Endings and beginnings

We have just got back from Bolsover Castle, our last show with my re-enactment group Order of Fighting Knights. Various members of the group are leaving due to work and other commitments so we are re-forming for next year under a new name – we will now be the Swords of Mercia.

We had a fantastic last weekend – it didn’t rain much which is always a bonus for an English Bank Holiday weekend and the crowd were fabulous and there were so many wonderful comedy moments that none of us could keep a straight face.We had a very nice (if cold!) group BBQ on Sunday night and then sat around the camp fire laughing about the day.

We have been members of the group for the last 10 years and they have been some of the happiest years of my life, they are such a lovely bunch of people and we will always be great friends and keep in touch with the members that have left and I am really excited to be moving on with those that are remaining to do new things.

I realised that though I have posted pics of our camp and the group before I have not really posted many of the castle so went out early this morning before the public arrived to take the pics in this slide show for you.

 

This scrapbook generated with Smilebox

The castle is very impressive, it was built in the 1600s as an entertainment venue by Sir Charles and Sir William Cavendish and King Charles the First and his wife Henrietta Maria once visited . That is one of things that most excites me about re-enactment, I have camped in places where so many great people were and significant events took place – I am a very lucky girl!

I also have a couple of nice pics of me and Ellie to show you – I had a friend take some pics with my camera as I rarely get ones of me at an event.This is Kerry, me, Ellie and Tracy in the castle grounds (as you can see it was quite windy!), Kerry and Ellie in the sunshine on Sunday and Ellie in the tent during the head-dress talk today demonstrating how to make braid.

I hope that you have had a very nice weekend wherever you are. I have a busy couple of weeks now preparing for another new beginning with the start of the new term but we are here for the next few weekends so I am also looking forward to getting some serious crafting done!

Thanks as always for visiting.

Castles and Kings

Hello

I hope that you are all having a nice week. I have been taking some pictures at our recent re-enactment events and thought I would share them with you today. The last two events have been a little wet in places (lovely British weather!) but we have had a good time despite the rain.

We were at Ashby de La Zouche Castle in Leicestershire at the end of May – the castle ruins are really imposing and I took these shots on the Saturday evening when all the public had gone home, the first ones are of the tower and the latter ones what is left of the chapel, I love the ironwork on these pics. In the middle is Lord Percy’s tent with its pennants flying in the evening breeze.

We spent last weekend at Tatton Park in Cheshire at an event, the person who plays the king at other events was there. I have previously posted pictures of his goldwork surcoat and heraldry and was able to take some pictures of the goldwork banners outside his tent on the way to the beer tent on Saturday night – isn’t this wonderful work!

I have previously posted pics of Lord and Lady Bardolph from our group in all their finery but this weekend they were going on to the field as archers so here they are looking very stylish in their padded jacks and helms!

Lord Bardolph’s jack is the one he wears under his armour which excuses its rather mucky state and both jacks are fine examples of quilting as a utilitarian craft – all the combatants wear some form of quilted armour on body, legs of head when fighting, either under armour or on its own.

Lastly a pic of what keeps us warm when it is wet and windy in a field , one of my favourite bits of re-enactment,  the fire we sit round at night. I love watching the way the logs burn,  it really is magic!

I will return at the weekend with crafting pics, both myself and Ellie have been busy so will catch up with you all then.

Thanks for visiting and have a nice week.

St George’s Day re-enactment show at Bolsover

Well we had a very lovely time this Bank Holiday weekend – very hot weather on Saturday (thankfully cooler on Sunday and Monday as the boys were really melting in their armour!). About 3,000 people came to see us over the three days – thanks if you were one of them. I was doing my head-dress and embroidery talk again – this time in Lady Percy’s tent (as she is being the cook this season in the mornings) assisted by Lady Alice.

Here are some pics for you – starting off in the early morning when we are all getting ready for the public to arrive.

