The Hunting Lodge

 I have just returned from the Festival of Quilts and am now catching up -  as you do!  It will take some time to process my thoughts so I hope you will enjoy something I prepared earlier!

You will have gathered by now that I love all types of  houses, gardens and I also admire the work of John Fowler (of Colefax and Fowler fame).  It's a treat, therefore, to combine these three and show you this magical little house set in its lovely garden which used to be the country home of  John Fowler.

 Just click on the link below to see some more -

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/8663723/Celebrity-Gardeners-Nicky-Haslams-garden.html


It's called The Hunting Lodge and was left to the National Trust by John Fowler.  It is now in the care of another famous interior decorator, Nicholas Haslam who is a more flamboyant personality and decorator than John Fowler, as you will have gathered after watching the video?  He calls it  "the prettiest house in England" and though England is not short on pretty houses,  it must be a contender?

Of course in the forty years he has lived there, Nicholas has changed a great many things inside and out but he has also retained many of  the original interior decorations. 

This is one of the bedrooms as it was decorated by John Fowler in which he stuck a beautiful Mauny border on painted walls.  Nicholas has kept that but changed the bed drapes and cover - but I love the quilt - well this is a quilting blog!

It seems that John Fowler was fond of using old frame quilts on beds as they appear regularly in pictures of his work.  At that time (in the 40s. 50s and 60s) they must have been easily come by and cheap and so different, for it wasn't at all usual for a top decorator to use humble patchwork! 

A little bit of this and that

I want to thank you for your comments on museums and on my ebook

Firstly I am going to post this picture, as every post needs a picture to cheer it up.  This one is of the new tiny cyclamen that are now coming into the shops - the first sign of autumn and it isn't mid August yet - encased of course in some EB!  I posted it on the EB Facebook page recently and thought you would like it too?
 

I do realise that musuems have budget and staffing problems but sadly there nothing new in that.  These will always be there whatever the financial climate and will always be the excuse.  It's simply a fact that textiles have a low priority and unless we make a fuss things won't change.  The difficulty of course is, that we who work with museums don't want to cause trouble as we rely on a good relationship continuing.  But perhaps those in Museums who are responsible for textiles could do with a helping hand?

I have always felt that the textile guilds could do more on this.  They do sterling work in promoting their own particular textile. They amass a collection, have staff and headquarters, all of which are expensive to maintain, but they don't get together and fight the corner for textiles generally which would be relatively inexpensive.  Act as a mouthpiece for their own members and the general public who want access to the vast amounts of textiles that are stored away in public collections.  Be more like the W.I. and put on pressure!

I am pretty sure that this opinion will be viewed with horror - it's politics they will cry! But if we want things to improve we will have to dirty our hands and engage in politics! 

I shall be at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham on Thursday, Friday and Saturday on the Rainbow Disk stand E33.  If you are going, do pop over and say hello!

Thank you all for your kind comments on the ebook and if you could possible post a review on either Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com it would help considerably.

More Squares - The Mary Robson Quilt

I am really cheesed off with Museum websites, yesterday I was searching for quilt information on three and all fell short of satisfactory.  The last one infuriated me so much I sent a request to the site for clarification - I did actually get a reply!

It isn't just British museums that I have trouble with, its American ones as well!  You seem to have to know what you are looking for to find it!  If you do have some details, it's far easier to put that into Google than into the museum site that has the item in question!  This can't be right!   Sorry to sound off but I can't help wondering if it's just me or if anyone else has this trouble too? 

This frustrated browsing did throw up this lovely quilt which was a bonus -

It was made by Mary Robson in 1801 (this information is embroidered on one of the squares), I do love Georgian patchwork!  However, I had to contact the Quilt Museum in York to find out what size it was!  It apparently has interesting quilting patterns but no pictures are available - grrrrr.

Because I love making little quilts this picture immediately suggested a cot quilt but it is in fact 228cms wide x 253cms long.  I don't think in metric (or Napoleon as I once heard it called) so had to translate to Imperial - 89 x 99 inches approximately, so definitely not a cot quilt - no wonder she could embroider her name and date in a square!

I am very tempted to make it up with odds ends -   Its very simplicity appeals to me, it's so unpretentious, so Georgian understated  -  oh here I go again - another project!

Little Welsh Quilt - the process

All of you who have written a book, especially a craft book with diagrams and pictures, know that what eventually appears within the covers is just a fraction of the work.  Here is some of the work in progress -

In the past I have enjoyed the process more than the end result, but I must say that working with Vivienne at Rainbow Disks has been very pleasurable and I am very happy with the finished ebook.

Of course I have known and worked with Vivienne for quite a few years and she has become a friend.  It was she, when she worked for David & Charles, who commissioned my first book HOUSE AND GARDEN SAMPLERS and I  remember her phone call asking to meet and discuss it.  I was so thrilled, as it had long been an ambition to write about sampler making and I still look back and savour that exciting time.

Having a book published and on the shelves of a bookstore raises mixed emotions.  On one hand you are pleased that it is there at all and look around furtively to see if anyone is interested - they usually aren't. Then you worry that because there are copies on the shelf they aren't selling!  It's a case of a glass either full or empty again but that's the way if affects me.

