Creative costuming

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Hello everyone, hope that those of you in the UK enjoyed the Bank Holiday, usual mix of sunshine and rain meant that while we got soaked putting up the tents for the show at Lincoln on Saturday we were roasting by Monday and the tents were dry – hurrah!

This was our last event of the season with Swords of Mercia and not only did we have an excellent time with the group we went early on the Saturday to join in the Steampunk Festival which was amazing as always.

The sheer creativity and inventiveness of the costumes is stunning and we had a great afternoon. We  made some costumes for ourselves, not too elaborate this year due to lack of time but we were pleased to feel part of the event.

Here is Ellie in her lovely outfit, mostly put together from bargain charity shop finds and jewellery and embellishments she already had plus a bustle from Ebay, she looks very glamorous.

Steam Punk 2016 Ellie 1

 

Steam Punk 2016 Ellie 2

 

Steam Punk 2016 Ellie 3

I embellished the top hat Jake wore to his prom and Ellie bought me a lovely lace jacket from a charity shop for a pound as well. I also picked up the brooch I am wearing and this beautiful hair barrette at the market, very appropriate for a stitcher!

Steam Punk 2016 Ellie and me

 

Steam Punk 2016 Me new barette

There were the usual out of this world amazing costumes such as this peacock dress and this Gothic church inspired one, complete with matching waistcoat for the attendant who was the garment’s designer.

Steam Punk 2016 Peacock dress 1

Steam Punk 2016 Gothic dress 1

My favourite one was this Knitting Ninja, I love the creativity of this outfit with the, ‘ammo belt’, of wool and needles at the ready.

Steam Punk 2016 Knitting Ninja

 

Steam Punk 2016 Knitting Ninja 2

I also loved this butterfly dress with all the hand stitched butterflies, it is so brilliant to see people being creative and enjoying sewing and making.

Steam Punk 2016 Butterfly dress 1

 

Steam Punk 2016 Butterfly dress 2

 

Steam Punk 2016 Butterfly dress 3

We got lots of ideas for future costumes as well and as last year we were photographed so many times when we went out promoting our event on the Sunday and Monday, pictures of that and other wonderful medieval costume in a later post.

Meanwhile enjoy the rest of your week and thanks for visiting.

 

A little buying and a little making….

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Hello everyone, hope that you are all having a good weekend. It is raining again in lovely Marsden but as my sister and her cute dog are here for the weekend we have been out in it enjoying the beautiful countryside. The moors are amazing at the moment, all purple and it is great to be able to walk that far again after the mobility problems earlier in the year.

Not much has been going on craft wise, I have some progress on the Christmas ornaments and embroidery but nothing to show yet. However I can show you another cute little basket, this one made as a present for my cousin’s daughter. I made the smallest size of the Friends of the One Hour basket and filled it full of hair clips and she really loved it.

Anna-Mae's basket 1

As I mentioned in my previous posts I was very good at the Quilt Festival and only bought a little bit more stash 🙂 Firstly these gorgeous little mini charm packs, I am going to be going on some more bag making courses in the autumn so thought they would be great for that.

Quilt Festival mini charm packs

Charise has also got a great zipper pouch tutorial  on her blog which make use of these so might try that, look how cute the finished result is.

Charise zipper pouch -small

I also had to have some more Liberty from Alice Caroline’s fab scrap bin. Thought they would look lovely with scrap linen and have recently come across this lovely hexi idea from Pinterest from Lola Rose Patchwork.

Quilt Festival Liberty fabric

Liberty hexagons

I have also been acquiring more cute vintage text and sewing related prints from Simply Solids over the last couple of visits. Apologies but I have no idea of the fabric names or details of the ranges, these are earmarked for baskets or sewing related gifts. I particularly love the one with all the quilt block patterns on.

Well off to make brunch now before we go for another walk, my very energetic sister has just been for a 5K run but we will be doing something a little less strenuous as my knees can’t cope with fast speed!

Have a nice rest of the weekend and week ahead, take care and thanks for visiting.

 

 

Quilting a rainbow

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One of the things I love about seeing other people’s quilts is their use of colour. Sometimes putting together fabrics that you never thought would go, other times the use of a rainbow of colour that really stands out. Often it is the contrast between the fabric and the background and sometimes it is the quilting that helps the colour really pop.

