Many of you will know that I have a passion for historic places and keep a blog where I record my various visits. This seemed like a good idea when I started, no need to bore people who expected stitchiness with historical stuff over here, and visa versa. But – you knew there was a ‘but’ coming didn’t you – but, having had things arranged like this for a couple of years, I’ve decided to risk it and bring the historic stuff under this blogging roof.
To be honest, keeping it separate has always felt a bit weird, but when I started blogging, the advice was all about being topic specific. However, I think the latest post from Annie Cholewa (AKA Knitsofacto) sums it up perfectly, especially her quote from Mark Kerstetter .
‘The best blogs are acts of bricolage, a new kind of collage, incorporating images, texts, ideas. Why not use them all? And while you’re at it, be yourself.’
Until I brought the history stuff together with everything else, I wasn’t really being myself.
I apologise in advance for any pant-removing boringness, but at least you’ll now be getting the whole me.
One for the Sherlock fans – spot the door on the left.
culture at the BM
The fourth plinth, Trafalgar Square
Anyone for an M&M?
Me with the Delinquent Dog
inside Speedy’s…
sculpture at BM
What does it say?
who ate too many M&Ms?
casualty of the winds
sky that isn’t grey!
It was half-term last week. I am in awe of anyone who manages to blog during the holiday, for me it just doesn’t happen, I’m lucky to get five minutes to read blogs, let alone sit undisturbed to write anything! Number Two Daughter managed to wangle an extra day off by timing her chest infection to perfection, but she has now gone back to school, hacking, but well enough to do PE apparently – draw your own conclusions…
But it was a terrific week: St Valentine meal cooked by Daughters for us, two birthdays (including mine – still 39 in case you’re wondering), day trip to London to combine high culture with popular culture and a droplet of shopping, a visit to Leicester to see the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain (no, really – if you haven’t already, go and see them!), a spanking new bike for the big girl, and a new hard drive for my Mac (surely only a Mac will tell you that it’s drive is failing and can’t be repaired – in red letters – so stoical, I was going to rename it Captain Oates, but thankfully Techno-husband has returned it from the dead – it is now officially called Lazarus…
And so back into the swing. The sun is shining and my early daffodils are coming out, what more could you wish for.
)O(
Speedy’s really is a cafe next door to 221B Baker Street, except it isn’t on Baker Street, or next to 221B – it’s actually on North Gower Street, with a continual stream of Sherlock fans posing outside the cafe and the famous black door, and yes, the knocker moves.
We were at Raglan Castle a few weeks ago. It’s the sort of castle that forces you to look out across the landscape and up at the towers, but the floor of the Great Tower had me captivated…
I’m sorry if windows aren’t your thing – do feel free to click away now – we’ll still be friends.
But the thing is, as you’ll probably have diagnosed for yourself if you come here often, I have something of a window habit.
Queen Elizabeth I is supposed to have said something like…
I would not open windows into men’s souls.
… a reference to her not wanting to probe into the religious beliefs of her subjects – but I can’t pass an interesting window without those words running through my mind.
Because isn’t it a beautiful image – the window as a gateway to another place, and that other place being the magical realm of our souls.
So please forgive the frequency of windows slipping in here – I find it difficult to pass them without being compelled to look through to the other side.
-)O(-
Oh, and if you were wondering where those windows are – they’re from a rather remarkable gothic folly at Stowe Landscape Gardens
When you doodle, is there a recurring shape or pattern that always seems to flow through you? For me it’s a spiral – if I’m chatting on the phone, looking for inspiration or waiting for the next question at the pub quiz, I can be quite sure to be doodling in spirals.
And so I don’t find it surprising that I seem to be drawn to spirals I see around me.
This one is a special spiral because it combines all my favourite things – spirals, shades of blue, shiny bits and best of all, can you guess….
yep, pigs!
This particular pig is Sulis. If you go to Bath, you can find him behind Bath Abbey. He was made by Natasha Rampley and was one of the Bath pigs who adorned the city for a public art project in 2008. They’ve all gone off to good homes (I hope) now, but if you want to see them, they all have their pictures on the King Bladud’s Pigs website.
Happy Stitching.
-)O(-
PS: Just so you know, if you’re seeing any adverts on my blog, it’s WordPress, not me putting them there. If I’m feeling flush one of these days, I’ll go ad-free, until then, please forgive.