Lord Bardolph (aka Paul) setting up in the arena

Lady Bardolph (aka (Lynn) ready for calligraphy

Lady Percy (aka Tracy) and Ellen and Jake in the kitchen

The Despenser's tent

Cameron (aka Keith) and Paddy setting up for the armour talk

Esme tidying up the flags round the displays

Lord De Bohun (aka Paul) putting on his armour

Lord Zouche (aka Luke) in his padded jack and coif

More of Lady Bardolph's embroidery on Lord Despencer's shirt

These pics from the afternoon show are all taken by my lovely friend Jan from her Facebook page (hope you don’t mind me using them Jan) – as I am not allowed a camera while in kit I have to ‘borrow’ other people’s pics to show you the action.

Lady Despencer (aka Bev) in her heraldic dress

Ellie giving water to Zouche during the tournament

Everyone wanted me to post this one as well as they loved the crazy look on my face – I am just happy that the season has started again and I am camping!

Me (as the nun) Ellie and Zouche

Virtually no crafting has gone on this week – at the weekend we were too busy with medieval stuff to do anything apart from me doing a bit of hand sewing of a coif during the day. I will have to crack on this week as my Spring Exchange piece needs to be mailed by the 1st May. I have had mine from my partner and it is lovely so will take some pics and post that at the weekend.

I am looking forward to the Royal Wedding on Friday – some friends are coming over for cupcakes and cava and then I am hoping for a nice weekend so I can be out in the garden, there may even be a bbq or two!

Hope that you have a nice week and thank you very much again for visiting.

Talented friends

As you know I have very, very many talented friends and I just wanted to share with you some recent pics of their work that they have posted courtesy of their Facebook profiles – I do hope they don’t mind me sharing their skills with my blog readers.

The first is my lovely friend Kat who as you know does medieval  re-enactment and I have posted before about her costumes and her business Kat’s Hats . Well she also does Tudor re-enactment and these costumes are even more wonderful than her others due to the level of detail and complexity in them. This pic was taken recently at an event at Buckland Abbey with her Tudor group.

Kat, her beautiful daughter Isabella and her granny

What amazes me about this pic is that it looks like a scene from the Tudors (love those series – have all on DVD) but all of these costumes were made by Kat.

I have also mentioned Bucket before but have never had any really close up pics of his embroidery to show you. Bucket is one of the rare men who embroider and he along with Kat does many different periods of re-enactment. Bucket’s partner (also called Cat!) recently posted this on Facebook which is his work in progress on an 18th century waistcoat - up to the moment the work has taken 245 hours and counting!

Bucket's embroidery

And here is the man himself with his work.

Here he is with a well earned beer

Fantastic work both of you - I am honoured to know you.

Thanks for visiting.

Busy busy times!

I have had a very busy week at work and while I have been able to do some stitching I’m afraid I can’t reveal anything as the next two projects are for exchanges. I have joined another exchange group in addition to the All Seasons Ornament Exchange  which is called the Seasonal Exchange  so being the clever people that you are I bet you can guess that the theme of both pieces is Autumn! I am stitching on evenweave which I do find more challenging than Aida due to the smallness of the fabric gauge so I have resorted to both my glasses and my neck hung magnifier to see what I am doing! Have also recently completed another reindeer ornie – only 5 more to go! 

In lieu of pretty pics of stitching then here are my completed wrist warmers – I had a lot of trouble with these as you may remember trying to match up the variegated wool but made it work on about the 3rd attempt! Please excuse slightly fuzzy pic as the light is not good – it has been raining hard all day and is a bit miserable - was tempted to keep the wristwarmers on as it is a bit cold in the conservatory! These are from a free pattern called Waffle Stitch Wristwarmers that I got from Ravelry. 

Lovely and warm!

Term has started so that is why I have been so busy – we have another lovely group of trainee teachers this year and I am really looking forward to working with them all. I am lucky to have a job that I really enjoy and look forward to going into work – though a large Lottery win that would enable me to retire and devote my life to stitching and knitting would be fine as well! 

I am also going to be busy this week with helping organise the Marsden Jazz Festival – I recently joined the committee for this event which will be held in a village near me on the 2nd weekend of October. See this link  for details if you are in the Yorkshire area. As the name suggests there are lots of live music events on in all of the pubs and clubs across the village as well as a parade on the Saturday. This week we have a meeting of all the volunteers who will be helping over the weekend, a t-shirt folding and packing evening and then I will be helping out in the festival shop selling said t-shirts next weekend. 

