You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January, 2009.
My recent technical issues with the lovely PC I am currently working on (got to be polite or it might take offence and crash again!) have meant that I have been going through all of my web sites in Favourites and writing down those that I don’t want to lose if the PC finally bites the dust. Am hoping to be able to get new PC soon so am planning to transfer things over.
This means that all the sites are organised in my little book and I have finally got around to working out where some of the pictures I seen have come from! So I thought I would share some pics and their links with you so that you can go off and have an explore.
The first site Medieval Beads run by Jen Segrest has some amazing examples of beadwork through the ages. I hope she won’t mind if I show you a couple of examples from her wonderful collection.
A beautiful 15th century beaded piece - copyright Jen Segrest 2009
Detail of the above beadwork - copyright Jen Segreat 2009
This very talented lady collected all the pictures on this site and her accompanying Flickr picture collection and also makes wonderful beaded work and pincushions. Jen very kindly shares how to make the pincushions in these photo tutorials on Flickr. Here is an example of one of her cushions which you can buy through her Etsy store.
Some of Jen's pincushions
You can also buy a book of how to make some of her pincushions – this is going to be on my wish list for when I have time (right after I find the blog with the knitting pattern for making extra days in the week!).
The second site is another blog that I found by accident - a bit of late night surfing as you do! The blog is called Extreme Costuming and is run by Laura who makes costumes for her roles in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) in the US and her volunteer work at various history projects. I hope that she won’t mind me showing you this picture from her site (the copyright is V. Dye, 2006) but it shows the amazing quality of her work.
Redwork jacket made by Laura of Extreme Costuming
Not only is the embroidery fantastic but the research is as well – on this page of the blog she details the process and includes photos of original pieces from museums in Kent and London. I am hugely impressed by everything this woman does!
As well as this jacket she has many other pieces on the blog such as superb coifs. Makes me really wish that I did Elizabethan re-enactment but then I have enough trouble keeping up with making the simpler costumes for our period!
This is what I love about the Internet. I know there are all those debates about whether it is a good thing or not but having access to all these blogs with all this embroidery, knitting and general wonderful stuff on can only be a good thing! It certainly makes me very happy 
.
.One of my personal heroine’s (if you can have one who has been dead for just over 400 years) is Bess of Hardwick. Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been to her house, Hardwick Hall, many times to look at the embroidery there and have two fabulous books about the embroidery collection. My lovely children bought me another biography of her life for Xmas which I will start reading as soon as I finish the Shakespeare biography that Stefon bought me!
I admire Bess not only for her embroidery but also for being a powerful and successful woman in the Elizabethan era when that was not easy. I have just been watching the Tudors second series on DVD (again another lovely Xmas present from Stefon – costumes and embroidery heaven!) and it really brings it home to you how little say in their lives most women had.
So I was really pleased a couple of weeks ago to be able to visit Bess’s tomb with Stefon, which is in Derby Cathedral. It was very special for me to be able to go and pay my respects to such a wonderful embroiderer.
The pictures below are of her tomb with close ups of the crown and dress.
The tomb in Derby Cathedral
The top of the effigy
Bess at prayer
Detail of head and crown
Detail of front of dress
For an overview of Bess’s life click here and the Hall itself is well worth a visit – there is a a link to the National Trust page giving details about opening times etc in the first part of this post.
I will leave you with a few pictures of the embroidery you can see on a visit to the hall – just a few of many wonderful things!
A bed canopy at Hardwick
A stool cover showing a flower motif
One of the marvelous heraldic pieces
Another lovely weekend – more socialising as we went for a meal on Fri with a friend of Stefon’s who is living in New Zealand. He and his girlfriend have been over for a while but were leaving this weekend so we, his parents and some other friends went to a canalside pub near Nottingham and had a very nice meal – the pub serves 24 oz steaks for £11.99 which is very good value (not that I had one of those!) and we had a lovely time.
The name of the pub was the Ragley Boat Stop and if you visit their web site here and click on the Specials link you can print off a voucher for a free bottle of wine with food orders over £20 – that is my sort of place!
Saturday we went to Nottingham, partly to take some pictures of a church associated with the De Strelley family (Stefon’s character in re-enactment) as the church has some of the family heraldry on the ceiling as well as a painted ceiling and my favourite kinds of old rood screens and stained glass windows.