This quilt entitled, ‘Bubbles of Joy’, by Anne Lilleholm Jorgenson is one such quilt, the fabric is gorgeous and what makes it really lovely is the contrast of the fabric bubbles and the quilting on the white background.

Another similar quilt used colour in the quilting really effectively, both sides, grey and black, were displayed and the contrast between the little pops of colour fabric and the quilting was really effective. This reminded me of the Spirograph toy we had as a child.

This one is called, ‘Atom’, and was made by Brenda Sanders.

In my craft room I have a stash of rainbow fabrics just waiting for the right project, they look so pretty on the shelf I really don’t want to cut into them! Maybe I could make something like this lovely hexagon quilt, sadly forgot to take a picture of the maker’s name.

There were also some gorgeous colourful  flower quilts like this one from Sheena Stubbs, ‘A Country Garden’.

Quilt Festival Flower 1

One of our other huge favourites was part of the Korean and Japanese quilters’ exhibition and was a pair of quilts which not only used colour really well but also wonderful Kantha stitching.

These are, ‘Lotus Pond 2 – Midsummer Day’, by SangSook Kim. We felt that not only were these quilts stunning but they felt like the sort of thing that we could actually make as the hand quilting used for the Kantha stitching is a lot less scary than the machine stitching in the other quilts.

The background is made up of wonky log cabins and that in itself is beautiful but the Kantha stitching and flowers really makes them into works of art.

Lots of inspiration again and has added so much to my future projects thoughts. At the moment I am working on two sets of things, a new set of Christmas ornaments using paper piecing and some more of Jenny’s lovely stitching, this time from her Primitive inspired designs from last month’s Stitchery Club. Looking forward to another delivery from her later this week.

Will show you more of that in a later post as well as some of my recent makes and fabric finds!

Thanks very much, as always for visiting, and have a great week ahead, the sun is shining in Yorkshire for the second day running which is brilliant!

 

 

Quilt magic

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Hello everyone, hope that you are all well and happy. Just back from a very hot Spain to lovely damp Yorkshire so what is a girl to do but take a trip to look at beautiful quilts? It was the brilliant Festival of Quilts trip again yesterday, just myself and Sharon this time.

We were very good, just a few purchases, no fabric for Sharon as she seems to think that she should use some of the stuff she has got before buying more but I got a little more insulation for the craft room 🙂

We both bought books, they had a special offer on the Sarah Fielke Little Quilts book  and as we so enjoyed meeting her recently we felt that we just had to!

Sarah Fielke Little Things book

The main reason for going was of course all that magic that people can perform with bits of fabric and thread and there was again some absolutely amazing and inspirational work.

We loved the two quilts by Claudia Pfeil ,whose work we first saw last year. The colours are amazing and the level of detail and embellishment just make them sparkle so much. There is more of her amazing work on this Pinterest board here.

There were some wonderful art quilts and pictorial quilts. I loved all the floral ones in very different styles such as these by Hilary Gooding, the more modern one which had a Judge’s Choice award, and Dorothy Clee  who had interpreted a walled garden. I love the stitching detail on both these very beautiful quilts.

One of my favourites combined quilting with my love of history in costume in a beautifully executed and very interesting idea based on Tudor dress showing the structural as well as the decorative elements of the fashion. This is by Joanna O’Neil  and has some gorgeous machine embroidery making the lace on the costume.

There was another set of historically based quilts of a similar theme based on effigies which were also beautifully stitched. These were made by Canadian quilter Dorothy Howard.

Quilt Festival - Dorothy Howard 1

Quilt Festival - Dorothy Howard 2

I have lots more to show you in a later post but for now will go and get some stitching done. Am going to be finishing the ring pillow today so time to choose a new project to start, am toying with either one of Jenny of Elefantz’s lovely designs or starting some of my Christmas ornaments.

Take care and enjoy what every you are doing this weekend, thanks for visiting.

Probably the best cloisters in the world..

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As you may know I do love cloisters and I have seen lots of really beautiful ones in my time. However the ones at the Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon were absolutely breath-taking in their splendour.

The decorations carved on the pillars were amazing and all unique, I couldn’t stop taking photos of the way that the sunlight and shadows made contrasts. Just amazing.