Just thought I would leave you with another couple of pics from re-enactment events – courtesy of my friends on Facebook. The first pic was taken at our recent August Bank Holiday event at Bolsover Castle and shows Paul (in the helmet) and Luke – with the sword – demonstrating during the weapons’ talk. 

Ouch!

The second one is a much older pic, probably taken about 6 years ago and shows my lovely friends Kat and Richard all dressed up in their costumes – doesn’t he look the epitome of chivalry! 

Edward and Lady Joan

If you want to see more of Kat’s wonderful headdresses and costume you can visit her Kats Hat website. 

I hope that you are having a nice weekend – thanks very much for visiting.

A sunny weekend at Bolsover

Well we have just finished the season with a fantastic event at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire. Not only did we have good weather, being mainly sunny, we also had a wonderful crowd – 800 on Sunday and 1700 on Monday . Monday’s crowd were also the most enthusiastic we have had all year and had a great time during the tournament! Thanks to everyone who came to see us and thanks for all the great comments , we really enjoy what we do and it is nice to know that you do too! 

I have some pics to share with you of the event – the first is lovely daughter Ellie in the apron she has made herself for her role as the kitchen maid. She has been assisting Jane the cook this season and has really enjoyed herself cooking over an open fire. An interesting and very useful role as we all really look forward to our banquet at lunch! 

See how lovely and sunny it was on Sunday!

The apron is completely hand stitched and made of linen and Ellie has even done some very neat stitching at the corners to give it a bit of decoration. She plans to add some embroidery to the hem for next season. 

The next pic is of the boys on Sunday morning showing a variety of styles of medieval dress. 

What a handsome bunch!

From left to right they are - 

John Neville (Mark) wearing a black felt bicocket hat and a black linen tunic with layered sleeves. 

Sir Hugh Despencer (Dave) wearing a green wool full length tunic with dagged chaperon (hood) and  a white line coif on his head. 

Sir Henry Percy (Pete) in a blue wool tunic, very fetching red wool hose and a linen coif. 

Sir Hugh Bardolph (Paul) in a blue linen tunic with layered sleeves and matching chaperon, white linen coif and blue felt bicocket. 

In the mornings of our shows we do various displays and activities so the boys are dressed ready for those. They run the joust and knight’s training for the children, the stocks, the weapons and armour talk and the children’s quiz. The women in the group do talks on headdresses and embroidery, cooking (live action here as they prepare lunch!) and calligraphy where the children can get their certificates signed after they have been knighted and practise calligraphy by making a bookmark. This show we also had a new talk which was done by Lady Bardolph on the use of herbs – here is the lovely display she had outside her tent. 

The table with a tray of lavender

Showing how herbs were used in cooking and medicine

A sneak peek inside their beautiful tent

Lady Bardolph is an excellent embroiderer and had brought the finished goldwork and beadwork piece she started at our needlework day earlier in the year – unfortunately I did not have chance to take a picture of it! 

After the banquet lunch we have the manorial court where medieval justice is dispensed, then the archery display and talk, the children’s re-enactment (strictly non – contact, just a chance for them to shout and throw pretend spears!) At the end we have the best bit which is the tournament. The children like this as it is a chance to see the knights hit each other round the head but I like it as everyone looks so wonderful in their costumes! 

I mentioned in an earlier post that the knights have all made themselves mantles to decorate the top of their helmets which look very impressive when they come out of the tent into the tournament arena. Most of the knights wear great helms which have a flat top to them – ideal for displaying your heraldry! I have not been able to take close up pics but thanks to my friend Jan here are the boys at the start of Monday’s tournament looking splendid. 

