Category: needlepoint

Blickling, a paradise of plasterwork

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I have long wanted to visit Blickling Hall in Norfolk. Ellen visited many years ago, as part of her role at the Trust, a their textile conservation studio is based there. It was a brilliant day out, the drive there was beautiful and the hall looked stunning.

It was built in the early 1600s, and the house that it replaced was believed to be where Anne Bolyen was born. It is the most stunning piece of Jacobean architecture, and the ceilings are amazing. I have rarely seen such ornate ones in any of the Trust houses that I have visited, of particular note were the very large finials on the designs, the ones in the lounge were huge.

The library, in the bottom two photos, was one of the most ornate ceilings that I have ever seen, this was originally the Long Gallery, until the 1740s when it was remodelled.

Because of the royal connection there were some gorgeous portraits, again with such stunning lace details. There were portraits of Henry 8th and Elizabeth 1st, as well as some other Elizabethan nobles.

I was very interested in this one, of Anne of Denmark, many years ago Mum and I visited the castle where she was brought up when we went to Copenhagen. The castle was a very beautiful place but in quite a remote coastal location, and I remember wondering at the time what she felt about her marriage and moving to Scotland and England. She was the wife of King James 1st of England and mother of Charles 1st, and by all accounts led a very tumultuous life.

One of the things that I love about visiting historic places is how it allows me to fill in the gaps in my historical knowledge, and make connections between people and places. Anne appears to have no direct connection to Blickling, but no doubt the portrait was acquired for its own sake, as it is beautiful.

There were some lovely beds on display, this first one dates from the Jacobean period and is in beautiful condition, with the colours on the crewel work so vibrant.

This was a very unusual set of bed hangings, on a bed in the fashionable Chinese bedroom. It has a mixture of heraldry and embroidered flowers, and looks as if it may have been pieced together from separate components.

There was also a very impressive state bed, which has recently been extensively restored. It dates from the late 1700s, and has the heraldries of King George 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

There is no information that I can find about whether any of the kings ever slept in it, but I loved the information about where the component parts came from, taken from this link at The National Trust collections site.

‘The tester and headboard (which bear the Royal Arms as used 1714 – 1800) are said to have been made out of a canopy of state given to John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire in 1762 on the occasion of his embassy to St. Petersburg whilst serving as envoy to the Russian Court, a post he held between 1762 and 1765. Throughout the eighteenth century, every British ambassador representing the monarch abroad was supplied by the government with a state canopy, a chair of state, a pair of portraits of the king and queen as well as an allowance for ambassadorial silver.‘

I love the idea of this textile travelling to Russia and back again and ending up in Norfolk!

As well as the very impressive beds there were many gorgeous pieces of hand worked textiles, such as this cushion, and the fire screen in the photo below. As always when I see pieces like this I think of the hours of work by someone in the house to make these items.

There was some active conservation work happening at the time with the cushions in the lounge. I do like the way that the Trust are making this work more explicit now, rather than closing houses for deep cleaning. I know it must make it more difficult to do all the necessary work, but I really love to see all this in action.

I have been doing a lot of deep cleaning myself, it’s amazing how dirty the house gets even when I’m not here. The cockroaches are partly to blame for that, did you know that they poo? It’s like little mouse droppings, so I have to have a good clean out of all of the cupboards whenever I return. Luckily I don’t have any precious textiles here that are at risk.

Mum and I have been out, making the most of having Katy here so we went for lunch at the beach, and then an exciting trip to the DIY shop to buy new taps for the bathroom sink 🙂 We are off out again to some of the gorgeous coastline today, then off to Cordoba next week for a little city visit as it is so long since I have been in a historic Spanish city 😉 I will back as soon as I can with more of Norfolk, until then, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Bridgerton settings and the case of the missing hangings

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I had planned to visit Belton House anyway en route to Norfolk, but was even more keen after Ellen told me it was used in the recent Bridgerton prequel about Queen Charlotte and King George.

I loved that series, not only for the costumes, which are always fabulous, but also loved the sets. I am one of those people who always wants to know where things are filmed. Thank God for Google so I can find things and add them to my list of places to visit.

Ellen’s friend, Nancy, was actually there while they were filming as she used to work there. The location they used was the beautiful conservatory, which became George’s observatory.