One of the analogies for the process of meditation that I love, is the one about the busy mind being like water rippling over stones – still your thoughts and you’ll be able to see the stones that lie beneath.
I rarely manage to see the ‘stones’ – but every time I walk along a river bank and see pebbles, that image comes to mind.
This little photo was taken last month on the banks of the River Findhorn in Scotland.
Although I so often work tapestries in bright colours, part of me is aching to translate these natural tones and textures into yarns. But so far, my imagination and my hands haven’t found a way to communicate effectively. Oh well, it’s filed away somewhere in the recesses of my mind – maybe one day my subconscious will see a way forward.
At least my old worries about achieving the palette are beginning to fade – I’ve seen some knitting wools that would work perfectly.
For nearly ten years, we’ve spent what I still think of as the Whitsun half-term holiday in the Peak District. And so for the last few days, this has been the view from our tent each morning….
Okay, to be fair the first couple of days were wet and we couldn’t actually see the field opposite, but then when the sun came out, it was marvellous.
I’ve long since stopped taking any sewing on these holidays. If I can keep my fingers warm enough to hold a knife or fill the kettle, I consider I’m doing well, any thought of wielding a needle would be sheer fantasy.
But when the rain sets in, there’s always a trip to Bakewell and Wye Needlecraft. Of course I really did need some more threads – I did, honest…
Not too over-the-top, just enough to keep me happy.
And now as soon as I reach base-camp on the post-holiday laundry mountain, I’ll be able to get sewing again.
As anyone who pops over to my non-stitchy blog Wondrissima will know, we’ve been away for a few days, staying in Whitby and visiting a load of old ruins…
I don’t know what it is about these places that gets me so excited, but I really could spend all day walking around old abbeys and castles – well, given a remarkably efficient set of thermals and regular coffee & cake* breaks.
The daughters are obliging, if not exactly enthusiastic about my ruin fetish.
But I find there’s something about being in these ancient places that stirs up the creative juices. It’s not that I often want to recreate what I’ve seen – although I know the recent gothic window was probably inspired by the real thing – it’s more that I tune in to some sort of flow – I wonder if it’s what Druids would call awen?
Or perhaps it’s just the opportunity to get away from the normal surroundings and free up some mental space for ideas to spark in.
Whatever it is, a few days away and I’m feeling much better, despite the fact that today the weather has decided to reprise grey and wet.
* If you go to Rievaulx Abbey – try the cakes – they’re fantastic, but be careful what you ask for. The lady asked me how hungry I was, so I said not too hungry – well, goodness only knows how even I could have eaten anything bigger than the slice of orange cake she gave me – don’t say you’re actually hungry unless you haven’t eaten for a week.
Some of you might know that the other great love in my life after needlepoint, is visiting historic places. (I generally write about that from time to time on my other blog – Mostly Motley).
What practically makes me drool with excitement, is when I get to combine both passions.
Wondering around the house in the languid way I do these days (so much less stressful now the girls are old enough not to need supervising), I came across a simply amazing 6 panel needlepoint screen, in a room called – for no reason I could find out – The Pigeon Hole.
detail from the needlepoint screen
It’s a good job that my daughters now make their own way around these historic houses, because my habit of spending long minutes, peering intently at the stitching, is guaranteed to cause them huge embarrassment. Naturally I had a really good look at the panels and what overwhelmed me, was the sheer size and detail of the work and the tiny stitches with which it was constructed (petit point).
I’d rashly assumed that it was something purchased by the family for the house, but the lovely Room Guide pointed out a small portrait of a rather beautiful lady, called Julia Blackett, who I was told, had stitched the screen herself in 1727. The link to that portrait is here if you want to take a look.
According to the guide-book, the screen, which is worked in fine wool, was inspired by Wenceslaus Hollar’s 1663 edition of the Georgics and Eclogues of the poet Virgil. I’ll have to take their word on that, my classics education didn’t stretch that far, but I can’t help wondering about the thought process of Julia when she decided to create the work. Was she a scholar? Was this popular reading in seventeenth and eighteenth century aristocratic circles? Would the people who saw the screen, have understood what it was saying?
Then I wonder how she went about planning it. Did she have drawings? Did she create the drawings herself, or was there a market in needlepoint kits back then? How did she get the wool? Who supplied it? She certainly couldn’t order online!