We also went to visit the Lace Centre. Click on the link for directions and more info.
Nottingham Lace Centre
Me outside the Lace Centre - note the lovely hand knitted scarf using Noro wool!
Nottingham is famous for its lace – both hand and machine made and the Lace Centre is a tiny old building which has a small exhibition but also pieces of lace to buy. A little bit of textile heaven! If you want to know more about Nottingham Lace industry click here. This web site is also very good for information on lace making and the history of the industry.
I did buy a few little things – some patchwork samples as I am joining a quilting group (now I am not working evenings I can do these things!) and some other lace motifs that I shall use at some point some where but make a welcome addition to the stash! These are all machine made but there are still lots of people who hand make lace and I met a lady called Ann last week at the wedding I went to who does. Don’t know if I will ever be able to add that to my repertoire but meanwhile here are some very pretty examples of lace. Apologies as if you click on the thumbnails pics are not very sharp – new camera has been certified as beyond repair by menders and they have given me vouchers towards another one so I am hoping to buy a new one very soon!
Lace square
Lace motifs
Lace diamonds
So another weekend with fun and textiles – what more could a woman want!
Hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am – will post again soon.
As most stitchers appreciate there is nothing better than a lovely weekend away with a chance to admire some embroidery thrown in and this weekend I have been with Stefon at a friend’s wedding.
His good friend Andy from Scouts married Claire in the lovely St Lawrence’s church. I will have to go back sometime to wander round and look at the icons and windows and painted ceiling in the church as it is very old and looked to have some fab things in it and you do know how much I love religious art and architecture!
Inside the church
Signing the register
They were lucky enough to have a sunny day as these pics taken in the churchyard show.
Andy and Claire with attendants
Us outside the church
Claire had the most wonderful dress, one of the nicest wedding dresses I have ever seen with fab embroidery and beading on the bodice, front and back.
The back of the beautiful dress
I hope they enjoyed it all as much as we did and wish them a wonderful life together.
I stitched them a wedding card with a motif taken from one of my Quaker inspired patterns with a heart charm and their initials – I was really pleased with how it turned out but stupidly forgot to take a picture of it!
We later went to the evening do which was great fun – had a bit of a boogie and met more of Stefon’s friends and Scouting mates.
Us at the evening do
I have also been working on some more costume for re-enactment for Stefon – a tunic to wear out in the evenings and have just started a new surcoat for sword training. Hopefully I will get chance to post some pics of these on the costume page at some point – I need to try and devote some time to this and add loads more content – I did a talk at Embroiders’ Guild last Monday and put together a presentation for that so will try and find sometime soon. Have a really busy couple of weeks at work though and time is flying – will soon be Spring and the start of the season – hurrah!!!
Since Xmas is over and the recipient of this gift has had it, liked it (thankfully!) and then lent it to me for a talk at my Embroidery Guild today I can finally share with you the gift that kept me up late at night before Xmas. I decided to make Stefon a small velvet pouch with goldwork to hang from his belt to keep money etc in.
His role name is Sampson de Strelley, who was the Sherrif of Nottingham in the 1300s , so I decided to use an ‘S’ motif on the front of the pouch. I did a little bit of research on illuminated initials both on the web and from books on manuscripts that I have and decided to do the goldwork on top of some fabric that I had that looked very much like a lot of the illustrated letter backgrounds.
Start of goldwork
Apologies again as this is the old camera but hopefully you can see that I have drawn the ‘S’ shape onto the fabric and then couched gold thread to outline. I ended up using two different types of gold thread for contrast.
I then filled in the centre of the goldwork with gold seed beads as you can see below.
Completed goldwork showing beads
Then I cut the bag pieces and lining fabric and sewed them together so that it would be fully lined.
Body of bag and lining
This also meant appliqueing the goldwork and its backing fabric to the flap of the pouch and the sewing gold braid round to hide the join.
The goldwork ready to be stitched to the bag flap.
I then hand stitched the body of the bag to the flap, inserting the loop for the belt. The pic below shows the inside of the bag.
The lined bag
I then finished it with a gold button and loop of gold braid. All I need to do now is make a lovely posh black velvet gown for him to wear with it!
