Some hand stitching and a visit to Stourhead house.

Yesterday, Sunday I did some more hand stitching. I'm working on a piece of sashiko embroidery which I was given as a present a while ago and this month I challenged myself to complete it. I've done a lot of the stitching but there is still quite a bit to do. No problem as there are still 6 days left in June. I'm very pleased with how far I've got with this piece. As you can see I still have 3 strips on the right hand side to finish.

I have also been doing some knitting, just a few rows every day. If you follow my blog you may remember I pulled the knitting out as the tension wasn't right. The tension is now perfect having changed to a size bigger needles. I'm currently knitting the back of the jumper and although it has grown there is still a long way to go to finish this piece.

On the previous Saturday, whilst on our weekend away, and after one of the best nights sleep I've had in months, followed by a delicious breakfast, John and I headed out to visit Stourhead. In 1717 Henry Hoare 1 bought Stourton Manor. He then commissioned Scottish architect Colen Campbell to replace the existing building on the land with a completely new house that became known as Stourhead House. The house remained in the possession of the Hoare family until it was given to the National Trust in 1946. 

We started our visit by going round the ground floor rooms in the house that are open to the public. The rooms on the upper floor are used for other purposes including as a residence. I've pulled out some of the things I found that interested me. 

After the entrance hall which housed a good number of family portraits we entered a room set up for a quiet evening at home. The dress above is a reproduction of a wrapping gown. This would be worn by ladies in the afternoon or for an informal evening at home. It gives a more relaxed shape than the more formal gowns of the time and certainly must have been a lot more comfortable to wear. The wrapping gown would also be worn if family visitors came for dinner but never for formal occasions. The room contained furniture including a table that the lady of the house would use to write letters or complete her accounts.  The table in this room was known as a rent table. I could really do with a table with all those drawers.

Next we went into the library and this was a beautiful room. I was very taken with the carpet design. This is not the original carpet. The original was of this design and colour and when the National Trust needed to replace the carpet they went back to the original carpet makers and asked if they still had the design. Happily the answer was yes and the new carpet was made to the original design.

The library felt very calm and I could have enjoyed choosing a book and settling into an armchair to read. The collection of books in the library was amazing. 

This photo was taken into the sun but it does show the stained glass and the domed ceiling.

In the library there was this reproduction Edwardian bodice and skirt set from the early 20th century. The outfit produced an exaggerated silhouette, which was created by a corset known as an S bend which pushed back the rear and pushed forward the chest. Not my idea of fun. I'm so pleased I was born after the corset era! Alda, the wife of the last owner of the house continued wearing this style into her 80's long after it had gone out of fashion.

On the desk in the library I found this samovar and pretty china cup. The samovar, which means self brewer, was used to heat and boil water. I could do with a samovar on my desk at work.

From the library we went into a dining room which was set up for afternoon tea to celebrate a birthday. 

By the side of the plates were quotes from Augusta's diary. Augusta was the wife of the owner during Queen Victoria's reign. Her husband was a gambler and lost a lot of money and so many of the paintings and other treasures belonging to the family were sold to cover debts.

Augusta would have worn a dress like this one. The huge crinoline skirt was very fashionable in the mid Victorian era. During this period black also became a fashionable colour following the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband.

Having left the tea table behind we came across this sewing machine on a table by the stairs. It is very small compared to most modern sewing machines and would have just done straight stitch.

The sewing and mending would have been part of the jobs undertaken by the servants. This shows the clothes worn by a maid working in the house.

Also on display were a pair of Lady Hoare's knickers. Scroll down a little further and the next photo will explain why.

In many of the rooms there were curtains with beautiful embroidery.

I liked the still life explained in the information board below.

The embroidery looked amazing.

The final dress on display as we went round the house was in a totally different style and would be much more comfortable. This style developed into the regency style of clothing which gave more freedom of movement for the wearer.

There was so much more to see in the house but as I am walking round I find I can get a little overwhelmed by the amount of things to look at and the information. I will be making a return visit at some point as I know I missed a lot of beautiful things..

By the time we had visited the house we needed a cup of coffee before we walked round the gardens. I'll tell you about the gardens another day.

Take care

Lyndsey

Friday and Saturday sewing.

 After my restful weekend, this week decided to be a real pain. Too much to do at work and little Twiglet causing stress by getting hold of and eating some chocolate. Work is manageable but a sick puppy is very stressful. He had a trip to the vet, antiemetics, extra fluid and rest. He has fully recovered and is a little cutie but into everything. Having had all his vaccinations we are now able to take him out for walks and he loves playing chase with Missy at the park. Since it was a busy and rather stressful week, very little sewing, knitting and reading or writing blog posts got done. I was pleased when it was Friday and I wasn't working. I needed to do some chores first but then I was free to do some sewing. 

