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.
While we were in Paris last week we made a trip to the flea market at St Ouen. This was always on Ellie’s to do list and due to the Versailles Palace being unfortunately shut on the Monday we made it and it was a little piece of textile heaven!
It was a very interesting experience generally- it is a huge market with lots of modern stalls and a big second hand market with everything from very expensive antique furniture to people sitting by the road with what looks like piles of the most random junk.
The textiles are wonderful! There were lots of costume dealers and three or four who specialised in antique textiles which were amazing. The first stall had the most amazing collection of whitework and lace goods including loads of baby clothes obviously late Victorian and early 20th century.
The whitework stall
She did have some pieces of cross stitch as you can see in the red pile of stitching near the middle of the pic but most was work like the two pics below.
A lace collarWhitework on a baby's dress
There were a couple of other stalls which made me want to win the lottery immediately – this one below had literally stacks of goldwork and huge embroideries everywhere – lots of Ottoman garments and ecclesiastical vestments.
Stacks of lovely stuff!
And more!
A priest's robe
I really wanted to rescue all these poor things and give them a loving home but sadly did not have the funds!
These were some more pices outside one of the other stalls – just sitting there. The thing that makes me sad is that I know just how long it takes to make pieces like this and is is tragic to see them being unloved and unwanted. At least the people reading this will appreciate them!
Silk shading on a priest's robe
A goldwork panel
An embroidered collar
If you ever want to go the nearest Metro stop is Porte de Clignancourt and there is a map at the Metro stop and signs once you get outside – look for Marche aux Puces.
Apologies for the lack of recent posts – we have been away on a little holiday and I have some pics of that to share with you. It was a special birthday treat for Ellie for her 18th and we went with my Mum to Disneyland for 3 days followed by 3 days in Paris.
We had a great time – weather was very good after the first day and we really enjoyed everything. Went on loads of rides – some very scary like Crush’s Coaster and Armageddon and saw lots of parades including of course lots of Disney princesses for Ellie.
Us in Disney Studios Mum and kids outside the castle in Disneyland
It was Mum’s first time in Paris so we did a lot of the sights – me and the kids have been a few times before though not for a few years – this was actually our 4th trip to Disneyland Paris – we are all big Disney fans and are planning more trips in the future – on our own and with grandkids (the kids have promised me lots of these!).
Mum and kids under the Eiffel Tower
I have been busy since we got back – we celebrated Mum’s birthday before she went back to Spain with a lovely meal out with us, my brother Ben and his girlfriend Amanda. I gave her the crazy patchwork bag that I have been working on which she thankfully really liked. Ellen gave her a goldwork picture that she started for her about 18 months ago.
The bag as a work in progress The reverse of the bagDetail of the stitching embellishment
I have really enjoyed making this project – I got the inspiration from Barbara at Embroiderers’ Guild who makes the most amazing crazy patchwork tea cosies. She was going to lead a workshop on this in Feb which got cancelled due to the bad snow we had then but since I had all the stash for the project I decided to do it anyway on my own.
I have really enjoyed the unstructured and experimental aspects of the work as I normally do very controlled and counted pieces but I liked just letting the project evolve and seeing where it took me. I am particularly pleased with the little embroidery embellishments which I think look very pretty and I found some lovely buttons to add to it.
Mum with the completed bag
Mum with Ellen's goldwork picture present
Mum and her birthday cake and shot of sambucca
I have had a very productive day today – have spent most of it in the garden as it has been gloriously sunny here. Was going to do lots of sewing making a new nun’s outfit but it was too hot to stay in the conservatory where I normally sew – I did get the outfit cut out later on but spent a lovely afternoon tidying up and refilling the pond – the garden now looks lovely ready for summer.
My lovely sunny and tidy garden!
A beautiful sunny afternoon in Yorkshire
Have lots of other pics to post this week of various textile treats so will get round to that later in the week. Meanwhile off to finish stitching a baby card for a new arrival.
Wonderful daughter Ellie was 18 on Monday so on Tues we went out for a meal with Ben (my brother) , his partner Amanda and me, Jake and 3 of Ellie’s friends Hannah, Charlotte and Kate. We had a very lovely meal at one of my favourite restaurants – it is just down the road from where I work and we go there a lot for leaving dos and general celebrations.
Ellie, Charlotte, Kate and HannahJake, Ben and Amanda
My friend Val’s son Oliver is raising money to go to Peru next year to do some voluntary work. He is doing lots of different things but one of his ideas was a promise auction where he and his friend Tommy who is also going sold their services for various tasks like baking, ironing, DIY ect. So I paid him to make Ellie’s cake and they did a fab job. Here she is with the cake at the restaurant.