Now, of course, we are in another age - books are marketed very differently now to then (the olden days book wise).  I can write telling you about my book here in my workroom and it reaches all over the world - it's wonderful and scary at the same time!

LITTLE WELSH QUILTS can be ordered at -
http://www.rainbowdisks.com/

LITTLE WELSH QUILTS - almost there!

I am so excited, my ebook is in production and will be ready for the Festival of Quilts on the 11 - 14th August.  As I write this, review copies are being send out to all the magazines.

Ebook is not a misprint, because it is not printed but on a disk.  This includes demonstration videos showing some of my ways of working - for example, my organic method of marking. You can also zoom in closely to study how I place my quilting patterns - rather scary for an author as warts and all are shown by the zoom!

I know some of you prefer printed books, but this is a way of bringing to the quilting world (and other worlds) subjects that large commercial publishers would not commission.  They consider Welsh quilting a niche market and though we managed to get MAKING WELSH QUILTS published, they wouldn't be interested in another and frankly, I wouldn't want the experience of doing it their way again!

Fortunately Vivienne Wells, my friend and editor of my previous books, set up Rainbow Disks and I along with many well known textile authors she discovered, now work with her.  We prefer it, we know and trust her and she treats us with respect.  We actually have a great say it all matters of production and a fair return for our work, which believe me, is not the case with a large publisher! 

Please will you help to spread the word?  A small company does not have the publicity resources of a large publisher, so if you know of any Groups, Guilds and Quilt Shops, anywhere in the world, who would stock copies, please let Vivienne know on her website (link below).  You can order your copy there too -

http://www.rainbowdisks.com/
Order at Rainbow Disks -

My third favourite from the V&A Collection

I love 17th century British embroidery and for my third  favourite object from the V& A collection I am choosing a band sampler.  No it is nothing to do with music (one of my former embroidery students asked this), but one of our early forms of sampler making.

In my opinion it was a time when embroidery here was at its best, before sampler making had turned into sewing pretty pictures with a limited number of stitches.  The young girls who sewed band samplers then used very complicated stitches indeed, many of which are rarely, if ever, used today.

This is one made by Elizabeth Short dated 1661 -

I first discovered it hanging in the corridor by the Textile Study Room (it has been moved since) and was charmed by it.  It certainly isn't the most elaborate band sampler or by any means the longest, in fact it is quite short in comparison to some.  Perhaps that is why it appealed to me, it made it seem less intimidating, somehow more do-able?

A shortened version of it has been charted for reproduction by The Scarlett Letter http://www.scarlet-letter.com/rsdescr/17thcen/short.htm#ShortE,  but I haven't worked it and probably never will, because though I used to teach the subject, these days I am content just to admire band samplers.

The picture I have used above is the best one I can find.  Even though the V&A photographed it for their book on samplers they haven't yet made a better image generally available.  However, one facinating fact came to light when it was taken out of its frame to photograph for the book!  This type of sampler should be as good on the back as on the front, as the stitches used were originally for decorating reversible objects, such as cuffs, collars etc.  This makes them extremely challenging for us to do today as we are considerably less experienced at such work.  Most of us don't bother, for instance, we do back stitch instead of Holbein stitch which looks fine on the front of the work but is not the same on the back. This is not so with Elizabeth Short, this is the back of her work -

After working the two delightful figures, she decided to "clothe" them with detached buttonhole stitch which because it is a detatched stitch, only appears on one side of the work.  I think I like the back best?

A Welsh House Quilting Sampler.

After going through a fallow time,  ideas are beginning to stir in my brain.  Sometimes a quilt in a magazine or catalogue acts as a trigger.  The idea may have been lying dormant in my mind and suddenly I have a "ker-ching" moment and rush to my drawing pad.

I have EQ and Quilt Pro but I prefer to work an idea out on squared paper.  Everything is then in proportion and it can be scaled  to any size either in inches or centimeters, so it is a flexible way to capture the first idea. I then draft my templates referring to this pattern.  Of course when the fabric comes into play the fun starts, as from then on it leads the design.

The latest is this little quilt with a little Welsh cottage at its centre. The idea is to surround the house block with much larger pieces on which I will quilt different Welsh quilting motifs, so it will be a sampler of traditional patterns.

I have added a few more fabrics to the mix which I may or may not use -

The pattern for the cottage is based on one on a group of Brecon samplers sewn around 1840.  I chose red fabric for the cottage because not only is it a good colour for a centre, but painting farmhouses and cottages in a mixture of lime and oxblood was traditional in Wales in past centuries, so it lends authenticity to the design. This was done because, not only was cheap and easily available, but it was thought that red would ward off evil spirits!

This is a picture of Kennixton Farmhouse at St. Fagans: National History Museum and as you can see its roofing is thatch but very often when buildings like this deteriorated the thatch was replaced with corrugated iron.  This links to my choice a striped fabric for the roof of my cottage as I felt a more graphic fabric would be best.

We are now getting there but still have a another round to go  -   I will report back on it's progress!  However,  I am still trying to finish quilting my Royal Wedding Quilt - it seems never ending but when you do get an idea you have to go for it or it may disappear!