Way down South

May 19, 2013May 19, 2013 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Hello

I have just got back from a very lovely trip all the way to the very south of the UK (6 hours each way on the train) to go the christening of my cousin’s second daughter.

You may remember that she was born last summer shortly before my lovely Nana died, her eighth great-grandchild, and named Alice Evelyn in her honour. Neil and Vicky her parents very kindly asked me to be her godmother so Mum and I went all the way to Plymouth yesterday.

It was a great trip, staring out the window at all the lambs in the green fields and seeing all the blossom on the trees makes you realise what a beautiful country we live in, especially the last part of the trip from Exeter going along the coast. I love trains so this was a real treat for me!

We had a really lovely time spending last night at Neil and Vicky’s house which I have not visited before.

I did not see very much of my cousins when we were growing up but we have spent a lot more time together in the last few years, mainly in Spain, and I really enjoy their company and it was very precious family time.

A friend of mine recently posted a joke picture on Facebook saying we are ‘nillionaires’ meaning having no money to which I replied that they are rich in the things that count as they have two little girls of a similar age to my cousin’s children.

I deeply believe that what counts in life is family and friends and I am so lucky to have wonderful, close supportive people both relatives and those who are my ‘adopted’ family.

Nothing is more important than the people you love and helping and supporting them which is why I was so pleased to be asked to be Alice’s godmother.

The christening itself was held at HMS Drake which is the Naval base in Plymouth as Neil is in the Navy and so we had the service in the chapel on the base which was very lovely, dating from 1908.

The service was very High Church which I love, incense and sung prayers and then we had the lunch in the mess hall in the Wardroom with the most amazing model ships hanging from the ceiling and Sir Francis Drake’s sword in a display case at the back of the room!

Here is a slideshow of the church and mess room.

Free slideshow generated with Smilebox

My christening present to Alice was this little sampler – adapted from a wedding sampler from a recent Just Cross Stitch magazine. It is stitched with white cotton on evenweave.

Thank you so much for visiting – we will be at Harewood House this coming weekend for their medieval event so fingers crossed for lovely weather!

Brilliant news!

February 27, 2013 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello there

Just one last quick post before I go – I have been given permission by Ellie, my lovely daughter, to finally tell you her good news.

She went for an interview a couple of weeks ago and has got a new job!

She has been working as an intern as a Conservation Assistant at Powis Castle for the National Trust but she now has a paid job as a Conservation Assistant at none other than Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire!

This is one of my all time favourite places and is the reason why I will always be a member of the National Trust.

I posted about Bess of Hardwick a few years ago and you can read that post here.

The collection of Elizabethan era textiles and paintings here is fantastic and she is very, very excited as you can imagine. She starts in a couple of weeks.

Just look at this place – Powis was wonderful to work at but this is so amazing.

We are very, very proud of her!

Home alone – no pumpkins yet!

September 24, 2012September 24, 2012 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Some years ago in 2009 I did a post entitled ‘Home alone ……. with a pumpkin’ as both the kids were away and I was making pumpkin soup. In that post I wrote about how Jake would be leaving home so I was practising then for the time when I would be home alone for good.

Well this is it and Jake has left for University. We took him and all his belongings (and there were a lot of them when piled into my sister-in-law Amanda’s car!) all the way up north to Teesside University where he is happily settling in to his student hall.

Here is the outside of the halls of residence , not the most glamorous of buildings but Jake chose it as it has very large student rooms and good communal facilities and is very near campus.

Here he is – with top hat of course – moving into his room.He says he has space for a grand piano but don’t think he will be able to afford that on a student budget! It looks a good room for parties though as it is twice as big as the space shown in this pic.

It doesn’t seem two minutes since we dropping Ellie off at her halls of residence – you can see her at her first day at her halls in this post .

Hope Jake has a fab time, we are very proud of him

And of course now I get to start sorting out the new craft room, did a little bit last night but I have a lot of stuff to move – am hoping to be able to show you pics at the end of the week.