My monthly goal for June was to add the Irish chain border to the Red Manor House quilt. I needed 4 lots of fabric for this. I found 2 pieces of suitable fabric in my stash and bought two more. I started by cutting the fabrics  into strips and then sewing the strips together. These were cut, rearranged and sewn together into 9 patch blocks. The blocks were then sewn together to make the borders. By the end of Friday I had added two sides to the quilt.

On Saturday we were supposed to be going on a bird watching trip but John was unwell so I identified that I would have time to complete the Border and also add the next border.  I managed this but it wasn't without incident. I sewed one of the 9 patches on the wrong way round and didn't spot the mistake until both borders were complete. I was lucky that I didn't have to unpick too much to correct the error.

As I still had some time  I decided to make a start on the Christmas angels. They are mainly hand sewn. 

By the time I was ready to pack up for the day I had sewn the head and hair together and made her arms ( the skinny strip on the right.) I cut all the pieces I needed to make one angel. The fun thing about the angels is that they are sewing angels, one even has a sewing machine.

I still have another sewing day tomorrow and I want to cut the fabric for the next dinosaur blocks. I also need to finish my blog post about out visit to Stourhead. I've had a fun day and I'm looking forward to getting more sewing done tomorrow.

Take care

Lyndsey

A weekend away

On Friday John and I packed the car and headed to our favourite hotel in Somerset for a quiet, relaxing and rejuvenating weekend. These weekends leave me feeling calm and refreshed and the added advantage is that my favourite quilting shop is not far away from the hotel. On Sunday I will be visiting the shop and making a few purchases. We try to do something on the way to our hotel and we decided to visit Ludgershall Castle. This castle is a ruin but it was interesting to visit and we didn't need to go out of our way to visit it.

Ludgershall was probably built in the late 11th century by Edward of Salisbury, Sheriff of Wiltshire. By the early 12th century it was owned by the Crown. It was situated on the edge of a medieval forest, and so it was often used as a royal hunting lodge. King John and his son Henry III made improvements in the 13th century but it fell into ruin by the 16th century.

The castle was set within two adjacent enclosures, surrounded by earthwork banks and ditches.  The outline of these enclosures can still be seen but a farm now occupies the middle of the castle. Most of the castle buildings were made of timber but some of them were made of stone. All that remains today are the flint aspect of the walls as the original facings of the walls were robbed for other buildings. The 12th century tower remains but is currently fenced off due to the risk of falling stone work.

The 12th century tower of Ludgershall castle taken by English Heritage.

The visit to the castle was interesting and we enjoyed a walk around the surviving earthworks. There were notice boards explaining the layout of the castle.

It was Henry III who made Ludgershall a comfortable place to live and visit.

In the middle of the ruins were two lone red poppies.

The sycamore tree was loaded with its helicopter seeds. I used to love playing with these seed pods when I was a child.

The banks surrounding the castle were full of wild flowers, especially buttercups and black eye daisies.

and Hogweed

We also saw several pyramidal orchids. They are very pretty.

Once at our hotel we enjoyed a rest before dinner. The food was delicious. We both read for a while before retiring to bed early as it had been a tiring day.

Today we visited Stourhead House and Gardens. We had a fabulous day. I'll tell you more about our visit tomorrow.

Take care

National sewing machine day (UK)

I love the variety of special days that occur during the year. I'm not sure how these days get created and recognised but I know that some of the days are great fun. A day celebrating the invention of the sewing machines sounds a great idea to me. I love setting mine set up and then spending time with it creating a quilt or a dress or other fabric object. In the UK national sewing machine day is observed every year on the 13th June.

I have two machines, an Elna and a Brother. The Brother which has enough room to comfortable machine quilt a large quilt. Here is Lucy making a block using the Brother machine.

Prior to the sewing machine it is estimated that people started sewing by hand some 20,000 years ago. The first needles were made from bones or animal horns and the thread made from animal sinew. Hand sewing takes time and patience so as the Industrial revolution took place there was a need to create a machine to do the job more quickly. 

In 1755 Charles Weisenthal, a German man, was issued a British patent for a “needle that is designed for a machine.” but there was no evidence of the machine.  In 1790 an Englishman, Thomas Saint designed and patented a machine powered by a hand crank that was to stitch leather and canvas. There is no evidence of the machine being built by Saint but in 1874 William Newton Wilson discovered the patent drawings and built a replica. This proved that the machine worked but it didn't work that well. The model is now on display in the London Science Museum. In 1830 Barthelemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, invented a successful sewing machine that used a hooked needle and one thread, creating a chain stitch.