This is located at the back of the gorgeous Italian garden behind the house.

Inside there were some beautiful examples of furniture, including my favourite, needlepoint chairs, and as is common with these era houses, a Chinese bedroom.

One of the main reasons for visiting Norfolk apart from a reunion with some former work colleagues, was to visit Oxburgh Hall. I have wanted to go for about 20 years, ever since first visiting Hardwick, as this is where the companion stitching to the ones there by Bess and Mary Queen of Scots are. Except ….

I had met up with my friend Linda from Spain, who was staying nearby with relatives. We did have a very lovely day out, despite the lack of hangings! It is a stunning moated property and it has been beautifully restored.

There were some very gorgeous Elizabethan era portraits, I love the lace in these. The whole house was so ornate with painted ceilings and leather wallpaper.

I will have to try and organise another visit to see the hangings, hopefully before another 20 years is up!

The rest of the week at Sandringham was very peaceful, I spent a lot of time with my friends which was lovely and quite emotional. Sadly the School of Education, where I worked for 20 years, has been closed and many people have lost their jobs. I feel so sad for my colleagues, who have always worked so hard and wish them all the best for the future.

I will be back soon with more of lovely Norfolk, it has been so nice to have time to explore and I have been lucky to have mainly very good weather. Until next time have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Medieval maps and other finds

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As you may know I love old maps, I also love new ones but old ones are of particular fascination to me. I am in awe of the early sailors who tried to interpret what they saw in map form and love looking at them.

I have had the Mappa Mundi, at Hereford Cathedral, on my wish list for a very long time and so that had to be part of my recent Hereford explorations.

The Mappa Mundi is very different to other maps, being a representation of the earth as an example of what are known as TO maps. They are circular, often with heaven at the top, and the world at the bottom. The O is the whole map, and the T inside it divides the world into three sections.

Most of these maps have Jerusalem at the centre as they represent the Christian world. The Mappa Mundi has the East at the top and has Europe in the lower left section. The maps have drawings of real and imaginary beasts and buildings.

This map is one of the largest in the world, at about 5 by 4 feet, and is made of a single piece of calf skin. It dates from about 1300. It is an amazing thing to see, and the interpretation explains it really well.

The cathedral also contains the world’s largest chained library, as books were very precious. The library has a range of volumes from different centuries and scholars would be allowed to come and look at the books by resting them on the shelves below. So different to our public libraries now.

The needlework in the cathedral was also particularly impressive. The choir stalls had beautiful needlepoint cushions, many with heraldry on. There was so much stitching here, a real treasure trove of church needlework.

There was also a wonderful two panel applique telling the story of St Thomas, whose tomb has been restored to how it would have originally looked in the medieval period.

This is such a brilliant way to interpret the tomb and the piece was beautifully executed. There was no information about who made it but congratulations to the stitching team for such a wonderful piece.

I will definitely have to go back to the Hereford area, and the bordering counties as there was so much to see. I still have many Trust properties to visit in the area and due to bad weather didn’t get to do the black and white houses village trail. This area has such a wealth of medieval and Tudor history, having been the site of many border conflicts with Wales.

My next post will be about my time in Lincolnshire, an area I had never really been to before this year. That is part of what my plan was for this summer, in-between the festivals, to really explore very different parts of the UK.

I will see you all hopefully again soon, until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

New York, the iconic bits

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As Ellen said before our visit, New York is the sort of place that you feel that you know before you get there. So many movies and tv shows feature parts of the city that they are all so iconic.

We did have a list of things that we wanted to visit, and it was very exciting to see things in real life that we have only seen on film. Although I visited New York about 18 years ago, that was only for a weekend, and being so near to 9/11 many things still weren’t open.

We stayed in a very lovely hotel, near to Grand Central Station, which is just as beautiful as it looks, even the ticket booths are masterpieces of art.

Our hotel was called Pod 39, and is similar to ones that I have stayed in before for city breaks, with a bunk bed layout and a small bathroom.

However the beds were very comfortable and the location was excellent. We weren’t really in the room much anyway, and the hotel had a lovely comfortable lounge with games and free hot drinks and water available so we spent some time there as well.