Still have not really decided on a decorating theme, was going to do a vintage/Cath Kidston look but most of my fabric is either Xams stuff or medieval so don’t know what would look best. Maybe I should just go for a Santa’s grotto theme and then I could have all my ornies out year round, that would be pretty 😉

Am going to my new knitting group in the village tomorrow, Wool and W(h)ine, held at one of the local pubs (what a good idea) so am taking a simple pattern as don’t think I will be able to concentrate on anything much.

I was out partying this weekend and met a couple of the knitting group who are very lovely. One of them is an ex re – enactor who has just set up an online fabric store which I will get the details of and post here! How exciting, I knew I was so right to move here.

I have had a wonderful week, on Monday I went to see the Mikron Theatre Company’s latest production at one of our local pubs – a wonderfully funny play called ‘Losing the Plot’ about an allotment. The info for the company is at the link above – do go and see them if you get a chance, brilliant unique theatre.

Since I now have no one to look after or feed I thought I would do my bit for the local wildlife so have bought a lovely new bird feeding station for my front garden. I was ignored for the first 24 hours but then got some lovely visitors, starlings, crows, two finches and two robins. Was difficult to get good pics but this one is lovely.

And as for the pumpkin it is nearly time to buy one for my favourite soup – Delia Smith’s Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Melting Cheese – yum yum!

A busy week ahead but hopefully will have some crafting time. Thanks for visiting.

Green door what’s that secret you’re keepin’?

September 2, 2012September 2, 2012 stitchesoftime7 Comments

You may remember the Shakin’ Stevens song of the same name. Well I have a secret to share with you all – do you want to know what is behind this green door?

It is my very lovely new house!!! I have been planning this move for two years and been trying to actually make it happen for almost a year since I put my old house up for sale.

All seemed to be going well until June when I was expecting to move but a major delay with the chain set us back 2 months. I have been all packed up ready to go since then and have been sitting surrounded by boxes trying to keep myself cheerful but dreading it all going wrong.

But it hasn’t and we moved in two days ago. I didn’t want to post anything until it had actually happened as did not want to jinx things. I have moved to a lovely little house in the country, in the beautiful village of Marsden.This is where I am, the views up and down my street.

You may remember that I have posted about the village before. 2 years ago I started helping as a volunteer with the local Marsden Jazz Festival as a way of getting involved in the community. I have really enjoyed doing this and made lots of new friends here.

The village is fantastic, surrounded by wonderful moorland and reservoirs with lots of cute shops (including a new craft and wool shop – they knew I was coming!) and lots of very practical things like a train station and supermarket. Also a knitting group, book club, Zumba and belly dancing as well as theatre, live music etc so I will not be lonely once Jake leaves for Uni.

The old house was lovely but far too big for just little old me so I have decluttered and decluttered (not that the removal men believed me when they saw the amount of stuff) and thankfully it all fits in here.

And after two frantic days, with help from my wonderful friends Taru and Bob (who organised lunch and dinner on Fri and humped boxes and ran us around to estate agents) and Kerry (who took me shopping for house essentials and gave me her interior design advice on my lounge while unpacking my endless collection of embroidery books!) we are about 80 % unpacked and I am relaxing on the sofa with the candles lit.

All is very well with the world and I am beyond happy!

Would you like to see a few pics of the house? If you are anything like me you love seeing other people’s houses . If so carry on and I will show you the finished bits. When Jake goes I will move all of the boxed things in the guest room into my new craft room (aka his bedroom) and we will be sorted.

One of the reasons I love the village is the countryside and this is the view from my bedroom window. I am looking forward to lazy Sunday mornings with cups of tea and a good book looking at the hills.

Here is Jake all set up with his computer in his new room (the most important thing for him of course), making the most of home comforts as he leaves in 3 weeks.

This is my lovely kitchen, this really sold the house to me. I have the most beautiful door knobs on the units , I forgot to take a close up picture before it got dark but they are so pretty.

And my bathroom. Another great thing about the house is all my things fit so well with the existing colour scheme here, no redecorating and no need to buy new things!

This is my lounge with my lovely stitching sofa and an ‘in situ’ picture of the other sofa with the quilted throw that I am working on, not finished yet but it will be a lovely housewarming gift to myself!

