In Fine Style

Last Spring we flew up to Edinburgh to see the exhibition 'In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion' at Holyroodhouse.  It was wonderful to see all the paintings and clothing all together.  It was really interesting as John and I listen to a lot of audio books usually based in this period of time, Shardlake, John Shakespeare and the like and it really helps to paint the picture for the story.

Over the summer I started just playing with some fabrics and layering them up and adding lots of stitch and beading with the thought of making a sample book which was used by the gentry to choose the fabrics and adornment they wanted for their clothing.

I finally finished it last week.  7.5 inches square.

Back cover.

The covers and back sides of the concertina were clothing pictures printed onto fabric and free stitched.  The cover has a little gold paint on it too.

The zig side.

The zag side.

And the back side.

Lots of pieces of silks and velvets.

Fringing and slashing.

And beads with lace.

I really enjoyed the non structure of it and making it up as I went along.  A nice little thing to pick up and put down. 

Last Saturday we had a little celebration.  

One already!

Who can resist a piece of cake!!

We're just about to start warming the sofas up for a bit of the Six Nations.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. 

So Why Had I Not Heard of This Before????

Over on Julie's blog at Mixed Media she mentioned the Erosion Bundles.  Well I thought, that's interesting, and did a little bit of investigating to find out that they are old hat and I'd totally missed the boat!  Never mind. After my success in the rusty fabrics I thought I would give it a go anyway (thank you Julie!! )

I gathered a few bits, well a lot more than shown here actually.

After a dog walk I had collected a mixed bag of stuff from the ground.  Bracken, bark, pine needles, leaves, masts, moss and cones.  So they all went into one bundle.

and that went into the old Hawthorn tree for a sit.

The next one had a few rusty bits, some tea bags a few dye grains, walnut crystals and some other bits I can't remember and I've managed to misplace the piece of paper I wrote it all down on.  It will be a surprise when I open it!  It looks like it's doing something up in the pergola on the terrace, it's quite open there at this time of year so should see a bit of weather.

Then I thought about adding some berries but it is totally the wrong time of year and thought of other dyestuffs. One of these has some madder root pieces sprinkled in and I think it was this one up in the very old branches of a Russett apple tree.

And this last one has walnut leaves and woad leaves just sprinkled in too in the prickly embrace of one of the Blackthorns.  (I may do this one again at the other end of the year with some of the Sloe fruit from it.)

I know all those dyestuffs have specific needs to make fabric dye like boiling etc, but I thought I haven't anything to lose and I could already see the walnut leaves were staining before I even tied the bundle.  It will be interesting and the gardener is now convinced I've lost the plot.

I didn't show in the last post the finished neck piece.  I still have to work on the fastening but that shouldn't take too long.

And I've done yet another cardie in a pale gold silk but the photo is awful because of the lighting.

We are happy the 6 Nations Rugby has started again and had some good rugby matches last weekend.  There's another round being played this weekend too so between being all romantic and the rugby it looks like a nice weekend ahead!!

I hope you all have a good one too.


*EDIT* It's lunchtime and we have JUST heard from Natural England that we now have our European Bat Licence!! Whooooooo!!  We can finally put into action the build that we were hoping to start last June! A few bits of bending over backward are still expected and some site surveys for the scaffolding and we will then, hopefully, be enshrouded for a few months.  

Move Along Now

Well I wish it wouldn't quite so fast.  Like so many out there wondering what happened to January I'm seriously beginning to think there is some world wide speeding up of time.  Is that possible do you think??

I have been plodding along with my EG course, or trying to if there weren't so many problems communicating with my tutor.  It's so frustrating.  I just want to crack on and it takes days to have a response.  So much for modern technology.

Anyway whilst waiting I have been trying to collect quotes I like and started looking for a suitable book to keep them in.  Then, in one of those stupid moments, I remember that I actually make books.  Duh!  So I did.

Just a bit of tweed and some off cuts of bits I've made.

And some buttons and bits.

And I gathered a load of mixed papers that needed using up, some hand made, sugar, printed and plain to make the pages a little more exciting.

I just have to start filling it now.

I have also been working on this quilt.  This is just a part of it as it's quite labour intensive but I'm getting there! A long way to go yet.

I've knitted yet another cardie for Olivia, this time for wearing now rather than later.

I have also begun working on a few of these.  And I mean a few.  I have been collecting the frames for a long time and have 40 or so but I thought they would make interesting items for the Art Weeks using some old quilt pieces I have.

I had another bad night on Sunday where my body really rejected the food I had had and most of Monday was spent trying to convince my hernia not to retaliate.  That's the second time in as many weeks.  I did manage to do a fair amount of knitting on yet another cardie though!!

And today we finally had some snow which the rest of the country has been on about for weeks! Not sure if thats a good thing or not but the dogs are enjoying it.

I hope you have a good week!