ornaments to be made, what would life be without fabric and wool?

Thanks for visiting and look out for the next post which will be a very special one as it my 400th so I will be having a little giveaway!

Tudor Costume

August 3, 2014 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello there, hope you are having a nice weekend, am about to go out to an open garden afternoon here in the village but before I do wanted to share some of the Tudor costume we have seen recently as Ellie and I had a little trip out to Nostell Priory this week.

Ellie has been there before for a training course (she gets to go to some fab venues for her staff development!) and wanted to go back as a visitor.

The house dates from the 1800s but the family were related to Tudor notables including Elizabeth Woodville and so there were quite a few portraits of costume that were brilliant to see.

This blackwork jacket belonged to a Duchess and the detail on the painting was very good.

The best thing was just before we left which was this amazing portrait of Thomas More (he who sadly failed in his attempts to get Henry 8th his divorce from Catherine of Aragon) and his family.

There was such brilliant detail in the pictures of the costumes so I took some close up shots for me and for my friend Kat who makes such fantastic Tudor costume as well as medieval period things.

The blackwork embroidery on this shift is very detailed and there also appears to be similar embroidery on the edge of the dress.

It was interesting to see that two of the sisters had shared two of the fabrics, using it alternately for sleeves and bodice.

I have some very good news to share with you as well as Ellie is going to be staying at Hardwick permanently – her contract which was due to run out next March has been extended and she will be there for there for the foreseeable future 🙂 We are all very pleased not least Kerry as she was going to miss her cinema buddy!

One of the things that I keep meaning to post about is the National Trust Collections web site that details all of their artefacts, Ellie uses this a lot for her blog so you may find it useful if you are interested in more detail about their collections.

Will be back later with some more textile loveliness from Nostell, meanwhile take care and thanks for visiting.

Kingston Lacy – the upstairs views

June 15, 2014 stitchesoftime1 Comment

The first house on our recent tour was the very impressive Kingston Lacy. The house dates from the 1600s but was remodelled in the Palladian style later.

It boasts the first plate-glass windows ever to be used in a public house and its owner used them to good effect to give the Italian style he was looking for.

These views reminded me of our trip to villas on Lake Como a couple of years ago.

In the drawing-room was this beautiful embroidered piano cover with a little sewing box on display at the other side of the room. I don’t know what the date was for this piece or who worked it, as is often sadly the case no information was known about it.

The owners enjoyed collecting pieces and architecture from their travels, a pair of doors had come from the Vatican and this ceiling had been brought from Spain.

There was another beautiful painted ceiling in another vaulted room.

All very stunning and well worth a visit. I think the National Trust is fantastic value for money (I am not just saying that as Ellie works for them as I have been a member for years).

It only costs £58 for a year and not only do I get the pleasure of seeing all this amazing art and architecture I feel happy that I am helping in a small way to preserve and protect it.

Thanks for visiting and see you soon for more Trust loveliness!

A glimpse of life in the laundry

June 8, 2014 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello again

One of the parts of our visit to Kingston Lacy that I most enjoyed was seeing the laundry which they had furnished not only with the equipment used but also examples of the textiles as well, very exciting for me!

The house dates from the 1600s but the display was of the Victorian machines and textiles.

I love this huge roller mangle, I remember my Mum and Nana having washing machines with mangles on top when I was little and really loved having a go, would not have been so exciting to be a full-time laundry maid though.

The drying cupboard was very interesting as well, I assume many large houses might have had something similar but have not seen one before, these racks slid into the cupboard which had heated pipes on the floor.

I also found some lovely textiles in the main house – what a surprise! Will save that and pictures of the house for the next post.

Thanks for visiting.

Beautiful gardens

June 6, 2014 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

One of the things I really enjoy is seeing beautiful gardens and taking pictures of flowers.

I am waiting for my lilies to bloom here (and hoping that the sheep don’t eat them) and though I only have a small garden don’t miss the work involved in having more space and am quite happy to visit other gardens or just admire those all around me.

This is such a gorgeous time of year as all my favourite rhododendrons are in flower here in Marsden and all the gardens of the properties we visited this week were looking lovely.

These pictures were taken at Kingston Lacey in Somerset.

They also had some very cute pigs to feed in the kitchen garden!

And these were at Knightshayes in Devon.

I love those water lilies, they just look so perfect they don’t look real.

Have spent part of the morning sorting out the 285 photos I took (don’t worry I won’t post them all!) and will have some lovely textiles to show you later in the weekend.

Thanks for visiting and hope the sun is shining where you are 🙂

The beauty of wood

October 9, 2013 stitchesoftime1 Comment

As you know I love visiting historic properties and have a special fondness for Tudor properties. If I could ever afford a really old house I would love one of this period and the one I visited recently in Ludlow, the Castle Lodge, was amazing.

The lodge and the castle is where one of my heroines, Catherine of Aragon, stayed during her honeymoon after she married Arthur before she married Henry 8th.

The outside of the house is not as impressive as other properties in the town but inside it was beautiful.It is privately owned so if you are in the area do visit, it only cost £3 entry and it would help preserve it.

It has the most beautiful panelling everywhere, more than I have seen in other properties, including some linenfold panelling of the type that Ellie spent many hours cleaning when she worked at Powis castle.

The beds and seats were also carved.

The plaster work was amazing as well.

The St Laurence’s church had some beautiful wood carvings too particularly the misericords on the back of the choir stalls.It was too dark to take photos of these but there are pictures and more information on this web site.

I got some good shots of other parts of the church including a stained glass window containing the coat of arms of Sir Roger Mortimer, the character that my friend Shane in our medieval group portrays.

