We love to boogie …. on a Saturday night!

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Hello there

Well another Marsden Jazz Festival has come and gone and I think a good time was had by all.

There were lots of people dancing late into the night at our sell out Saturday night event featuring the very talented Airya Astrobeat Arkestra.I even got off duty for a bit to go and join in and I was also amazed by the guitar playing of Antonio Forcione at our other sell out event on Sunday.

As usual I had a lovely time in the company of my excellent band of fellow volunteers and really enjoyed meeting so many nice people who were very kind about the festival and how much they enjoy it.

I was also interviewed by the local radio and if you want to hear more about the festival my 15 minutes of fame are here
on the Two Valleys Radio web site.

It was a bit wet 😦 so we had some re-arranging of outdoor events to do (how optimistic were we?) but the venues in the village were fantastic at accommodating bands at very short notice so big thanks to them all.

I know I have said this before and apologies if you are bored by it but I love living here, there is a real sense of community and I so enjoy being part of this.

I managed to take a few pictures of the parade on the Saturday which involves the local dance school and local children who decorate brollies to carry (good job given the inclemency!).

Jazz Festival

Jazz Festival 2

Jazz Festival 3

Jazz Festival 5

There were even some very little children dressed as sheep which is the symbol of the jazz festival – so cute!

I am really looking forward to this weekend as an old friend of mine is coming to stay, Anita, who moved to Australia some years ago and has since become a very talented long armed and machine quilter is going to be here.

Have not seen her for about 3 years so lots of catching up to do. I have just been drooling over some of the new things on her quilting blog at Hillside Quilting.

Am still busy knitting bunnies 🙂 will I ever stop! And am half way through my Autumn stitch for the Seasonal Exchange.

Here’s hoping for better weather than last weekend so that we can go walking and show Anita our beautiful surroundings. However if it rains we may just have to hole up in the craft room – shame 🙂 Maybe she can teach me a thing or two while she is here!

Take care and thanks for visiting

More domestic loveliness

stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello everyone

Well I am having a lovely autumn here, am not going to be going to China anytime soon now so I am making the most of the season in the UK with some more lovely walks, practising being a domestic goddess and still more bunny knitting 🙂

Have been busy baking cakes and crumbles, cooking stews and soups and have just taken possession of a new cookbook, Paul Hollywood’s Bread – inspired by watching The Great British Bake Off. Today I made some delicious Stilton and bacon rolls from this recipe and have lots more great ideas for the coming weeks.

Bread book

You will notice I also have a pumpkin all ready for the now obligatory pumpkin soup with melting cheese – yum, yum.

I have just sent off another bunny, this one is a very special one as it is a present for one of my daughter’s very good friends.

Ellie is being a bridesmaid this weekend for her school friend Charlotte and the bunny is a present for Charlotte’s daughter Elizabeth. I was asked to make the dress in the same colours as the bridesmaids will be wearing and added a little hairband as well.

Bridesmaid bunny

Bridesmaid bunny 2

Here are some photos of a beautiful cottage garden from a walk on the hills above my house a couple of weeks ago. There were some donkeys in the field next to the house as well, looking very cute.

Sept walk 3 -donkeys

Cottage garden

Cottage garden 2

Cottage garden 3

Cottage garden 4

Sept walk

Sept walk 2

Also went to my favourite reservoir, they have partly drained it as they are doing some work so went right down to the water.

Sept walk 4 - Butterley

It is the Marsden Jazz Festival this coming weekend so I will be manning the Box Office all weekend. Looking forward to it and hoping for very good weather, we have had beautiful sunshine just lately 🙂

Hope you have a lovely weekend whatever you are doing and thanks for visiting.

The beauty of wood

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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.

Ludlow house 8

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.

Ludlow house 4

Ludlow house 6

Ludlow house 2

The beds and seats were also carved.

Ludlow house 3

Ludlow house 7

The plaster work was amazing as well.

Ludlow house

Ludlow house 5

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.

Ludlow Church

Ludlow Church 2

Ludlow church 3

Ludlow church 4

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.

A little me time!

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Hello there

I have had a lovely time this weekend with some of my very good friends in a beautiful lodge in Sherwood Forest.

Sherwood girls 2

These are some of the women I have known since my kids were little and we usually have a weekend away every year. This year it was a lovely lodge with a jacuzzi 🙂

Sherwood girls 4

Sherwood girls 3

We had a couple of very nice walks, saw some interesting mushrooms and ate lots of yummy food and relaxed.A thoroughly lovely time with great company.

Sherwood girls weekend

Sherwood girls 5

Sherwood girls 6

Hope that you had a nice time whatever you did, thanks for visiting.

Autumn Colours

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Well Autumn is definitely here in the Colne Valley.

The last of the tents is drying out on the line ready to be packed away until next season and the air has turned colder.