Our first day out was to the Statue of Liberty and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and we could not have had a better day for it. Although it was cold, the sky was a wonderful blue which made for excellent shots of Manhattan from the ferry.

The Statue did not disappoint and the accompanying museum was excellent with really good interpretation, not only of the story of the build, but also looking at how the statue has been portrayed in all sorts of different ways since it was built.

There was a lovely quilt and a Barbie dressed as the statue, which Ellen suggested should be one of my next makes.

They had used the restoration in the late 1990s as a chance to show how the statue was made, with recreations of the moulds that were built for the casting, including a recreation of the statue’s foot.

I didn’t realise that she was bronze coloured to start off with and the green is the patina that has built up on the metal over time. I think it looks a lot better green, especially against the blue sky. We also saw the original torch, which had to be replaced due to its collapsing on itself.

The Ellis Island Museum was equally well interpreted, with lots of the stories of the migrants and their many reasons for coming to America. It was very poignant seeing the large hall where they would wait to be assessed before entry, and the postcards of the numerous ships that brought them from all over the world.

I have always had a huge interest in migration and people’s stories of why they leave their homes and having visited other museums, such as those in Oslo, that tell the story of those who left, it was fascinating to see where they arrived. Being part of a family who have migrated, and who now live all over the world, it is always really interesting to me to hear these histories.

Our second day was to Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum. Central Park is somewhere that I have been to before, and it never ceases to amaze me how large it is, and how great it is to have that space in the city. They also have the fattest squirrels I have ever seen!

The Met Museum was stunning, as we knew it would be. The scale of the collections is amazing, whole Egyptian temples, courtyards of castles from Spain, Tiffany loggias and windows and so much wonderful medieval art.

There were also some gorgeous early 18th century samplers.

However, the most stunning piece in the collection for me was this store of linen, buried with one of the Egyptian queens for the afterlife.

The fact that it is still around, thousands of years after being woven, such simple textiles but amazing that all that work of the weavers centuries ago still exists.

We also spent a lot of time just marvelling at all of the wonderful buildings, the Chrysler Building is a real favourite of mine, but I also loved Penn Station.

This beautiful building that was one of the ones represented by brass plaques in the pavement. I think it looks like it came from a Lord of the Rings film.

New York still had the skating rinks at the Rockerfeller Centre and Bryant Park, and trees and decorations everywhere, so it still looked very Christmassy.

We managed to tick off our food bucket list as well with pizza, bagels, pancakes, hot dogs and burgers, only failing to find a gluten free pretzel.

A brilliant trip and I am so glad that we were finally able to get there. These next few months are hopefully going to be full of us doing things that we have been planning for a long time.

I am loving my winter sojourn in Cyprus so far and shall be sharing the first set of pictures with you later in the week. I have been so lucky with the weather, so have been out enjoying the stunning coastline here.

Until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Spiritual stitching

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One of the things that was so brilliant at Exeter was the level of information given about all of the textiles on display. As well as a dedicated display of ecclesiastical garments in the centre of the cathedral there was information all around the site about the work.

The Company of Tapisers was formed in 1933 and although the individuals are anonymous there was a real sense when visiting of the human hand behind the work.

Some of the interpretation was very poignant as with this beautiful banner piece of the Virgin Mary.

This was a stunning and very unusual piece, seating along the length of the chapel telling the history of Exeter.

Everywhere there was so much lovely work, from kneelers to altar frontals. It really enhanced the experience for me to be able to read the additional information and I gave my thanks to the staff after the visit.

One thing that I am passionate about is the human story behind textile creation. The novels that I am writing are all based around individual pieces of textiles and the women involved with them. The history of textiles is the history of people, whether it be to celebrate, or simply to keep us warm. It is just so fascinating to me how all of these things are made, and why they are made.

I am so pleased that I have so many friends that share my passion for textiles, and that Ellen is so keen. She has made some stunning things recently, one being a very lovely crochet cushion cover that I am keen to learn how to make as I think it would look great in my new van.

I went to her crochet group last night and that was lovely. She is helping to run workshops with a friend of hers, Vic, who is a very talented creator so are you are in the Nottinghamshire area I can thoroughly recommend Made by Torty B. Her workshops can be found here and are great for beginners or more experienced crafters.

