Amazing few days!!

It happened by a chance

But GREW to become a fabulous set of visits.

Number One

Alice Kettle and others at the Queen's House in Greenwich

A staircase installation of flowers celebrating the Stuart gardens; 'Queen Anne's Lace'

A portrait  of Queen Henrietta Maria, A 'Garden Bed' as rug

Referencing the costume decorations and details of the other Royal portraits in the room

And the techniques used in weaving and tapestry making

 A modern Royal portrait

which somehow sat so comfortably which it's Tudor and Stuart counterparts

The whole was truly breath-taking and a 'Must See' exhibit!!

On until August 18th

Number Two

Kaffe Fasset at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey

Which celebrates Fasset's career in paint, stitch, cloth and yarn

And is the first since the retrospective at the V&A 25 years ago

and thirdly 

a talk at the V&A between ceramicist and writer Edmund de Waal 

and author Tracey Chevalier

on her book 'The Last Runaway'

which explores the art of quilt-making

and the silence of Quaker life in 19th cent. America

Sins of a Stitcher!

 I only went for the Talks- Honest!

These were cut 1/2 metre lengths from

The Dyeworks

based in Gloucestershire

www.dyeworks.co.uk/contact.html

Polly Lyster trawls France and Turkey for linen fragments to dye

She makes recipes based on natural indigo

and then dip-dyes

up to ten times

to make these beautiful tints

Also found a clutch of linen spools!

My excuse was that I needed something for the journey home

Ohhh! and Meg Andrews had a fascinating darning sampler

from North Holland, stitched by Geertuid A. Kruyt.

The stitch patterns were very similar to twill weaving patterns

and looked like fantastic reference for field patterns!

Manchester Antique Textile Fair

Just come back from a GORGEOUS day 

at the Textile Society's 'Antique Textile Fair' at 

the Armitage Centre in Fallowfied, Manchester!

This is an annual event, which celebrated its 21st birthday this year.

GEORGINA von ETZDORF ( of beautiful print fame)

was 'in conversation' with MARY SCHOESER

she had brought LOADS of scarves, ties, dressing-gowns etc with her

so THAT was a real treat!

In the afternoon there was a talk by JAQUELINE HYMAN

who is a textile conservator and worth listening to any time.

She was talking about the work she has done with Bolton Museum

on their Coptic and Ancient Egyptian textiles- she has such enthusiasm

and loves her work.

(I did a mini-course with her a number of years ago)

In between times I spent a small fortune on 'stuff''!

Mostly at 'DYEWORKS'

beautiful dyed linens

(you can see where this is going...)

beautiful LAND shades

then some linen threads (from a house clearance apparently)

a mini vacuum-cleaner from Jacqueline's 'RESTORE' stand-

(this is to give a commission of mine in the Quaker Meeting House in Chester

a Spring Clean)

then, cos I reckoned I could stitch some of this beautiful Linen

on the way home on the train

I went in search of some needles

(amazing hard to find surprisingly)

Will post photos tomo!