Since that time sewing machines have been used in industrial settings and at one point many homes would have a machine. They did go out of fashion when cheaper mass produced clothes became available but in the UK home sewing machines are experiencing a bit of a resurgence, possibly due to the Great British Sewing Bee.

I learnt to sew on a singer hand cranked machine that came in its own large case. It would be set up on the dining table and my mother would create clothes for herself and for me. The first time I was allowed to use it was to sew some dolls clothes. I felt really grown up. Little did I know that the skills I was taught would develop into my hobby and that I would sew clothes for myself and my children as well as items for our home such as curtains and quilts.

To celebrate national sewing machine day I have given my quilting machine a good clean and removed all the 'fluff' that builds up Long may I continue to enjoy my sewing hobby.

Take care 

Lyndsey

 

Time to get on with some projects

This evening I had planned to spend some time catching up with my projects. Sometimes it's easy to remember what I've planned and projects run smoothly but sometimes I get a little engrossed with one thing and forget that I mean to share my time out. This week I have spent quite a bit of time working on the sashiko as I find it relaxing. I have the three ribbons on the right to stitch and the loops in the centre on the left. There is one small bit of pattern to finish on the top right. I'm going to set this aside for a few days to work on other things

I am continuing to knit several rows every day but this hasn't grown a lot. The texture of the knit feels much nicer and softer since I restarted on needles one size up. One size up not only gives the right tension but also makes the knit a little looser and therefore gives a softer feel. This weekend we are going away and I'll take my knitting with me for those quiets moments.  

I have also started pulling fabrics from my stash for the next border on the Red Manor House quilt.  This picture shows a completed quilt that I saw at the festival of quilts last year. The round I'm working on is the small squares. I want to use red white and blue but if possible I don't want to buy any fabric. I will be working on this next week.

The last picture I took of my version has a photo bombing Missy in the middle of it.

Tomorrow we head off to somerset. I'm not sure what the weather is going to be like but I'm sure there will be some rain. We haven't got any major plans but I will be visiting my favourite quilt shop on Sunday. There is a castle we would like to visit on the journey there but that depends on the weather.  We would also like to do a couple of walks but that won't be fun if its raining. I'll keep you posted on what we are doing.

Take care

Lyndsey

Catch up time

On Monday I returned to work after my weeks annual leave. On Sunday evening I felt great and ready for anything but by lunchtime on Monday I was feeling very tired. I'm sure many of you have had the same experience, thinking your are fully fit and then finding you are exhausted by the end of the working day. By going to bed early I managed to slowly feel better over the week, enough so, that I was able to go out with my older daughter on Friday afternoon. The week at work passed quickly as I had  a lot of work I wanted to finish up. 

Over the week whilst relaxing in the evening I have done some work on my sashiko embroidery.  I haven't got as far as I would like but I'm happy with what I have achieved. This is what I will be working on later today.

I have some navy fabric that I want to use when I turn the Japanese panel I have into a quilt or wall hanging. My plan is to use sashiko  on the sashing and in the quilting. You'll have to wait to see if that comes to fruition. I think it will as I am enjoying hand quilting the little mystery quilt I made. It is slow work but very relaxing.

 

I have also been working on my knitted jumper. I had started this but it became obvious that the sizing was wrong even though I had knitted a swatch to check the tension. Therefore I pulled it all out and restarted the knitting. I now have perfect tension. My problem now is that I have done quite a lot of knitting recently and my wrists have started to be quite painful. I have restricted my knitting to 10 rows a day but I may have to reduce that for a while as the rows are quite long. It's not a problem as this jumper will not be needed until the colder weather and so I have several months to complete it. I do love the colour, pattern and texture.

On Friday I decided I needed to do some more work on my dolls house. The basement has railings and stairs down from the street level. I want to get the basement area completely finished so I set about working on the railings. These are made of MDF so first they needed sanding. Then I used acrylic paint on them, black for the bulk of the railings and then some gold. I am pleased with the result. Now I need to get some flag stones for the footpath and make some decisions about the outside area, do I want some grass or paving? I like the idea of a rabbit hutch and of course there needs to be flowers.

On Friday I had my shingles and pneumonia vaccinations. The pneumonia one really stung and I have quite a bruised arm but at least you don't need a booster for this one. By the time I needed to leave to meet older daughter my arm was feeling less sore. Katy had bought tickets for the theatre and we were meeting earlier to do some window shopping. We arranged to meet under the clock at Waterloo station. A place where many meetings have taken place in some of the older films.