It will have to have a very good sort out of all of my new craft space soon as the machine will have to be found a new home and there might just have been a few purchases made while I have been in the UK. Some storage shopping is on the cards I think!

I hope that you are all enjoying life. I am so looking forward to the next few months of beautiful spring and summer weather. I have promised myself that there will be a new outfit for Whitby and a new dress for Tewksbury so need to get organised and fit all that in.

Have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting and commenting, it is always lovely to meet my readers!

Prayers and plots

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On the Sunday of Kerry’s weekend visit to Worcester we visited the cathedral for the morning sung Eucharist service which was beautiful. The choir sounded so amazing and it made a lovely start to the day. The cathedral is where Ellen graduated all those years ago so I have visited several times before. There is a lot of restoration work being done so opportunities for pictures of the nave and painted ceiling were limited but it looked stunning.

In the afternoon we went to Coughton Court, a Trust property that was involved in the Gunpowder Plot. I have visited before and was stunned to find that they have what is allegedly the nightshift that Mary Queen of Scots wore when she was executed. The house and the family that own it have a long history of involvement in the disputes between Catholics and the state that started in the Tudor era. The property was beautiful in the afternoon sun.

There was a very interesting talk about the plot in the small Catholic church on the property, built in the late 1800s when the Catholics were allowed to build churches once again. It is easy to forget that we have had religious persecution in the UK at many points in our history and that there are lots of things that people have forgotten about the whole story behind the Gunpowder Plot and why it happened.

The church had some gorgeous chairs with central needlepoint panels, there were about 40 of these so definitely a labour of love!

It has an extensive collection of family portraits, which I wrote about in my last post, which are such good illustrations of costume of the era, and some lovely little displays. I loved this little beauty case with the scissors and the little souvenir book.

There were also some of my favourite things to find, like this needlework case and the lace making tools.

There were clearly some dedicated needlewomen in the family as there were some very large projects, most of these were in one bedroom. I have been doing a lot of research for my first novel so have been thinking a lot about the role of needlework in women’s lives.

There are very few modern crafters who would take on projects of this size and the amount of hours that must have gone into these pieces is incredible.

Just looking at the thousands of tiny stitches in this seat cover below I can’t help but wonder about how made it, did they ever feel like giving up and how long did it take them? I did some needlepoint many years ago but have not returned to it due to how long it takes, so really admire the dedication of these needlewomen.

I have had a fairly quiet week, most of the crafting has been finished so I will be posting about that next. I have been spending the last few weeks before I return to Spain stocking up on things for the rest of the year that I can’t easily get there. I have more Liberty fabric arriving this week from a new supplier that I have found byLaurenRuth and have bought some more stitching threads. Next week will be mainly sorting and packing up ready to go to Ellen’s the following week, then back to Spain with my new machine and all of my goodies!

I hope that you have a good weekend and a nice week ahead, the weather forecast for the UK is very good so we will all be enjoying a glimpse of sun. What ever you are doing have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

The delights of Worcester

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Kerry came down to visit me so we had a jam packed weekend visiting the majority of what the city has to offer in the way of historical and heritage properties. There is such a wonderful mix of architecture here, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian, as well as the riverside walks and the canal heritage so it is well worth a visit.

Saturday was mainly Tudor at first with the Tudor House Museum and Greyfriars, both on the same street where there are other wonderful Tudor buildings, including some lovely places to eat. The Tudor House Museum was originally three cottages and the displays concentrated on the importance of the trades in Worcester, very much textile related with the production of broadcloth and glove making dominating.

The museum has been extensively restored as it has been a pub, and café owned by the Cadbury family in recent times, so there is a nice mix of history in the small space and some lovely reproductions of costume and artefacts as well as the historical collections.

I have previously posted some pictures of the Tudor group at Greyfriars but this visit was for a tour which told the history of the property throughout its 400 some years. This was very interesting as it ended up being used as slum dwellings, with other tenement housing built within the garden. The restoration in the later 20th century was by a brother and sister, Elsie and Matley Moore, who were passionate collectors and she was a keen needlewoman. Therefore there is an extensive collection of beautiful textiles.