Hugh Despencer on the left in red and white, William de la Zouche in the centre in red and William de Bohun in the front in blue

Despencer and de Bohun fighting - Despencer won as usual but William did very well

A closer pic of de Bohun's mantle with Percy in yellow on the right

I think de Bohun’s (another Paul) outfit is definitely my favourite one – he made it all himself – the surcoat is painted and the little crown of stars on the helm is made of wood. Paul is an incredibly talented graphic artist and he has been working on some images of all of the knights that we can use as publicity for the group. You can go and see his work at his web site and admire all our heraldry. 

Well apart from tidying away kit (and making a mental list of all the things I need to make for next season!) I have been starting on my Xmas ornies for this year. Have finished stitching on the first JBW reindeer so will post a pic of that soon. Also have two Autumn exchanges to make as I have now signed up to another exchanging blog as well as the All Seasons one. I will be starting one of those tonight. 

Am a bit sad that the season is over but am looking forward to all the nice winter evenings sitting in stitching with my candles lit. I am buying myself a new sewing machine as well – with some birthday money from my Mum and lovely kids – which is good as the old one has now packed up. I have also signed up for a Stitched and Painted Textiles Day School in November at my local Adult Education centre and have booked my ticket for the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show as well – lots of stitchy loveliness to look forward to! 

We also have the start of term to look forward to and this one is particularly exciting one as Jake is going to sixth form! He did really well in his GCSEs (only didn’t pass French) and has enrolled onto a Diploma in Art, Media and Games Design which I am sure he will love. He starts college tomorrow and all my new teacher trainee students will be with me the week after next. 

Thank you very much again for visiting and I hope that you have a good weekend ahead.

Terrific Tatton!

We spent a very lovely (and very hot!) weekend at Tatton Hall in Cheshire this weekend. We love this event – not only is it a beautiful venue , it is near home ( a mere 1 1/2 hours away) and it is always near Jake’s birthday so we have a little celebration. 

Jake blowing out the candles on his 16th birthday cake!

 

We are still going to events by train at the moment as I don’t have a car and by a cunning combination of rail and some very nice taxi drivers we have managed to get everywhere we want to go. Travelling by train means that we have to minimise what take with us – especially for an event like this where we have to take all our food and drink for the weekend as there are no shops nearby. 

We have got it down to a fine art now – here are the kids with the luggage on the way back on Sun eve. 

This includes the tent all camping gear including cooking stuff and food and all clothes including medieval kit

 

I think even when I do have a car I will try and travel this light as we really do have everything we need here – we even have chairs (very small stools) and a mini camping table which you can see in the pic below ( not for eating but useful for prepping food). 

And it all unpacks as this – here are the kids Fri night at the tent. 

Lovely sunny evening in camp

 

I do love camping (may have mentioned this before!)  but this weekend was excellent – great weather (we all came back a little pink!), great company and lots of laughs at the beer tent and round the camp fire. I love being outdoors! 

Here are some pics from the event of us in kit - 

Here are Lord and Lady Bardolph (Lynn and Paul) and friend Jackie dressed up to go shopping at the event's market on Saturday

 

Lady Bardolph in her heraldic dress on Sunday

 

Our knights ready for battle on Sunday

 

As I have mentioned in previous posts I have been making a new dress for Ellie and I got it finished in time. It is a new style of dress for me to make with contrasting gores in a paler fabric than the main body of the dress and it has worked very well – she is very pleased with it.

Next time I make one in this style I will make the gored pieces a little longer as they flare out so look shorter than the main body of the dress but that is one of the things that you learn by experience. Anyway she really likes it.

Ellie - pretty in pink

 

We acted as water carriers again at the event – here are Ellie and Jake at muster waiting to go on the battlefield. 

Waiting to go into battle

 

And here are some of our friends on the battlefield. 

Men in armour - what a lovely sight!

 

We have a quiet weekend coming up – we are having a BBQ with my brother and his partner but then are off to Italy next Monday – Venice awaits!

Thanks again for visiting.

Busy weekend making costume

Hello there 

Hope that you have all had a nice weekend – we had one of the very variable Yorkshire ones – very hot on Sat so after domestic chores I did some gardening then we had a lovely BBQ with Ellie’s friends Danni and Becky who had arrived for the weekend before leaving for Spain this morning. 