Can’t wait to be able to show you the craft room when it is done – so excited!!!

Hope that you have a good week ahead, I am on leave for the next few days to finish sorting and then it is off to our last show of the season at Caldicot Castle in South Wales. Really looking forward to that as Ellie is coming as well. A beautiful venue and it is a very special show being the final one of such a wonderful year for me.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Measuring the bear’s forehead (and other conservation tasks!)

August 28, 2012July 16, 2019 stitchesoftime2 Comments

I hope that you are all well and happy. I have some time off this week so am very much enjoying myself – have just done a bit of gardening and am now continuing with my hand quilting.

I had a lovely time visiting Ellie at Powis Castle this weekend. It was beautiful weather when I got there on Sunday so I took lots and lots of pics. Here is Ellie in her National Trust uniform.

The title of this post comes from one of Ellie’s daily tasks which is to take light readings to check that there is not too much sun coming into the castle which would damage the textiles.

I went round with her when she did this on Sunday and one of the things she has to do is to measure the light on the bearskin rug in one of the rooms. She has a chart on the clipboard in the above photo to record the readings and one of the columns actually says ‘bear’s forehead’.

Years ago when she was very young we went to Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire and as the castle had just been restored the custodian took us on a personal tour and let Ellie unlock the castle with a massive key.

Ellie has always remembered that but these days she has the big keys herself and she gets to lock the beautiful doors like these on the coach house.

She is living in a house in the grounds which overlooks the gardens – here she is on her doorstep and the view of her garden – and the croquet lawn!

The castle is amazing and full of the most beautiful things – we were not allowed to take photos of the interior as usual and it was too dark to take good pics anyway but you can go and look on Ellie’s blog where she details all of the wonderful things she does and has lots more pics.

I am so very proud of her, it is a brilliant job and she is having a wonderful time. I went out for a meal with her colleagues and they are all very lovely and Welshpool is a really pretty little town to live in.

Here are a few of my fave close up pics from the garden – taken with my new camera which is working very well (until I break this one of course!) I am going to frame some of these for my new craft room.

And the beautiful gardens – some of the best I have ever seen. Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Family History – part 2, the future

August 18, 2012August 18, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello everyone

Hope you are all enjoying yourselves. We have been catching up with family this weekend and I thought that I would show you pics of the baby gift that I have been working on for a while which I finished yesterday.

This gift is for the newest member of the family who I mentioned a few weeks ago. She is a very special baby being born just about 100 years after my lovely Nana and she has been named Alice Evelyn after her (my Nana was Evelyn Alice).

I got to give her a cuddle this weekend which was lovely as it was the first time we had met her and her parents loved the little pillow I made for her. The design is one I have made before as a gift for a friend’s baby born last year but I liked it so much I had to stitch it again.

It is by my favourite JBW Designs from Sew and Sew – can’t remember where I got the buttons from but I think it was at one of the quilting fairs last year.

The fabric on the pillow is left over from the baby quilt I made last year and came from Doughty’s – I also have it in dark pink and turquoise.

Meeting Alice this weekend really made me think about what her future will be like, what changes she will see in her lifetime. We spent the weekend back in the town where I grew up and there have been so many changes in just the 11 years since I last visited.

Ellie and I had a little wander round trying to find a fabric shop I remember from when I was little that my Nana used to take me to but sadly it had closed years ago.

I definitely think it was my Nana who instilled my love of textiles, she sewed most of my clothes and was forever buying fabric from that shop and the markets in town so I can blame my stash on genetics!

We did find the fish clock though, this was one of the things that the kids loved when we used to go back to my home town. It is in one of the shopping centres and balls drop down from the top of the clock, mice pop out from the clock face and every hour it used to play, ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’, and bubbles would come out of the fish’s mouth. Ellie was very pleased that it was still there.

In other family news lovely son Jake did very well in his results this week – he got a Merit and two Distinctions in his BTEC in Games Design and we are all very proud of him, he had his university place confirmed a while ago so in a very short time he will be off to have fun doing a degree in Games Design.