I am often sad at the end of the season as I so love camping and re-enacting but am really looked forward to my second Autumn here.

Being so much more rural I can really see all of the changing colours of the seasons all around me and the other day I had a lovely walk along the canal to pick blackberries and took these pictures for you.

Autumn colours 2

Autumn colours 3

Autumn colours 4

Autumn colours 5

Autumn colours 6

I also popped into the local charity shop (to donate) but came away with this beautiful tray cloth.

Flower cloth

Flower cloth 3

Flower cloth 4

Flower cloth 5

I am thinking of maybe framing some of these pieces as I now have far too many just to make things from them and think these might go very nicely in the kitchen.

The designs remind me very much of some of Kelly Fletcher from Materialistic– a very talented embroidery designer from South Africa who has some beautiful freebies on her Craftsy shop – look for the Bloomin’ Marvellous designs.

She also has some gorgeous designs for sale – really inspirational stuff!

I now have the ultimate luxury of a Sunday to do whatever I want to 🙂 Jake has gone back to University (not that he was any trouble while he was here!) but I am home alone with only myself to please.

Shall it be Christmas ornaments, knitting more dresses for bunnies, stitching? Maybe all three! I am making a start on my autumn exchange piece today and have chosen some beautiful brown silks for the piece.

Or a walk on the hills? it is beautiful and sunny today so I might just don the walking boots and get out there 😉

I hope that you are having a lovely day whatever you have decided to do.

Thanks for visiting.

Lovely doors of Ludlow

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When we visited Ludlow Castle a while ago I noticed that they had a poster of doors of Ludlow for sale in the gift shop.

As regular readers know I love taking pictures of doors 🙂 much to the amusement of family and friends so when I went back again this last weekend I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos.

Ludlow doors

Ludlow door 2

I also took some more photos of the beautiful Tudor buildings there which I thought I would share with you.

Tudor Ludlow

Tudor Ludlow 2

Tudor Ludlow 3

Tudor Ludlow 5

Tudor Ludlow 6

Tudor Ludlow 7

As well as original Tudor buildings there are some later ones in Tudor style and a beautiful market hall.

Tudor Ludlow 8

Tudor Ludlow 9

Tudor Ludlow 4

We also visited the church and a Tudor house with some fantastic carved wood panelling so I will put all those in a later post.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Sunny end to the season!

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We spent last weekend at beautiful Caldicot Castle in South Wales, one of my favourite venues and despite a bad forecast and wet weather all the way down we had a lovely weekend with lots of sun.

Here are some of my favourite sights – medieval tents in a sunny castle!

Caldicot Castle 4

Caldicot Castle 3

Caldicot Castle 2

Caldicot Castle

I have found the picture I took at an earlier event of the helm mantle I made, this is the red covering with plaited band in the front of the picture, the orle I made earlier is at the back.

Helm mantle

The Sisters of Mercia, our little watercarrying group, have had a lovely, lovely season, we have really enjoyed ourselves and made some new friends as well as spending time with old ones.

We are really looking forward to next year.

I will leave you with this pic of us – courtesy of our friend Dave, this was taken before going onto the battlefield. Since the very hot Tewkesbury event and the introduction of cold flannels (as well as water and jelly babies :-)) we have been carrying our own flannels.

Sisters at Caldicot

I have titled this picture, ‘Kerry demonstrating to the Sisters the correct use of the cold flannel’ 🙂 We are obviously listening to her really carefully! It is a skilled job this watercarrying you know.

Thanks for visiting, see you soon.

Christmas is coming!

stitchesoftime2 Comments

Hello there

Apparently it is a mere 3 months till Christmas which is obviously why my local Co-Op has stocked up with the Xmas chocs.

That is maybe slightly more understandable than them selling mince pies with a sell by date of the end of October (although you can of course eat these at any time of year and you might want to train up for a mince-pie eating fest at the actual festive season – who knows).

Us crafty types can be forgiven for getting in the mood early on (I have yet to participate in a Christmas in July event but I am intrigued) however I have made a start on the ornaments that I will be hopefully be selling at craft fairs this year.

I have quite a lot of stock from last year as I did not do my usual Oakwell Hall fair due to going to China but am hoping to do that this year.

I did manage to make these two baubles but sadly had a major malfunction with the rest of the polystyrene balls that I had in my stash which literally fell apart as I was using them hence only two completed 😦

Bauble making Sept

Baubles Sept

I promised you photos of Chesterfield Church that I visited recently when I went to stay with Ellie so here they are.

Chesterfield Church

Chesterfield Church 2

Chesterfield Church 3

Chesterfield Church 4

Chesterfield Church 5

Chesterfield Church 6

The church is famous for its twisted spire as it is made of wood and has warped over the years but I did not realise that it had the amazing effigies and alter art inside.

A beautiful church and well worth a visit.

I have been to our last event of the season – fab times and have lots more pics of loveliness for you which I will post this weekend.