Sunday it poured it down all day – the girls went to Leeds Armouries for the day where it was luckily drier. I sat at the sewing machine all day watching the rain and have nearly finished a new medieval dress for Ellie (pics after once I have done the fastening holes). 

It took quite a long time as it is a new design for me – the main body of the dress is a very dusky pink with pale pink gored inserts all the way round from the waist line which give it a lovely flared look. 

No time to fettle V and A pics yet so will share a couple of ones of our show last weekend with you – these first two come from Clare Grey who put them on Facebook – I was tagged via a friend in the group so I hope that she won’t mind me sharing them with you. It is rare to get a pic of me in the show which is understandable as I am in the background most of the time behind the glamorous boys in their pretty costumes! 

The first pic is when all the knights first come out onto the arena – don’t they look wonderful with their surcoats and mantles on their helms.The mantles – cloths and wooden carvings that go on top of the helms – are new this year and I will try and get some close up pics at some point as they are fab – not allowed a camera when in kit so bit difficult! 

You can just see me on the right of the pic in a dark blue robe

The second pic is take at the end of the show when Lord and Lady Despenser fight for the tournament money (she wins you will be glad to know!)  I am standing at the table behind them with my water jugs and Jake is next to me – we make sure that all the guys have enough water during the tournament and Jake also helps with the weapons and amour as needed. 

The Despencer's way of solving marital disputes!

They always make up afterwards though – here they are after a previous  show, 

Lord and Lady Despencer

We all spend a lot of time making, mending and adding to costume and kit as well as a considerable amount of money in some cases. The dress that Lady Despencer is wearing here is made of pure silk , all hand stitched with real seed pearls and amethysts – the fabric alone cost £25 a metre and there is a lot of fabric in it! We all have started off with a basic set and added to it over time. The armour and weapons are also expensive – a helm and sword costs about £400 so making our own costume is one way to keep down the expense. 

The guys are very inventive and skilled as well – often buying parts and putting things together themselves to save money. The pic below shows Luke (aka William de la Zouche whose castle we were at last weekend) with his new scale mail sabatons ( armoured shoes). He bought the scales from Ebay (don’t you just love the internet!) and put them together himself. 

The lovely new scale mail sabatons

So I have the dress to finish for Ellie , an old dress of hers to alter for me, a cloak to mend and another two sets of brais to finish before our next event in 10 day’s time! Lots of sewing ahead! 

Hope that you have a very nice week – thanks for visiting!

The good life

Hello there 

Apologies for the lack of posts in the last week or so – we have been away for the Bank Holiday weekend doing a re-enactment event at Ashby de la Zouche Castle and with that and the general busyness lately have been very slack at blogging. 

I have however been doing quite a lot of stitching and knitting and have some things to share with you. The first pic is of the scissor keep that I made to send to Tracy at Cupcakes at Home – she is having a raffle to raise money for her rescue sheep so do go and visit her and buy tickets. 

The scissor keep - a freebie design from The Workbasket site

I stitched this on my favourite 28 count sparkly evenweave again with Silk Mill  Lilac thread – the design is an adaptation of one called Quaker Tree from The Workbasket  but I just stitched the top of the design. 

A close up of the stitching

The back of the scissor keep with one of my little charms

 Last week I went on a day trip to London to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum – the reason for the visit was to see an exhibition of quilts but I also got to visit the Textiles collection and drool over all the wonderful stuff that I have seen in books. Have loads of pics from that but will have to spend some time sorting them out. 

While I was there I went to John Lewis as I have read lots of people’s posts about visiting there (also popped into Liberty). Did not buy anything in Liberty but in John Lewis I did buy two of these gorgeous tea light holders for my garden. 

My cute little tea light holder

 I also picked up one of their garden furniture mags all full of pics of the good life with the loveliest furniture and knick knacks. I really liked this pic so have stuck it on the wall in my utility room – I wish I could spend my life having afternoon tea in the garden like this! 

Look at those pretty macaroons!

 But we have been indulging in the good life here as well as we have had our second BBQ at home this year – which gave me a chance to use my newest Jamie at Home  purchase – my bamboo food covers – aren’t they pretty! 