However looking on the bright side (though I will miss him of course) I am not losing a son but gaining a craft room! I am planning to turn his old bedroom into a lovely room where my machine will be out permanently, my stash will be neatly displayed on shelves like Hen House and Crazy Mom Quilts and I can indulge in fabric heaven!

I have indulged myself with some new Blackbird Designs patterns from Thread Bear and on the journey this weekend started stitching so will take some pics of the new stuff to post later. Am loving the designs and have finally got to use some more of the Silk Mill stash that I ordered a while ago so am using some of the lovely lilacs!

I am having a quiet night in tonight with a takeaway pizza, an action movie on TV and my stitching – and there will be a little bit of red wine of course. Heaven!

Hope that you have a good week ahead and will post again soon. Thanks for visiting.

My daughter’s blog

August 10, 2012August 10, 2012 stitchesoftime2 Comments

As regular readers know my lovely daughter Ellie has just started a year-long internship with the National Trust at Powis Castle in Wales. She was asked by her boss to write a blog of her adventures this year and I have been meaning to post a link to it for a while.

I have just been reading through her recent posts and I know I am biased being her Mum but it is really good, full of loads of details about her work with such beautiful pics of all the objects.

The blog is called A View from my Attic – do please go and visit and leave a comment, as you know when starting a new blog it is lovely to make friends!

To tempt you here are a few pics of her walk to work that she sent me recently – she has inherited my love for photography and these are beautiful pics.Can I just say again how really proud I am of her. She worked so hard at Uni and it is so lovely to read about all the exciting things she is doing.

Ellie’s attic bedroom is one of these windows.

The castle in the background – I can’t wait to go and visit!

This is my favourite picture – what a beautiful gate!

I have had to buy a new camera this week, unfortunately the old one could not be mended and I can’t live without one! Will be testing it out this weekend, not going anywhere sadly but will take some garden pics as the clematis is looking very lovely!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Family History

July 22, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Regular readers may know that my grandmother Evelyn Alice celebrated her 100 th birthday this week so we all gathered for a family celebration last night. My Nana has not been very well and had travelled over from Spain to be here but was determined to make her party to see everyone and get her telegram from the Queen.

Here she is at the start of the party and my cousin Neil (along with Ellie in the background) presenting her with the framed telegram. Apologies that the pic of the actual telegram is not good but you get the gist of it.

My Mum and Aunt had organised a little display of family pictures and mementos so I just thought I would share some of these with you. Ellie absolutely loved this, being a history buff and it was amazing to think of all that Nana has lived through.

She was born 3 months after the sinking of the Titanic in a small Welsh mining village.Her mother, my Nana Polly, was born in the late 1880s and there were some lovely pics of Nana Polly as a young girl in Edwardian dress and Nana as a baby in smocks sitting on her mother’s knee.

She has lived through two World Wars, getting married at the start of the Second World War and had two babies during that war, my Mum and Auntie.This is her wedding picture.

My grandfather, Arthur Percival George (who you can see looking very like Eroll Flynn in one of the pics at the top of this poster below) served in North Africa during the war. On this poster are also her ration books and ID card. Grandad died 28 years ago after a long illness caused by his time as a miner.

I have been reading some very good books recently by Maureen Lee set in wartime Liverpool and it really makes you think about life for Nana and her friends during those times. Have also just read an amazing book called White Dove by Rosie Thomas , a brilliant love story about family history set between the wars.

They were a very adventurous couple – early pioneers of travel abroad (must be where I get it from), going to Spain twice a year from the late 1950s even though they were a very ordinary couple, he a factory worker and she a housewife. They never owned a car and I remember my Grandad cycling to work every day in his blue overalls.

She has 5 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren , ranging in ages from 21 (Ellie) to 1 month old (Alice Evelyn my cousin’s daughter) and who knows may even see her great-great grandchildren.

It is so amazing to think of all the things that our parents and grandparents have seen change and to wonder what life will be like for us in 25 or 50 years.

Happy 100th birthday Nana with all our love xxxx

Thank you for visiting and see you soon!

Tatton birthday to you!