This is one of my favourite pieces, above the fireplace. I love the colours used in this piece. I think this is one of Elsie’s own embroideries.

I also really loved seeing the little touches of her life, such as the worn pincushion next to the chair, and the collection of needlework tools in a display case.

The library was also beautiful, in a different way to the libraries in other Trust houses. This was full of well loved books, but still with some beautiful decorations on the spines. I wish all books looked like this today, rather than just name and title on the spine. I think that they look so exciting!

We had a quick look around the city museum as well, where they have a display devoted to Worcester Sauce, as well as some lovely military costume. We were very admiring of the braid on the tunics here.

I loved this painting of a Spanish girl, making me homesick for my adopted country as these type of outfits are still worn for fiestas.

I have been busy booking lots more coach trips with mum so will have more adventures to share with you in May and June, the Spanish do love a good costume and I will be there all over the Easter weekend which is always exciting.

Our last heritage venue was the amazing Georgian Guildhall built in 1721. This is a beautiful public building in the centre of the town which is free to enter, and is used for weddings as well as official business.

The ceilings in the Assembly Room and the Council Chamber were stunning and I can imagine there must have been some amazing events there in the Georgian era. I am of course channelling my inner Bridgerton here as we eagerly await the second series in a couple of weeks!

After a quick stop for tea and cake at the same vintage café I visited last time, we had a lovely wander around the canal basin. We then had a drink in the oldest pub in Worcester, and ended up in a very lovely restaurant called Bill’s. I must admit to choosing it partly based on the décor, (as I did in Edinburgh), but the food was delicious as well.

A very lovely day out and it was brilliant to catch up with Kerry. We will next meet at my first re-enactment event of the season in July. I do have more pictures from Sunday to show you as well, but I will leave that until next week.

I am pleased to tell you that the moses basket is done, and to confirm that I intend never to work with jersey ever again 😉 It is too stretchy and slippery so I am going to confine my future makes to my favourites of linens, denims and Liberty, as well as some nice, non slippery fabrics for Steampunk, and no velvet.

I have already mentioned that I have been spending lots of time reading cross stitch magazines through my wonderful Readly app and I have been inspired by one article to buy a gorgeous pattern to stitch for my sewing room/bedroom in Spain.

It is from a French Company called Jardin Prive and is called ABC de la Brodeuse, pictures from their web site. It is so cute and I love all the Quaker inspired motifs.

It will take a while to stitch but I have also ordered the band to stitch it on from Willow Fabrics as I needed a metre of it.

I also treated myself to this lovely Christmas design to use the individual motifs for future ornaments. I am going back with all sorts of wonderful things to add to my craft stock so will definitely have to sort out my storage as soon as I get back!

This week’s task is to make up the knitted rabbit as we are meeting with my niece at the weekend for a little do, not really a baby shower, but more a family lunch. There will be some baby related gifts though and I am making the nappy cake, out of real nappies and lots of ribbon and cellophane.

I hope that you have all had a good weekend. Have a good week ahead whatever you do and as always, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Hexagon challenge

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You all know by now how much I love hexagons and am in the process of making a full size double bed quilt from some using the Grandmother’s Garden pattern.

Well we were really thrilled to come across some wonderful miniature needlework during our recent visit to Nunnington, they have a series of miniature rooms that are part of their collection.

Nunnington -miniature needlework 3

Rather than being one dolls’ house these are lots of different rooms like this grand staircase in the picture above and most contained amazing examples of miniature cross stitch and needlepoint.

Nunnington -miniature needlework 2

When Ellie was little we bought her a dolls’ house and spent many years furnishing it and I stitched rugs and and made bedding for it. When she went to University we gave it to the family across the road who had 8 girls and I am sure they must have loved playing with it.

Nunnington -miniature needlework 4

Now she has her own house she has decided she would like to have another dolls’ house and has bought an antique cabinet to house it in, similar to the many we have seen in historic houses.

I said I would make some rugs etc for her but we also came across this miniature hexagon bed quilt in the display so I am going to attempt something like this for her. I have no idea if it has been paper pieced or not. I can’t imagine how you can cut paper and fold them that small as each must be only 1/4 cm across. I may well have to make my pieces bigger!