Lisbon - cloisters 1

Lisbon - cloisters 2

Lisbon - cloisters 3

Lisbon - cloisters 5

Lisbon - cloisters 4

Lisbon - cloisters 6

The monastery itself is wonderful, my camera was playing up at this point, previous pictures are from my tablet, so here are a couple from the miracles of the internet to show you what I mean.

Lisbon jeronimos_monastery_2

Lisbon jeronimos-monastery

There are other monasteries in Lisbon that we did not have time to visit so will have to go back as well, it is just there are so many other places that I want to go as well, just not enough time for all the loveliness there is in the world!

One of the last places we visited was the Belem Tower, built to defend Lisbon in the 1500s and just gorgeous, beautiful stone carvings and very ornately decorated for a defensive structure.

Lisbon - Torre 1

Lisbon - Torre 2

Lisbon - Torre 3

A really great holiday again and wonderful to spend time with my mum who like my lovely daughter is very happy wandering round churches and historic monuments, so glad to have travelling companions who like the same things that I do.

Have another re-enactment event coming up this weekend, we will be at Peveril CastlePeveril Castle, fingers crossed for fine weather as it is right on the top of the hill with a very long, steep climb up and down. Last year was brilliant weather on Saturday and raining all day Sunday so am praying for sun all weekend.

I am then off to Spain for a bit to see the family, not planning to do much due to the fact that it will be very hot, just lots of reading, going to the pool and spending time with my cousins and my god – daughter.

See you when I get back, thanks for visiting.

 

 

Tiles , sardines and another wonderful and wacky palace

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Hello everyone

Mum and I really enjoyed our first trip to Portugal a couple of weeks ago, I came back with so many beautiful postcards of tiles as inspiration for quilt designs and some beautifully wrapped fish. Sardines are a big feature of Portuguese cuisine and there were tins of fish for sale everywhere.

Lisbon - sardines

I could have bought loads of these as they were in all of the gift shops and I love the vintage designs.

The city was lovely with lots of beautiful buildings, many art deco in style and the best railway station I have ever seen, the bottom two pictures in this mosaic.

The tiles on the postcards below come from the many tiled buildings that are in the city, some amazing pattern inspiration, if you want to see more look at this link.

Lisbon -tile postcards 1

I have framed this beautiful postcard and put it in my kitchen, lovely windows!

Lisbon - tile postcards 6

The main reason for choosing Portugal for our trip was a blog post last year from Gillian Travis  , one of my favourite textile artists, who had visited Sintra, an area where the Portuguese royal family had their winter retreat and built lots of wonderful palaces. She has made some lovely journal quilts based on her trip including one with sardine tins, pictures at the bottom of this post.

Sadly my camera malfunctioned while we were away and though I thought I had taken lots of gorgeous pictures they were all corrupted so have had to resort to finding others from the internet to show you the wonderful Pena Palace  that we visited on my birthday.

Lisbon pena palace 2

I love bizarre palaces, we visited Neuschwanstein a few years ago and this is similar in its wonderful over the top architecture, this time with a Moorish influence.The whole area is so beautiful with rocky outcrops amongst the trees and views out to sea.

Lisbon pena-national-palace 1

I love this picture of it in the clouds, it looks like something from an epic film like a Lord of the Rings movie, amazing to think that this was actually built on the site of an original monastery as a family home.

Lisbon pena palace 3 clouds

We had a brilliant day exploring the palace and the beautiful grounds topped off by a ride down from the palace in a jeep which was very exciting! We had bought round trip bus tickets but the queues were really long for the return bus and there were lots of vehicles dropping people off at the palace and offering return trips. We narrowly missed getting a tuk tuk but were very happy with a cool ride down in the jeep.

We ended the day with a drinks on the terrace of a bar overlooking Lisbon and tapas at a very cute little place where we were the only customers, possibly something to do with the fact that Portugal were playing Germany in the Euro 16.Happily they won so we came back to the hotel accompanied by the cheers and honking horns of a lot of very happy Portuguese. A very memorable day!

We also visited an a great art museum and some found some absolutely amazing cloisters in the monastery, even better than Laycock Abbey so I will be posting pictures of those soon.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

The hottest day of the year ….

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Or even the century. You may be aware that we had a mini heatwave this week, it reached about 33 degrees, even in Yorkshire and in typical British style we were all saying how it was too hot and we needed it to cool down – we are never happy with the weather   😉

Anyway it was a lovely day made even more special as my very lovely son Jake graduated from University with a 2:1 in Multimedia Journalism, which makes me a very proud Mum 🙂

Poor boy was roasting in his black gown but we managed to get some nice photos before he had to disrobe.

