The Marie Antoinette Exhibition

On Saturday John and I headed into central London on the underground. We needed to visit a shop on The Strand so this was our first stop. That job was completed very quickly and we headed back to the station to go to South Kensington. At this point we found out that there were planned engineering works on the Circle and District lines which meant the remaining line heading the way we wanted to go was extremely crowded.  As we walked through the station to get to the Piccadilly line we heard Neil Diamond song Sweet Caroline. At the chorus everyone joined it and it dispelled the dread of dealing with the crowds  and lightened the mood. We eventually got to our destination, the Victoria and Albert Museum or the V and A.  The V and A isn't the only museum in this area, there is also the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum. It's been ages since we last visited these museums so we are planning a visit to both in the near future. The V and A was closing as we arrived but our tickets were for an evening viewing of the exhibition. This exhibition had a lot of textiles, some furniture and jewellery.

There were a lot of dresses on display. The maker of this dress is unknown but it was made between 1760 - 70 and then updated between 1770 and 80. The dress is made of chine silk a fabric Marie Antoinette loved and had many dress made from it in her wardrobe. I'm not sure how comfortable this style of gown would have been to wear

From about 1780 cream silk satin gowns became very popular at Marie Antoinette's court. This next gown is embroidered with multi coloured flowers and embellished with bands of sky blue satin and silk bobbin lace. The gown is in the French style.

English style gowns were less formal and Marie Antoinette has many examples of this style in her wardrobe. Striped silk, like the silk in this dress were very popular between 1770's and 1780's.  This gown looked much more comfortable to wear.

The next photo is of a fragment of a court gown from 1780 - 1791. The ivory silk is richly embellished  with gilded silver spangles, coloured paste gems, appliqued velvet and precious metal thread embroidery. The gown would have sparkled in candlelight.

This is an embroidered sample for the train of a court dress that a silk merchant would have shown to aristocratic women commissioning new garments. This  was very much the taste of the 1790's.

Marie Antoinette's wardrobe was looted during the French Revolution following the storming of the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Only a few fragments of her once dazzling gowns remain. The court gowns were made of the fashionable new silks and trimmings. This gown has simulated ermine tails 

There were several fans on display.

Lace was used to add elegance to the designs.

In the 1780's large muffs became fashionable accessories for both men and women. This example is made from embroidered silk

This is one of Marie Antoinette's armchair from a set of 4.  The chair was used in her private dressing room during her final summers at the Chateau de Saint Cloud

This Pierrot and petticoat was very fashionable in the 1780's and 90's 

I loved this next gown. This is Empress Eugenie's evening bodice with replica skirt. The waist of this dress is tiny!

The last part of the exhibition, had dresses for fancy dress events where people went as Marie Antoinette. Immediately after she was executed the population was shocked at all the spending and over indulgence but as time went by people wanted to dress as Marie Antoinette.  There were a lot of dresses in this room so here are a few photos.

 

This last gown was designed by Vivienne Westwood.

The exhibition was very good and enjoyable. By this time the crowds had gone home and travel back home was much easier.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some of the photos. To protect the textiles the light was rather dim, so I'm apologising for the darkness.

Take care

Lyndsey 

February round up.

February finally rolled round to its last day and I can't say I'm sad to see the end of it. The weather this month has been mostly rain and some of it has been very heavy and persistent. I was keeping count of the number of wet days but I stopped as it was too depressing.  We have had some dry and sunny days along the way but they have been few and far between. On a positive note the snowdrops are whispering that spring will soon be here and there are some daffodils in flower in the garden. Driving to visit older daughter and family today I also saw several magnolia trees in flower. I'm hoping March will bring better weather.

Yesterday John and I went to the Marie Antoinette exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum in South Kensington, London. I haven't had a chance so far today to upload my photos from my camera so I tell you about the exhibition tomorrow or Tuesday.

This month I have been doing some knitting in the evening as I don't need to get the sewing machine out. I've been working later than usual and by the time I get home there is limited time for sewing. I completed a donation blanket to use up the yarn I had left over having made a blanket for my youngest grandson. I still haven't blocked this blanket so must do it this month.

I also started knitting a cardigan for myself. I'd bought the yarn a little while ago but had other knitting to finish. This is the back which I have since finished, but the picture is still on my camera.  I love how the pattern is created by using the two balls and knitting two rows from ball A and then two rows from ball B. I also love the yarn as it is so soft.

My Chookshed challenge this month was to work on my quilted jacket. The last time I showed this I had completed the quilting and stitched the fronts to the back as shown in the photo. Since then I've had to alter the pattern slightly as the back was sticking out. It's now lying flat and I've added the sleeves. Again the photo is still on the camera.

We also visited the orchid festival at Kew this month. The flowers were so pretty.

My one monthly goal was to complete the last of the frog stitcheries which I almost did but I just run out of time. Not a problem. The challenge pushed me to put effort in to get them finished and that has been a great help. One more stitching session will see the last frog finished and then I'll start on the blocks. 