Bag showing belt hanging loop
The button and loop to close the bag flap
This is not the first bag I have made but the first lined one with goldwork and I am very pleased with the results.
Yes I know it is a little bit late but had a house full of people when we got back and then have been laid up with the dreaded chest infection so have not had time to post since we returned from sunny Spain.
We had lovely time – it was mostly very warm and sunny and we had a couple of visits to the beach and a few bike rides. Also did Karaoke with my cousin Joanne which we really enjoyed – Ellie and I did a couple of rockin’ Meatloaf duets!
Have got a couple of pics of the seaside bit -
Kids and Granny Pat on La Marina beach
The pic below was taken on Xmas day where we had a very nice picnic and Granny Pat and I shared a bottle of Cava to celebrate the festive season.
Us on the beach Xmas Day
And we paddled of course as is traditional now. I do love Spain , it has a very unique atmosphere and I love visiting as well as being there to see my family. These are a few of the things that I really love about the place.
Ice cream – the Spanish really do ice cream properly, they have loads of fab ice cream parlour cafes where as well as brill coffee you can choose from about 50 flavours – not only does it taste good it is all so prettily presented with each flavour decorated – so much better than the bricks of Walls Neopolitan that we grew up with. This is taken in one of my favourite places on the seafront at Torrevieja where we went on Christmas Eve.
Ice cream!!
Tapas – I love little bits and nibbles and what I really like about all the bars are the little sandwich tapas that they have , this one is salmon and cheese with a glass of red -yours for 2 Euros in a little backstreet bar in Bendorm.
Yummy tapas
To counteract all that eating and drinking you need some exercise and one of the things I like most to do in Spain is go cycling. This is Jake in one of my favourite places to cycle, the scrubland just about 5 mins ride from my little Spanish house. It is a big off road paradise (much easier on the bones than the Annapurnas!) with the most wonderful views of the mountains and sea.
Jake off road
I also love the weather of course , that pic above was taken on Dec 23rd – look at that sun! Nothing like Yorkshire.
This pic below is the view from my little house the morning after we arrived, the 22nd Dec – you can’t tell but you can see the sea through the gap in the houses – fab!
View on a sunny December morning
I also love the fact that the Spanish do Xmas very traditionally – there are lots of lights and all the beautiful large scale nativity scenes – the Belen. This is the church square in Torrevieja.
Torrevieja Church all lit up
They have a celebration on Christmas Eve called Papa Noel where Santa (0r in Torrevieja a whole train of them!) comes into town and gives the children sweets or presents. Most of the children dress in Santa outfits – this little girl was waiting to see him all dressed up looking very cute.
Girl in her Santa outfit
Sandcastles – I remember building some pretty good stuff as a kid on the beach at Weston Super Mare – boats and cars etc but the Spanish sand artists are amazing – this was one on the beach in Benidorm this Xmas.
Amazing sandcastle
We came back to the UK on the 30th and spent New Year with my sister, her two kids and cute dog. New Year’s Eve we had my brother Ben and his girlfriend Amanda round and our neighbours.
Stefon made a mad dash from Notts after work to be with us which was brilliant – he spent four days in the mad house despite being given plenty of chances to come and visit later when it had all quietened down so thank you – big ,big hugs to you for that!
This is Ellie with Isabelle, our neighbours’ beautiful granddaughter, who was with us for a bit on New Year’s Eve before she got sleepy.
Ellie and Isabelle
Do not have any other good pics from New Year’s Eve sadly as old camera does not like taking pics in low light – new camera has been written off by the menders and they have sent vouchers towards a new one so will be sorting that out soon – will try very hard not to get this one wet – but will buy insurance as a precaution!!! However do have a very cute picture of Buffy my sister’s dog who behaved very well on her first visit here.
Buffy
Well I hope that you have all had a good festive season and are looking forward to 2009. It has been a very sad year for lots of close friends with lots of heartache and we have had our share of traumas here but I am confident that the future will be so much better.
To be with someone who really wants to be with you is wonderful and I am very, very lucky. I also have the most fabulous kids in the world and fantastic friends and work colleagues who have been so supportive – couldn’t have done it without you guys, thank you all! Wishing you all the best for the coming year.