The candles spell happy birthdayA beautiful pic!
I wish her every happiness in the world and am so proud of her. She has had a lot to cope with in the past year, whilst doing A levels and she has been fab all the way through – so has Jake. We are off to Disneyland Paris on Tues for her birthday treat and she thoroughly deserves a very special time. They have both been so supportive all the time to me and they are great!
Hope that you have all had a nice weekend – I have had a lovely one especially a lovely Mothers’ Day today. I spent two hours stitching this morning then we went to Bradford to the National Media Museum this afternoon and for tea at Nandos which was lovely.
Came home for another 3 hours stitching which was very nice. Am working on some gifts for people so do have loads of WIPs but cannot post any pics till end of April when all are finished and with the recipients.
I had a lovely card made by Ellie and my wonderful children are paying for me to go to the Embroiderers’ Guild Conference for the day in Sheffield in April as my Mothers’ Day present. The day I am attending includes two talks on ecclesiastical embroidery and a trip to see some items at Sheffield Cathedral so I am really looking forward to that. Thanks kids for being so fab!
Regular readers may remember my Mothers’ Day post (at bottom of this link) last year when I had just arranged to go part -time at work and was really looking forward to a more relaxed, stress free life with more time for family stuff and embroidery!
Well life didn’t quite turn out like that but the stress levels are not too bad despite the fact that I am trying to return to work full time now which hopefully may be sorted soon.
As I have no pics of my work that I can share I will post a couple of useful links with pics that I have found through someone who linked to my blog. She is called Jane and her blog is in my blogroll as Loopy Lou so please go and visit her blog as there some lovely things on there.
The first one is a site called free patterns which as the name suggests gives free patterns for knitting, stitching, crochet etc. There is not a huge selection but there is some very nice stuff – I particularly like these quilting patterns.
Bunny hugs quilt patternXmas Nine Patch quilt
Another wonderful site is Pintangle which has loads on it – inspiration, stitch a longs and online classes. Fabulous stuff, this woman Sharon is a real textile guru with loads of useful info and advice on the site. As a taster just look at the pic below from one of her crazy quilts.
Sharon's crazy quilt piece
Though I can’t show you any of my WIPs I can tell you that one is a crazy patchwork piece inspired by Barbara from my local Embroiderers’ Guild and that it is coming along really well – I am very pleased with it.
Today we have had a day out with the medieval group to Uncle Roger’s – otherwise known as Roger of Lancaster’s Armourie. Roger is the brilliant guy who makes the swords and armour that our group use and he very kindly offered to host a day for us all to go and ‘fettle with the metal’ and make or mend armour. The lads were very happy to spend the day in his workshop surrounded by so many tools and Bev and I did a bit of embroidery, made cups of tea for everyone and Bev had made a fab chilli for lunch.
Here are some pics of the boys ‘ grand day out!
Paul and Keith all dressed up - mail and padded jacketBev and Dave doing a bit of tent mendingSome of the helmets that Roger makes on displayJust some of the swords that Roger makesYe old fashioned way of cleaning mail - in a cement mixer with some sand!Here's one I made earlier - Dave's lemon squeezer helmetBev with the new group banner Paul and Lee with the anvilDave making sparks fly with the grinding wheelBev and I looking babelicious in the workshop
We all had a lovely day so big thanks to Roger. We always have a lot to do in the off season during the winter in terms of repairing and making new kit for re-enactment so this was a very useful day.
A few weeks ago I had a textileicious day and this week I have had another one at my Embroiderers’ Guild meeting. The morning was a sewing workshop though as usual it was more talking about stitching than doing any!
In the afternoon we had a speaker, a wonderful woman called Linda Rudkin who does a talk called ‘Colour from Nature’ about using natural plant dyes. She does the most amazing work with her dyed fabric and thread and the colour boards to show the different effects of each dye were textile works of art in themselves let alone all of the beautiful cushions, bowls etc she brought with her. My favourite was the large box pictured below embellished with a wealth of three dimensional leaves that were all dyed from one source.
Linda's amazing 3D leaf box
I was particularly interested in the use of dyes as it fits in very well with the medieval period and she also does something called Flower Pounding which as it sounds involves hitting flowers leaves etc with a hammer to extract the dyes straight onto fabric. She had the most beautiful examples of these flower pictures with her.
Go and have a look at her web site for inspiration – we are all hoping she will come back and do a workshop for us next year.
I bought her book, called Natural Dyes and also some fabric which has been pre-treated with mordant and some dye stuff. Our branch of the Guild has its bi-annual exhibition in September and we are making a rainbow of individual panels to display – each person has chosen a colour. Mine is indigo which of course is a natural dye in itself so I am going to do some experimenting for that piece. Watch this space!