I've also done some work on my dolls house, finishing the pavement and railings at the front of the house. I fitted the stair carpets and also finished the bed and made a duvet and two pillows for it. Progress is slow as I unfortunately have far too many projects on the go but it makes me happy to have lots of different things I can work on. I'm also owning up to starting two other projects. Both of these are to use up my yarn supply. The first one is a knitted project, the mitred blanket. These have been very popular over the last few years and I decided I would make one to use up yarn. All the squares are the same size, it's just the camera angle that make some look bigger. I love the way the square starts out straight and slowly becomes a square as you reduce stitches along the mitre.

The other project is to make a blanket from crocheted hexagons. I started this today and will try to make several hexagons each day over the month as in the UK this month is national crocheting month. I made these two earlier but I think I will add another round to them.

Now I need to check out the chookshed challenge number for March and download my photos. I also need to check out our plans for March. There are three family birthdays this month and I know John and I will be in somerset for his but I'm not sure what other plans we have this month.

Take care

Lyndsey

Oops I started a new project or maybe two.

I meant to be writing this post on Saturday but here I am on Monday trying to squeeze it into a quiet half hour before I head to bed. On Saturday morning we met up with older daughter, husband and their two boys for breakfast at one of our favourite cafes in Barnes. Whilst we waited for our breakfast I helped older grandson to work out a puzzle in his new puzzle book. Breakfast was delicious and it's always tastes even better when you haven't had to cook it yourself.  After breakfast we visited the wetlands center and had fun watching some birds. We visited the children's play area and grandson enjoyed playing in the mud kitchen. Whilst there we visited the white storks for their feeding time. These birds are still quite young. There are three of them but I couldn't get a photo of them all together.

There were signs that spring is on its way. This white blossom was so pretty and delicate.

The pussy willow was very soft and grandson enjoyed stroking them. At first he thought they were leaves so we had to point out the furled up leaves that hadn't yet opened.

I don't know what these berries are but I loved the colour and the white flowers were so cute.

We also found this grandson bird climbing up the giant nest. He loves being out and about and being able to climb or run.

The day was quite cold and and so we decided to head home about lunchtime. It was lovely to meet up but it wasn't the best weather to be out with a 5 week old baby.

Once home again I pulled out the pieces for the quilted jacket. The back of the jacket is black fabric but the fronts and sleeves are patchwork. I got out the wadding I had bought for the project, it's specifically made for clothing. Once the wadding was cut I was able to complete the quilting. On the patchwork I quilted in the ditch . It was then time to start putting it together.

The pattern is from the Sewing Bee book but I needed to alter bits. One of the areas is the neck line which comes up too high on me. I love the mix of the black and white squares. I will have some time to work on this project on Wednesday evening. I don't think it will be fully finished by the end of the month but it will be well on the way.

I also started another project. This is another knitting project and I love the way it is developing.  To knit it you use two balls of yarn and knit two rows from ball A and then two rows from ball B. It produces a great pattern and the colour shades change as you knit it.

It takes 8 balls to knit the cardigan. They came in a box with 4 having blue on the outside and 4 having red . As you knit the colour changes in each ball. Here's the remainder of the yarn in the box.

In addition I have almost finished the last frog stitchery and it should be completed by Saturday. I have another project I want to start which involves a stitched panel and it will makes a nice baby quilt. I need to trace the pattern out so I'm ready to start the stitching when the frogs are completed.

Take care

Lyndsey

Visit to Kew orchid festival

Over the last weekend I experienced computer problems and it has finally died. The good news is that I now have a new Think Pad. My son set it up for me and even choose a great front screen picture from my photo collection. Everything is working perfectly and it's great to use.

Winding back to last weekend, John and I visited the orchid festival at Kew Garden. Sunday was very wet and by the time we had walked to the Princess of Wales Conservatory from the car park we were rather wet. However the conservatory has ten computer controlled climate areas and it was nice and warm, and we dried off quickly. The conservatory is a complex structure of interlinked glass houses that provides 10 different climate zones. The orchids were spread across the different zones depending on the needs. This year the festival was showcasing orchids from China but there were orchids from across the world as well. In China, orchids are a sign of the coming of spring.

During the festival the Lunar New Year will occur on 17 February. The year of the snake ends  and the year of the horse will begin. I liked this snake getting ready to leave . Both me and my new grandson were born in the year of the snake. I am a water snake and he is a wood snake.

We came across a dragon, he looked very majestic.

He was surrounded by orchids.

Carp were circling over the next pond. The purple orchids were very pretty 

and this monkey was sitting keeping guard of this delicate pink orchid.

I also got diverted from orchids for this flower

and these weird flowers which looked like they had been bought back from a distant galaxy by the Enterprise. I really liked them.

Beautiful delicate flowers,

and a giant panda.

Loved the pretty faces.

The yak was fun and had a lovely woolly coat

I enjoyed the colours and the markings on the petals.

We had fun finding the various animals and also watching the joy on the children's faces when they found them.

A tiger up a tree.

At the end there was a horse ready to welcome the New Year, the year of the horse.

As we walked through I also enjoyed seeing some of cacti.

We headed to the café next for a coffee and a cake. As we left the café it was still raining and it continued for the rest of the day but it was worth getting wet for the orchid festival.

Take care

Lyndsey