Here he is with a cute bear who was posing for photos with the graduates, he must have been really hot! Also his lovely sister Ellie and his best friend from University, Charlie , who he met at sixth form and they have studied together for the last 6 years.

We had a great time in Middlesbrough including a trip to the Bowes Museum, somewhere I have always wanted to visit, and a curry at a place with naan breads as that were at least two feet in length.

The day also ended very well as I had a visit booked to Simply Solids  to hear Sarah Fielke give a trunk show talk. I had not really come across her work before but loved it, she bases a lot of her designs on antique quilts and uses a lot of applique and hand quilting all which very much appeals to me.

I have just treated myself to a copy of her latest book of designs based on antique quilts so that will be arriving next week, more ideas for the retirement crafting!

Sarah Fielke 3 - book

She was really lovely, especially so in the extreme heat, poor women had packed for her European tour a few weeks previously and had not packed for our heatwave so she did a wonderful job, we were hot enough just sitting there listening.

Sarah Fielke 1

I not only loved the quilts but found her very inspirational, she had a serious car accident when she was just starting her quilting career and her children were very young and still managed to continue with things, even after four months in hospital and time after that using a wheelchair.

Sarah Fielke 2

I hope that the quilting helped her recover as it does for so many people, I am a great believer in the power of crafting to help heal, I know it helps me when I am in pain and think it is a really good way of relieving stress as well.

Below is one of my favourite designs by her from her Quilting with Little Things book, love the little appliqued leaves.

Sarah Fielke Quilting-From-Little-Things

Well it still sunny here but not so hot so will be watching the weather carefully while I craft as have lots of washing on the line! Hope that you have a lovely weekend and thanks for visiting.

 

If Carlsberg did gardens……

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Our last house on the tour was the beautiful Stourhead. I realised when we got there that I have seen so many pictures of the gardens and just had not realised that this was the house we were visiting, we chose it as it was so close to where the event was.

Stourhead 1

Stourhead 2

The house is a Palladian one and the gardens were created in the 1740s and are some of the most amazingly beautiful I have ever seen. Just look at this view.

Stourhead 5 gardens

Stourhead 6 gardens

I have been having trouble walking recently due to an infection a few months ago so was using my stick and didn’t think I would be able to make the walk around the lake. However the National Trust have manned golf carts for people with reduced mobility so I was able to go on a tour round the lake which was brilliant. There are lots of follies such as this cottage and the temple which is now a wedding venue.

The house was full of art and wonderful treasures like this bird table centrepiece from the 1600s.

Stourhead 4 - bird

And I always love the libraries with the patterned books spines.

Stourhead 3 - books

There was also a gorgeous church next to the lake, a bat was flying around inside and we watched it for ages.The church were having a flower festival to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday and it looked very lovely.There was also a beautifully decorated organ as well with art deco style flowers.

Stourhead 10 church

I was particularly interested in this effigy dating from the mid 1300s showing a nebule or goffered headdress. My very talented friend Kat has made lots of beautiful versions of this for friends in re-enactment.

Stourhead 11 headdress

We really enjoyed the day at Stourhead and it is really worth a visit if you are in the area. At the moment the interpretation tells the story of the son of the owners, Harry Hoare, who was sadly killed in the First World War, events which led to the house being given to the Trust.

Another very worthwhile use of my Trust membership and I enjoy knowing that I am helping preserve all this for future generations.

Thanks for visiting and see you soon!

On location

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Hello again. The third property we visited on our little National Trust tour was Laycock Abbey. Apologies as for some reason I can’t add links at the moment or would have put one in for the information.

The whole village belongs to the Trust and it was very pretty with lots of little honesty stalls outside all of the houses selling jams etc. The Abbey itself is beautiful, mellow stone which looked so lovely on a summer day.

Laycock 2

I love all the details on the stone and spent quite a lot of time taking pictures of things as inspiration for future patterns. The quatrefoil is a design that is common on older buildings and I love the stained glass window above the main stairs that now forms part of Fox Talbot’s Great Hall with its wonderful painted ceiling.