Of course most people would assume that she had plenty of time on her hands to actually do the sewing, but I wonder about that too. It’s all very well in good daylight, but it must have been nigh on impossible to see well enough at night – have you ever done any fine work by candlelight? I suppose there must be a suspicion that she didn’t do it alone – if that’s true, I wish we knew a lot more about who the other women (I’m assuming it would have been ladies?) were.
I’d love to know more, because this is really what gets me so excited when I find old needlework. It’s the sense of connection with the individual whose fingers held the cloth and plied the needle, for hours and hours and many long hours. When we make pieces of needlework, we put something of ourselves into it – and in some way, that essence reaches out from the work.
I wonder if this is to some extent why historic quilts are so evocative – it’s a similar connection between the lives of people from the past and those going through the same process today.
Anyway, you can imagine, seeing Julia’s work made my day.
But then, just a few steps down the corridor, I came to the Needlework Room!
What a shock – it turns out that Julia had done far more than just the screen. The Needlework Room contains ten long needlepoint (tent stitch) panels, with an oriental theme – exotic birds and flowers. Annoyingly, I didn’t have my camera, so below are a couple of links to show the work.
And if you go here, you can see more of the panels There are beautiful almost matching chairs in the room too – you can just see them in the second picture, but they aren’t actually attributed to Julia.
Apparently, she made all these over a period of three years in the 1710’s, for the Drawing Room of her home in Esholt, near Bradford. It was her son, Sir Walter Calverley Blackett, who had the needlework brought to Wallington in 1755, when he sold the Bradford property. I’m so pleased that he was proud enough of his mother’s work to preserve it in his new family home, creating a room especially to show it.
I’ve tried to find out a little more about Julia Blackett, but she remains elusive. We have a couple of portraits and we have her needlework and we know that she was born in 1686 and died in 1736 – that’s it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if somewhere in the family archive, there were letters or diaries that could tell us more. In the absence though, we can look at her work and let our imaginations soar.
Julia Blackett, Lady Calverley (1686 – 1736)
Julia Blackett – needlepoint heroine.
Thanks to the photographers on Flickr who posted the pictures.
My non-stitchy blog is Mostly Motley – it’s a fairly random affair.
Wallington has loads more lovely and fascinating things to see – do go if you’re in the area.
It’s been a wonderful summer. I discovered years ago, that trying to work when the girls are at home just isn’t an option for me. Rather than worry about it, I now give up all ideas of stitching while the schools are out and instead try hard to give the girls a good time.
They’re growing up so fast. I don’t have to be chief entertainments officer anymore, they pretty much decide their own schedules these days, but they certainly do need a taxi service, and too often, they also need the Bank of Mum on hand.
So for the last five or six weeks, there’s been nothing happening on the canvas.
But up there in the brain, all kinds of ideas have been spiralling around.
Balvenie Castle
While we were in Scotland, we visited Balvenie Castle. It’s a beautiful gem which I’m sure gets missed by a lot of people because it nestles beside the Glenfiddich Distillery – a great tourist attraction (and well worth the visit).
There’s a distillery hiding behind the trees
But the castle has wonderful stone work, which has really made me tingle with desire to somehow recreate the colours and textures of the stone.
It was a very hot morning when we were there, so I sat in the shade, staring up at the masonry, whilst breathing in the delightful aroma from the distillery – and mulled over the stitching possibilities.
It’s on my list for the autumn.
Although I haven’t been sewing, I’ve had a bit of a go at sorting out the canvases. This autumn I’m going to give linen scrim a go. The hessian that I’ve been experimenting with is very enjoyable in lots of ways, but the hairiness plays havoc with my nose and I’m a tad concerned that I might be allergic to it – the eczema on my hands improves a lot when I stop using it.
I’ve just ordered a few metres of scrim, so when it arrives, I’ll have a little play and see how it feels.
The texture and weave of the canvas has become much more important to me over recent months and I realise that I tend to respond better to more pliable substrates.
I’ll keep you posted.
I’m craving some nice new yarns to sew with. Can anyone recommend sources of wools, silks, cottons or anything else that’s a bit out of the ordinary? I feel a trawl around the internet might be in order, but how much more lovely it would be have a shop nearby where I could touch and feel in person.
So, gearing up again now. Should be back in action soon.
Dreaming In Stitches 