Thank you for visiting.

Happy Houseaversary to me!

stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello everyone

I am celebrating as one year ago today I moved into my little house here in Marsden.

I have had a brilliant year here, I have never been happier living anywhere and I am so glad I made the move (and that it finally happened after all the delays last summer!)

I have made so many new friends including all the lovely people at my new knitting group, have really great,friendly neighbours and permanently feel like I am on holiday!

I have had a very nice quiet summer unlike the previous two where I was getting the house ready to put it on the market, then packing up and finally moving so I have really, really appreciated the lack of stress.

I have spent most of my free time when not away at events in my favourite place in the house, my crafting sofa with all the photos of my friends from re-enactment.

Houseaversary - sofa

I sit here looking out of the window at my neighbours’ lovely flowers.

Houseaversary - neighbours

I have also been admiring my new planting like this gorgeous lily just blooming and looking up at the hills that I can see from the back of my house. The heather is turning purple at the moment so it all looks fantastic.

Houseaversary - lily

Houseaversary - heather

These are a few of my best Marsden memories from the first year here.

Lots of walks to the reservoirs in the sunshine, am looking forward to many more of these in the off-season.

Houseaversary

The snow and sledging with the kids – fantastic fun.

Houseaversary - snow 1

Houseaversary - snow 2

The sheep, even though they do occasionally eat my flowers I love seeing them, these pics were taken in the Spring on my way home from work – what a lovely sight at the end of the day!

Houseaversary - sheep 1

Houseaversary - sheep 2

A few years ago I wanted to make a major change to be able to spend less time working and more doing the things I love, wishing to set up my own sewing business.

Sadly that wasn’t possible as life intervened but I now feel that I do have most of what I wanted back then, even though in a different place and under different circumstances.

If I had done that I would have missed out on living here and going to teach in China which has been one of the most fantastic experiences of my life so I am very happy at the way that things have turned out.

This print is in my kitchen, it was a house-warming present to myself and I would add that you can’t buy happiness but living in a beautiful home in a beautiful place with lovely people does really help.

Houseaversary - wine pic

I am spending my houseaversary doing all things domestic, have just baked apple cake for Jake and will be spending most of the day knitting bunnies while watching my new favourite addiction.

I have become a big fan of The Great British Bake Off. Series 4 has just started and while I have been unable to find previous series online I have found the Australian version which is just as exciting (if you like baking!). Am going to pick up new bread recipes for Autumn when I start soup making again.

Oh and one more little bunny update – I added some lace to Emily’s socks – what do you think, cute or what? They remind me of the socks Ellie had when she was little.

Emily Bunny dress 2 - shoes

Hope you are having a great weekend and thanks for visiting.

Emily’s grand day out!

stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello everyone, hope you in the UK had a very good Bank Holiday weekend.We had a lovely time, a long car journey (well four in total!) gave me lots of chance for knitting and I took my latest rabbit Emily with me so here she is in her new dress at Ludlow Castle this weekend.

Emily really enjoyed her day – as well as the castle she got to look at some of the weapons close up – here she is on my friend Paul’s weapons rack.

Emily at Ludlow

Emily at Ludlow 3

Emily at Ludlow 2

We were going to see some friends at the Battle of the Nations Team UK tournament at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, intending only to visit on Sunday dressed in kit but watch and not take part.

However within 10 minutes of getting there were in the arena helping give water and sort armour. We had so much fun we decided to go back again on Monday (despite having a 3 hour drive each way – thanks to lovely Kerry for that!).

It was very warm on Monday and the water, cold flannels and jelly babies were much appreciated by the combatants.

Battle of the Nations is a new venture in the UK where teams compete in full contact tournaments, it is amazing to watch with everything from one-to-one timed combat with points scored for hits to large melees with huge numbers where it is literally last man standing who wins.

It is very fast and furious fighting and we loved being part of it and hope to join them at events again next season. Go and visit their website and Facebook page for more info including videos and photos.

Here are a few more pictures of the castle and of the lovely buildings in the town, it is a really pretty place and I would like to go back for a visit to look at things in more detail sometime.

Ludlow

Ludlow castle 1

Ludlow castle 2

Ludlow town 1

Ludlow town 2

Ludlow town 3

As well as Ludlow I got to spend the day in Chesterfield with Ellie and we had a look round the famous church with the twisted spire – will post some pictures of that in a later post.

We also visited all of the fabric, haberdashery and wool shops in the town (well it would be rude not too!) and as well as the wonderful fabric stall on the market enjoyed the button selection at Fred’s Haberdashery where I picked up these little cuties, perfect for bunny dresses!

Bunny buttons

Am looking forward to a quiet weekend at home making medieval kit and have an urge to start on my Xmas ornie stock as well ready for the craft fairs in Nov – never too soon for a bit of Christmas crafting!

Take care and thanks for visiting.