Laycock 8

The Abbey has been used as a filming location for lots of things, most famously for the Harry Potter films. We visited the Warner Brothers’ Studio Harry Potter experience a couple of years ago as a Christmas trip and we saw the sets for things like Snape’s potion class which was filmed here in the crypt.

All very exciting and very apt as it was William Henry Fox Talbot, the owner of the house, who took the first ever photograph using a negative in 1835. I think that he would be amazed how much we now document our lives on social media and the way that we use photos, such an essential part of our lives.

That is another reason why I love visiting Trust houses, not only are you sometimes seeing things from great events like the Mary Queen of Scots chemise but also from what must have seemed at the time quite a small thing, a great personal achievement for him but I doubt he realised the significance to the world.

He was also friends with other inventors and there was another great piece of textile interpretation in the dining room. This tablecloth showed the dishes from a dinner with the plates representing the guests, amongst whom was Charles Babbage. He was the creator of the Analytical Engine who along with the daughter of Lord Byron, mathematician Ada Lovelace who worked with him on the idea of programming, gave us the beginnings of computing.

Laycock textile interpretation 1

Laycock textile interpretation 2

I find it absolutely amazing that two men at a dinner table all those years ago set in motion the technology that allows me to sit here in my lounge on my laptop blogging and uploading pictures for you. It just makes you wonder who is sitting somewhere right now with the next idea that will revolutionise things and what it will be.

Laycock cloisters 4

The cloisters were my favourite part of the place, I love the stonework and the way that the light and shadows contrast. I think they are such wonderful and spiritual places, even with lots of visitors in them you can sense how peaceful they would have been when this was an abbey.

Hope that you all have a good week ahead, I am spending the rest of the weekend working on a very special piece of embroidery that I won’t be able to reveal for a while, Ellie’s best friend from University is getting married soon and I am making a ring pillow for them!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

A little bit of history

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Hello everyone, hope you are all well and happy. It is another damp and dreary weekend here in Yorkshire but that means plenty of time for catching up on blogging and crafting!

Regular readers will know I love visiting historic places, all places are special in their own way and all very beautiful but sometimes you come across something really special that is a real wow moment.

You may remember that Ellie worked at Hardwick Hall before she moved to Clumber Park, they have an extensive collection of Elizabethan textiles, some worked by Bess of Hardwick and some by Mary Queen of Scots, her husband’s charge in the years before her death.

We were wandering through our second Trust Property, Coughton Court , really enjoying the beautiful treasures when we came across a darkened room full of the most amazing things.

Firstly there was this beautiful chalice cover with the most wonderful Elizabethan goldwork, then a priest’s cope which was made by Catherine of Aragon, (another heroine of mine), and her ladies, no pictures as it was too dark but you can get a glimpse of it at the collections site here.

Coughton textiles 5

Coughton textiles 6

Then at the back in a case was this very simple chemise, embroidered around the neck, the chemise that Mary allegedly wore when she was executed at Fotheringay Castle in 1587.

Coughton - MQS robe 1

This was one of the most wow moments I have ever had at a property, one of those really goose bumpy moments when you realise you are actually really close up to the reality of history. You can see a full length picture of the chemise at the collections site at the above link.

It was also very interesting as all contemporary reports said that Mary wore blood – red undergarments, the colour of a catholic martyr, maybe this was under those red robes.

You can read more about Coughton and the family history at this great blog post  from the very informative Tudor Stuff blog. The family were staunch Catholics and so had a bit of a rough time during the reformation but managed to retain their beautiful property.

There were also some other lovely costumes in portraits. The blackwork on the neck and sleeves of this robe and this lace collar were two of my particular favourites.

There was some very good interpretation using textiles as well, this is something that Ellie and I have noticed as a growing trend in Trust houses and one that we really like. I think it is far more interesting to read something set in the context and also from a practical point of view easier as the print is larger and several people can be reading the information at once.

This was a dinner party at which the guests were all members of the estate who died in the First World War. A very touching and lovely way to remember them, with their photos as place cards and their stories on the back of each chair.

Coughton - textile interpretation 1

Coughton - textile interpretation 2

I will be back soon with more lovely Trust stuff, now off to make another little basket, have resisted the urge to make more for a few weeks but they are so cute and this will be a present for a younger relative.

Hope that you all have a lovely weekend whatever you are doing and see you soon. Thanks for visiting.