Our outdoor dining table

 I will leave you with some pics of my lovely children – we had a very nice weekend at Ashby and the weather was very kind to us – it was very wet as we were travelling down on Sat but stayed dry all weekend if a bit cold and windy on Sunday. But we did have lots of people come to see us and a couple of very nice evenings round the camp fire – the good life indeed! 

My beautiful Ellie in the Ashby sunshine

Jacob looking very handsome in kit

I hope that you all had a lovely weekend – see you back here soon and thanks for visiting.

Everything in the garden is lovely

I have had a very nice weekend – a combination of social time, peaceful relaxing and garden pottering and some lovely knitting and sewing. I have finally finished all the clearing up, replacing dead things and generally detritus removing so as the post title says I can now relax and just keep on top of the weekly maintenance. I do love gardening I just hate that time of year when you seem to have so much boring stuff to do and this year there was so much frost damage it has taken about 2 months to get straight. But the clematis is in bloom and the lilies are just about to be so all is well with the world! 

I had some people round for my own Jamie at Home party on Friday – it went very well and everyone enjoyed it. You may remember I went to my friend Cheryl’s party a while ago and bought some very nice stuff and decided to have my own party. As  a party host you get commission in the form of free goods and so I have lots of lovely new cooking stuff coming soon that I will post pics of! Also ordered some Xmas pressies for people -never too early you know – it creeps up on you! 

My lovely friend Kerry came round for a sewing day – she is doing some more goldwork - got no pics to show as we did more chatting than actual sewing but I got four more pairs of brais cut out for some of the guys in the medieval group. Just need to sew them up this weekend in time for the next show on the next Bank Holiday. 

In between gardening and sewing we went to see Robin Hood with Russell Crowe which I thought was very good. My friend Darren was in it as one of the swordsmen (think I did spot him in a couple of scenes but it all was a bit fast and furious at times!). Costumes were very good – obviously Robin spends most of his time looking a bit grungy but King John  was dressed very wonderfully – I got very excited at one point as the gown he wears  in one of his  early scenes is made of exactly the same material that I have in my stash – bought at one of our medieval markets a while ago. I couldn’t find any pics of that one but the pic below shows an equally lovely outfit. Will have to buy the film on DVD so that I can pause frames and study things in more detail!

King John - I know he was horrible (and played very well by Oscar Isaac) but he has fab clothes!

So that this is not an entirely craft pic free post I will show you some of my good friend Barbara’s work – I have been meaning to post these for a while. Barbara (no blog) does the most beautiful tea cosies and these are some of her works – in the style of Poppy Treffry. 

The front of the cosies

And the back with very cute cupcakes!

Will also share with you some more pics of lovely Ellie and her social life (which involves far more dressing up and far less knitting than mine!). 

Here she is on a friend’s birthday celebration as  a Star Trek babe – ‘phasers to stun’ seems a very appropriate caption as she really does look stunning in the little red dress. 

Self portrait with phaser (which was courtesy of Ebay)

She has now finished her first year at Uni (!) so went to the Summer Ball this weekend in a fab vintage gown that she bought last year in Spain. It is green taffeta  with gorgeous beaded shoulder straps. 

Ellen and Gemma at the ball

I am very proud of her once again as she has settled in so well – made loads of friends, is doing really well with her work and has organised a house for the next two years all by herself. She has also got two jobs – one doing voluntary work for the National Trust which will be fab for her CV and some paid work as a student ambassador where she will be involved in Open Days and Uni events such as September’s Freshers’ Week where she will be a very savvy second year! And she has managed to stay in budget all year and save money for her forthcoming holiday to Spain which is wonderful. 

Jake has just started his GCSE exams – he came home today with writer’s cramp from his RE exam. Only a few weeks to go and it will all be over. We are going out on Sat to organise his suit for the Prom – limo all sorted and he is looking for a top hat on Ebay as we speak – I knew that giving them a dressing up box when they were little would be a good idea! 

Hope you have a lovely week ahead – thanks for visiting.