We did a lot of walking rather than taking buses. We set off from Waterloo towards Charing Cross, going past the south bank theatres and Festival Hall to cross the Thames by the Hungerford foot bridge. From Charing Cross we walked across Trafalgar square, passing in front of the National galley. There was an event in the square so the fountains were behind the event barriers and there were a lot of people and noise.  We continued on our walk to Piccadilly Circus. From here we walked along the road parallel to Regents Street as we were heading to Liberty but didn't want to get caught up with the crowds. The shop front is on Great Marlborough Street. The shop was built in the 1920's in a Tudor revival style and was constructed from the timbers of two ships; HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. The building became Grade 2* listed in 1972. This means the building is of particularly importance, buildings of more than special interest. Find out more about Liberty HERE

We went upstairs and in between admiring fabulous dresses costing several thousand and happily stroking the Tana Lawn cotton in the fabric department ( this is fabulous fabric for English paper piecing) we leant on the balcony and I took this photo. This display ran from floor to ceiling. You can see all the heavy wood of the shop interior. 

By now it was time to head to the restaurant for dinner. It involved a little more walking but not too much. Once settled we enjoyed some drinks while we waited for our food. I can't remember what we were giggling about. We chatted about Katy's wedding plans, which is in August.

After dinner we walked to the Jermyn Street Theatre. This is very small studio theatre with only 70 seats but it was the perfect venue for Being Mr Wickham. Find out more about the theatre HERE. The play was written by Adrian Lukis who played Mr Wickham in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. In the programme he writes that he didn't much like turning 60 and wondered what was left to come in life. As a result he started to wonder what Mr Wickham would be like at 60. Lukis also said he had always wanted to write something about Wickham, as he had really enjoyed playing him in the series. He wanted to consider what Wickham would say in his own defence, so he invented a life for him beyond the novel.

Taken from the front cover of 'Being Mr Wickham'

The play was a one man show and we thoroughly enjoyed it. When we left the theatre we retraced our steps back to Waterloo station where I went to get a tube (underground) home and Katy waited for her train.

Yesterday was a fun but tiring day as Katy, Olly and grandson came over. They are having a new kitchen so have no cooker at present but it should all be finished this week which would be good as it's not an easy situation with a two year old.  Having had a busy day John and I enjoyed watching television before bed. Even our two dogs were tired and that seems to have spilled over into today. They have spent most of the day asleep. Missy had already spent a couple of hours asleep along the back of the sofa. Her weight has really squidged the cushions so we will need to get a new one once Twiglet is older and no longer chewing everything. We had planned to get a new one just before we got Missy. Puppies is new furniture really don't mix.

I'm going to make some lunch and then I can get on with my Sashiko. I might take some time out to collect together the fabrics I need for the next round on the Red Manor House quilt, but that involves going into my storage system and I'm not sure I have the energy.

I'm linking this post with Kathy from Kathy's Quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching link up. I'm hoping I will have some time to get my machine out this week so I'll let you know how I get on.

Take care

Lyndsey

Visiting HMS Victory.

 On our last trip to Portsmouth historic dockyard we spent some time visiting HMS Victory. The ship was built over 250 years ago and is the worlds oldest commissioned ship and flagship of the Royal Navy. When built the expectation was that the ship would serve nine years before needing major repairs. Over her lifetime the ship has had multiple repairs and is now undergoing a 20 year conservation programme. The Victory was built at Chatham dockyard in a dry dock. It took about 6,000 trees to construct the ship with 90% of them being oak and the rest pine, elm and fir. For the first thirteen years after the ship was built it was in reserve on the River Medway at Chatham. Subsequently Victory went on to become one of the most successful naval ships of all time, leading fleets during the American War of Independence and the Napoleonic Wars.

HMS Victory became famous 40 years after being launched for her part in the Battle of Trafalgar. During the battle Vice Admiral Lord Nelson was shot at quarter past one and died a few hours later at half past four.

    

The journey through the ship was interesting but as you went lower in the ship the head room got less and the steps got steeper. In the stern of the ship on the higher levels were the Captains and the Vice Admiral's quarters. The carpet had a definite quilting pattern to it.

Large windows made this area very light and airy for the Vice admiral

A large table for meetings of senior staff or meals

Very nice decanters . This area almost feels like home.

The ships wheel was just in front of the cabins.

The beds were interesting and I liked the curtains as they had embroidery on them.

The Captain shared his quarters with some guns.

The Victory was a war ship but the furniture in the captain and vice admirals quarters was very elegant and civilised. 

On the gun decks there was less headroom and room in general. During battle this would have been a busy and noisy area.

The was a large rope store. In fact there was a lot of ropes of all sizes around the ship.

There was a sick bay area.

and various tool boxes. 

I meant to take a photo of the outside of Victory but my camera battery had run out.  Victory is in a dry dock but as we walked around the outside of it we crossed a bridge and looked down into the wet dock next to it. There were some large fish swimming around.

By this time we were tired and so headed back to our hotel. We had enjoyed our day out but the dockyard really is an exhausting visit.

Take care

Lyndsey