June 19, 2012 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Or more precisely to Jake who as usual celebrated his birthday at the Tatton re-enactment event this weekend. He has been having birthdays in a field for the last 10 years but this was of course a special one as he was 18 on Sunday!

This is a big year for birthdays in our family as we all have special ones to celebrate and of course now he can buy us all beer!

We had a really lovely weekend – great event as always and despite the fairly constant rain Fri eve and Saturday (which meant planned BBQs became in tent with frying pan) we had a fab time meeting up with old friends.

Sunday was lovely and sunny and we visited the Home Farm to see the animals – in 10 years of doing events there we had never made it there before and had great fun feeding the goats and seeing the massive horses and sows. Reminded me of all the things we used to do when the kids were little.

The pics below shows him and Ellie with one of the beautiful shire horses and of his birthday cake round the campfire on Friday night. He had dinosaur candles on his cake in a tribute to the one I made him when he was two!

His friend Sammy joined us for the weekend so Jake did not dress up. As he was not in medieval kit he had the chance to take lots of pics so here are some lovely ones of the encampment showing the guns used in the gun display, the tournament, the blacksmith and his forge and the battle.

What you don’t see in the last pic is the wonderfully heavy rain – the drops from my helmet looked like I was in the shower!

There was also a bit of textileliciousness in the form of the Mulberry Dyer stall, I treated myself to a couple of skeins of hand dyed embroidery wool.

A brilliant weekend, thanks to Kerry for the trips to the station and for being a fab friend in all respects! Roll on the Harewood House event in two weeks – conveniently on my birthday!

Thanks for visiting and see you soon.

My knitting mojo is back!

June 6, 2012June 6, 2012 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Hello everyone – hope you are all well, just back from a very hot week in Spain – is raining here now just to make me feel very at home!

I have been very busy knitting- had not picked up my needles for a very long time but got back in the mood in the last couple of weeks and have finished two pairs of wristwarmers.

The first are these lilac and purple pair for Ellie, not certain what the wool was as bought it so long ago but the pattern is by Julie from Little Cotton Rabbits and has my favourite moss stitch.The link will take you to her Ravelry site with some lovely free patterns but you ought to go and visit her blog as well if you have not done so.

This other pair is knitted with Artesano yarn in a lovely variegated green that I bought from my friend Lydia’s shop Spun a while ago – it knitted up beautifully. The pattern is one I got from Ravelry and had been putting off trying it as it looked a bit complex but it was really easy to do. It is a freebie pattern called Inverness Diamonds and is by a designer called Creative Yarn.

My teaching year has nearly finished and I have been saying goodbye to this year’s students. One of them gave me these gorgeous Lantern Moon needles – they are so fine and will knit really beautifully, I am determined to master sock knitting this summer so these will be very useful as well as for knitting some of Julie’s cute little Xmas stocking ornies for my tree this year.

I have just got my latest order from The Silk Mill as well from their recent 10th anniversary sale – look at this lovely pink and blue silkiness!

I have started on some stitching for a baby gift as we have had a new addition to the family. Regular readers will know that my grandmother will be 100 in July and she has just had her eighth great-grandchild – a baby girl born to my cousins, they have named the baby Alice Evelyn as my grandmother is called Evelyn Alice so she is very pleased about that. Big congratulations to them all.

In other exciting family news Ellie has moved to Wales to start her new job, she is now living at the castle (as befits a Princess!) – in a house in the grounds that overlooks the beautiful Italianate gardens and starts work today. I am so proud of her, she is going to have such a fantastic year and really deserves it after all her hard work at Uni. Turns out there were over 80 applicants for the post so she did brilliantly to get it. I am hoping to visit her very soon so will be able to post some pics of her new abode!

Will be back at the end of the week with some pics from Spain for you – meanwhile enjoy yourselves and thanks for visiting.

Stitches of Time

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.

Tag: family life

Way down South

Brilliant news!

Home alone – no pumpkins yet!

Green door what’s that secret you’re keepin’?

Measuring the bear’s forehead (and other conservation tasks!)

Family History – part 2, the future

My daughter’s blog

Family History

Tatton birthday to you!

My knitting mojo is back!