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There were also miniature sewing tools and work in progress like this needlepoint frame and lace making pillow and tatting.

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All wonderful stuff and so cute! I have been looking for information and as usual there is lots of inspiration on Pinterest so after Yarndale will have a go at a mini, mini, mini quilt. I have found a site that sells tiny papers as well!

I found this amazing mini quilt show on Pinterest, no idea who created it but look at the tiny loveliness here.

Mini quilt show

This weekend we have the Steampunk event at Lincoln, sadly our medieval show has been cancelled due to structural problems at the site BUT that means two whole days to enjoy the Steampunk and marvel at all the lovely costumes. My very talented daughter has been working on a fabulous costume for this year so all will be revealed next week!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Nunnington needlework

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We had a great mini trip up North, the first place we visited was Nunnington Hall in North Yorkshire, a lovely stone house dating back to the 12th century surrounded by beautiful countryside.

Not only was the house beautiful with lots of light and airy paneled rooms as the house has been displayed as it would have been in the 1920s, but there were also some wonderful examples of needlework connected to the family.

Firstly this Durham quilt, hand quilted by the last owner’s grandmother.

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Nunnington -quilt 2

Then these stunning Jacobean crewelwork panels in the bedroom, they have been restored by the Trust, mainly to mend the linen backing, but the colours are still wonderful even though they are faded.

Nunnington -crewelwork bedroom

Nunnington -crewelwork detail

Panels this size must have taken so long to make, they were originally made for a bed.

There was also a very pretty needlepoint chair cover and some samplers dating from 1785 and 1835 with the makers’ names on.

Nunnington -needlepoint

Nunnington -sampler 1

Nunnington -sampler 2

This is not a good picture of the sampler due to the low light but here is a better one from the National Trust Collections site here. It was stitched by 10 year old Betsy Pickard in 1835 as a firescreen and is beautifully done.

Another thing that I really liked were the little cross stitched signs, someone has been working very hard to theme the information given.

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Nunnington -label 2

There was also some very impressive other needlework that I will share with you in a later post, I absolutely loved it and it has given me an interesting challenge that I will share with you then.

Today will be mainly finishing off items for Yarndale, I have a basket and needlebook in progress and there is always more embroidering of sheep to be done!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Tudor splendour

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Hello, hope that you are all well and happy. I am very much so as I have submitted the work I was doing for my doctorate, hurrah , which means more sewing time, double hurrah  🙂 and I am going to Simply Solids this afternoon for another of their sewing courses.

Add to that the fact that I am off to Lisbon on Tuesday with my lovely Mum and my lovely son has come home from University , (for about 9 months until he hopefully goes off to teach in Japan), so I am quite possibly one of the happiest bunnies around!

We had a fab weekend at Tatton as well, the rain held off until the battle on Sunday so we only got a little bit wet and we met up with lots of old friends and Ellie and I marshalled the battle for the first time rather than water carrying which was very exciting. I could show you some photos of all of the excitement if I hadn’t filed them somewhere safe!

So on to the pictures from the National Trust visits Ellie and I did a while ago. First stop was Charlecote Park  in Warwickshire, a beautiful Tudor manor still owned by the family.

I love Tudor buildings with the red stone and the twisted chimneys and this had a beautiful setting as well. It was brilliant to see so many families enjoying the place, it was the school holidays and there was a teddy bear’s picnic on the lawn. Lots of future National Trust members hopefully who will bring their own children and help care for these places forever.

Charlecote 5

Charlecote 6

In the Great Hall there were some brilliant costume pictures, sadly too high up on the wall to take detailed shots but in the dining room there was wonderful wallpaper and in the library some very ornate needlepoint chairs that looked Spanish in origin.

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I also loved the plasterwork on the ceilings, more inspiration for that book of textile patterns based on historic buildings that I am going to write one day!

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There was also a lovely display of the more ordinary textiles in the laundry and the kitchen with embroidered traycloths and some rag rugs which had been made by children as part of a craft event.

A very lovely place to visit on a sunny English afternoon! Well will love you and leave you now as have to go and choose the fabric for the class this afternoon, we are making vinyl project bags so hopefully I will have a finished bag to show you soon.

Take care and thanks for visiting.