The end of the season, though sad, at least gives us more time to visit old houses, castles and churches and Kerry and I have many more trips planned :-).

Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

Tudor Times

July 21, 2013September 13, 2013 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Hello everyone, apologies in advance as this is a very picture heavy post but I have some fab 17th century embroidery to show you!

We visited mainly smaller Tudor properties this week, not by design just those that were local to us (and open on the right days!). We still have many more on our wish list to do 🙂

The first was one I have had on my list for a while Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, a very lovely Tudor house which as you can see from the pictures has suffered through the years and has needed extensive structural work to keep it from falling down!

The second was East Riddlesden Hall in Keighley, not only a beautiful little house but also home to some gorgeous embroidery.

Look at all these beautiful pictures.

Sadly their sampler display was not available due to a ceiling collapse in that room so I will return to see that sometime.

There was also some lovely embroidery that had been done for the displays by local women, this blackwork beadspread and crewel work hangings date from the 1920s.

And some fantastic plaster ceilings.

The last one we visited was Gawthorpe Hall near Burnley, this is a mini Hardwick Hall in design and is home to the Rachel Kay Shuttleworth needlework collection. A small part of her 28,000 pieces were on display.Rachel lived in the house in the 1950s and was a passionate needlewoman.

There were no photos allowed in the house but there is an excellent blog with online gallery and details of the textile courses they run.

A very textilicious holiday with lots of inspiration for me!

Now back to the real world of work with just a few bits of stitching a week to keep me sane 🙂

Thanks as always for visiting, I will be off to Ashby de La Zouche Castle next weekend for a show with Swords of Mercia so if you are in the area come along and say hello!

This is England

July 20, 2013September 13, 2013 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello again

I spend a lot of time travelling to all sorts of beautiful parts of the globe so it was lovely to have week in my gorgeous country appreciating (along with many tourists from all over the world) what England has to offer.

Our first day was spent in the Cotswolds where I grew up and the visit to Bourton-on-the-Water brought back many happy memories of paddling in this stream, seeing the pretty cottages and visiting the model village (which Kerry loved just as much as I did when I first saw it).

We then went to Snowshill Manor, a National Trust property in the Cotswolds, quintessentially an English manor house with beautiful gardens but home to a very eclectic collection by the last owner Charles Paget Wade.

There was everything from samurai warrior suits to old bikes, including many beautiful Oriental chests from his travels. One room had a lovely collection of textiles including what looks like a piece from a Layton jacket!

I particularly liked this sampler book showing miniature garments, no information on its maker but I think it would be a for a similar purpose to the one that inspired the Blackbird Designs book, ‘A Stitcher’s Journey’, which I posted about previously, to show prospective employers your needlework skills.

A lovely day out – and all in the best of English summer sunshine!

Thanks for visiting, more historic loveliness soon!

Medieval art anyone?

June 9, 2013February 5, 2022 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Well the trip to Florence with my lovely mother was fantastic!

I think this has to be my favourite city so far – the churches and palaces full of frescos and medieval art, the Uffizi Gallery with even more medieval art, the beautiful buildings and views over the Tuscan hills and the gorgeous food.

View from the Ponte Vecchio looking at the Arno River.

Some of the 80 ice cream flavours to choose from in the shop near our hotel.

I loved the display at this shop in one of the side streets, We came back with pasta, herbs and oils, yum, yum!

And there are also lovely shops if you are into that, personally I am not going to pay 10 times the price I can here for a pair of designer sandals but we did a little window shopping and marvelled at what some of the so-called fashions were priced at.

We stayed at the Albergo Firenze, another one of my fantastic finds from Expedia. Although it was rated only 2 star it was a gorgeous room, really good value for money and the location is excellent – 5 mins walk either way from the Palazzo Vecchio and the cathedral so exactly where you want to be.

I have put a tiny selection of pics here, as there was so much to see.

Angel mosaics in the Baptistry.

Detail from one of the Madonnas in the Palazzo Vecchio.

Detail from one of the Annunciation frescos in the Santa Maria Novella church.

One of the chapel paintings from the same church.

We also saw some beautiful silver and goldwork, this was an altar piece frontal in the museum of the Santa Lorenzo church dating from the late 1700s.

I also loved this ceiling painting from the Plazzo Vecchio with its depiction of women spinning, weaving and sewing.

I had seen some of the fresco paintings from the churches before as many are in medieval costume books – look at these two beautiful gowns from frescos in the Santa Croche church.

I have come back with loads of prints and a new icon with one of my favourite Madonnas by Filippo Lippi so have put up some new art in my bedroom to remind me of the trip!

Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

More from Hardwick

June 1, 2013September 13, 2013 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

My lovely daughter Ellie has just sent me some further photos from Hardwick which I wanted to share with you.

The first two are of a painting of Arabella (or Arbella), Bess of Hardwick’s granddaughter, which hangs in the long gallery. This is a beautiful portrait and the detail on the sleeve is amazing.

This one is a ‘slip’ a tent stitched piece which has been appliqued onto a velvet background. This comes from the ‘Mary Queen of Scots bed’ although Mary never stayed at Hardwick but she may have slept in this bed as Bess’s fourth husband George Talbot the Earl of Shrewsbury was Mary’s jailor for a long time and Bess and Mary did spend time together sewing.

The last three are of the volunteers at Hardwick on one of their recent costume days. Aren’t they wonderful. Ellie and I would love to do Tudor re-enactment, the costumes are so fantastic and it would mean I could wear some of my blackwork! We shall see what I have have time to do next year.