I am able to share with you now some pics of my very first attempt at a biscornu pincushion. I chose this lovely Celtic laced hearts design from the Gift of Stitching magazine. It was very complicated to stitch as I kept losing track so there was an awful lot of frogging (unpicking) going on but I got there in the end.
The making up of the biscornu was a lot easier than I expected, I used some gold twist thread that I had in my stash for the edging and tassels which worked well with the gold flecked Aida fabric.
The finished design before adding beadSide view before bead and braid edgingThe finished article - top view The finished article - side view
I am very pleased with the end result . Would love to make more biscornus if I have the time – just need that knitting pattern for making an extra day – if anyone finds it please let me know!
Have you noticed how in fashion embroidery is at the moment? I have been doing a little bit of trend spotting recently and there are some fab garments out there. These pics were taken in Asda yesterday – we were out for the day in Doncaster visiting an exhibition (of dinosaur models not stitching!) and popped in to get some lunch and I was amazed by the amount of beautiful stitchery on garments.
At the risk of embaressing Jake (hey what are parents for!) I took these of just a few of the clothes on display.
A peasant style top
Beautiful embroidery on a shirtEmbroidery round a collarA real back to the sixties ethnic look
Unfortunately I did not buy any of these as none of them were really what I wanted in terms of the garment style – lots of short puffy sleeves and loose tunics which do not suit me- but loved the fact that there was so much stitching around. Obviously this is all machine stitched but still very pretty and may inspire more people to take up the needle and create for themselves!
I have recently made this card for a friend. The design comes from the sampler ‘ I still do’ by Inkcircles and I attached a little heart charm as well. It is stitched on sparkly white Aida with Silk Mill dark blue thread.
Valentine's card
Wonderful daughter Ellie has just come back from a short trip to Bruges with two friends for the friend’s 18th birthday. She had a great time and was very impressed by the lace work there and as a present bought me this very cute little wine waiter outfit for my wine bottles made of Brussels lace.
Wine bottle cover
I think that it just so cute and hopefully we can all go to Bruges one day and admire more lace (there is also beer and lots of chocolate so sounds like a fun place!).
I travel a lot for work which is lovely – nowhere glamorous on first class flights but just round Yorkshire on the train (I don’t drive) which gives me lots of chance to read and think and look out the window. I love trains (which is good considering how long I spend on them these days!) and really enjoy meeting new people and the excitement of going somewhere. I will eventually get my own car – finances permitting but will still travel by train as you never know who you will meet!
Today I went to Northern College to see one of my students. The college is in a historic house which has the most lovely grounds and it is still very snowy there.
This picture was taken en route.
Fields and fields of undisturbed snow
The following pics were taken at the college – I love the letter box which looks particularly good in contrast with the snow – all we need is a robin and that could be next year’s Xmas card sorted!
The main building at Northern CollegeIvy on the stable blockThe arch near the stablesPost box near one of the cottages
The snow is thank goodness – I know it’s pretty but everything round here stops when it snows as it is so hilly so I am glad we are coming to the end of it.
The path is clear!
The cat still isn't keen to go out - cold on the paws!
I have had a very textileicious day (if that isn’t a word it should be!). I would have been at Embroiderers’ Guild today if it hadn’t been cancelled as more snow was forecast (it did snow a bit last night but stopped quickly) so I decided that I would spend the day doing textiles anyway. Not what was planned as that was a crazy patchwork day led by Barbara but work on some other projects.
I wanted to do some quilting – I have so much fabric in my stash that I thought it would be good to use some of it this way so have been working today on an Xmas hanging. I plan to work on this at the Quilters’ Guild I am joining which is one evening a month so it should be finished in time.
The inspiration comes from this book Passion for Patchwork by Lisa Bergere which I treated myself to recently as I had lots of points on my Waterstones’ card from buying Xmas presents.
Here is some of the Xmas stash that I was choosing from.
My Xmas stash and the lovely book!
There are so many lovely ideas in this book which is very much folk art based with some really cute hanging ideas. I took my inspiration from this design for a tablecloth.
Trees tablecloth
After a bit of playing around this is what I ended up with – I just kept combining fabrics and shape ideas till I got what I liked. Not very scientific but it works!
My xmas hanging in layout
I am going to applique these little pieces in the pictures below on to the trees with some padding and put some little charms and stitching on it as well. Maybe even an embroidered saying – who knows ?
Detail of the tree with the stocking Detail of the tree with the presents
So far a fab day and it’s not over yet – a still have a whole evening of stitching to come – bliss!
