Festival of Quilts 2019

On Thursday our Quilting Group went by minibus to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham.  A long journey, but well worth it.

The ladies (me amongst them) were very disappointed by the Workshop we were given - having signed up for Japanese Folded Technique, a class taken by Mick Stead, we found instead when we sat down and started work, that the woman taking us had been a substitute (no mention of this) and we discovered we were doing Cathedral Window.   I am sure most of us had done this before and would far rather have forfeited our £15 and spent an extra hour exploring the three halls of displayed quilts and "fings to buy"!

The quilt above and below was one of my favourites, and I especially liked the wee bluebird corner blocks, and the triangles within triangles in the bottom right circle.  Beautifully sewn.

A lovely applique quilt in traditional style.

What a pretty zig-zag border on this one.

This was the quilt entered by Cross Patch - The Sopwell Ladies Basket Society Quilt, designed by Australian quilter Gail Pan.  LINK here.  

Nice and colourful.

Above and below: I liked the designs on this quilt.  Another one with a Flying Geese border.

A Cheshire Cat perchance?!!

More talent, above and below:

One of the top prize-winning quilts at the Tokyo Quilt Festival.  Amazing skills and so much hard work and planning in this.  A bit too sombre for me colourwise though.

Above and below: two more of the quilts from the Japanese pavilion.  The attention to detail was amazing on these quilts.  Lord knows how long they took to make.

Above is an interpretation of Hans Anderson's Fairy Tales.  Oh my.  Little Red Riding Hood is top left, btw, by the trees of course.

Just one of the many many stands exhibiting.  I was very good and only bought 4 things (photos tomorrow).  Mainly because we only got to see perhaps half of just one of the three halls.  Next year we have vowed to stay overnight and not do workshops!!

Meet Bombus bohemicus (I think!) - or possibly Bombus sylvarum (Shrill Carder Bee)

I spotted this very unusual black and white bumblebee in the garden yesterday.  It was NOT at all co-operative about having its photo taken and the minute I got close enough to focus on it, off it buzzed, in a very fast straight line to the far side of the paddock.  The nearest thing to it I could find was the Bombus bohemicus (Gypsy's Cuckoo Bumblebee) but I have just found some further photos and mine has no golden parts on it at all. I will update you when I find out what it is.  Update:  it "may" be a female Shrill Carder Bee - Bombus sylvarum (which has been recorded in South Wales).  Yet - mine has a white rear end and the Shrill Carder Bee apparently has a gingery one . . .  I shall try and send a photo off to the powers that be in the Bumblebee world . . .

This poor Dragonfly has hatched out in our main pond today, but looks to have one missing wing, and one which won't unfurl and it cannot fly.  I suspect it will soon be dead/eaten, which is a shame.  It must have been damaged inside the pupae.

Flowers from the garden today to brighten up the hall.

Above and below: my two dressers with some extra bits added (that includes Alfie!!)

First Painted Lady of the year on the Teasels - she was there much of yesterday and today too, keeping the piebald Bumblebee company.

Finally, a better sort of stir fry, with courgettes fresh from the garden, plus peppers, pak choi, tiny cherry tomatoes, red onion and mixed wholegrains.  This one was allowed a small sprinkling of Soy Sauce to make it palatable.

Yawning now. Another early night needed.

Snowshill Manor - Part II

Phew, it is finally pouring with rain - just what was needed here to clear the muggy air and encourage my veg plot and flowers (but sadly also the weeds too, which I've pulled an entire wheelbarrow full from just from a very discrete area this afternoon.  I have also been mucking out the back place, which hadn't been done for a goodly while and there were a lot of baskets and boxes of rubbish . . . . stuff we'd forgotten even having.  I have been on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor and it look a lot better though more work still needs doing out there - a fresh coat of paint wouldn't go amiss either.  There's always something for me to paint!

Now for some more photos from Snowshill:

There was a lovely collection of various spinning wheels - some for linen, some for wool.

This is a silk warping mill.  Silk threads were taken from the bobbin frames and threaded through the heck block.  This LINK tells you more.

This is known as Ann's Room, as is was where Ann Parsons secretly married Anthony Palmer on St Valentine's eve, 1604.  The magnificent bed is of a similar date (1630).  There are five hole in the side rails to hold candles during the vigil before a burial and the rope base under the mattress would have been tightened before use - which is where the expression "Sleep tight" comes from.  (One of my mum's much-used expressions was "Sleep tight, mind the bugs don't bite!" . . .)

Two photos from the Music Room, showing some splendid old examples of musical instruments, the like of which would have been familiar to Thomas Hardy's father who played the fiddle - as did his son - as one of the Church musicians who sat in the gallery of Stinsford church (Thomas Hardy's grandfather  played the Cello).  

This appears to be something similar to the Iron Age Carnyx.

Gosh, hard to get away from Hardy today - this bonnet would have been worn in the fields (I have one in my collection) and you may remember Tess wearing one in the various films of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.  As it is laid on a bedspread, I imagine the NT implied it being worn in bed?)

Part of the rooms known as Salamander and Dragon, where Charles Wade entertained guests and his collection of armour and weapons were used as theatrical props.

I particularly liked the fireplace which holds all manner of old fireplace implements, and the table simply set with pewter and old earthenware jugs and containers.

Another of my favourite pieces, which was in the adjoining cottage where Charles Wade chose to live.  The house was purely for housing and displaying his collection.  This is a set of wonderful old Belfry wagon/cart bells, used by the heavy horse teams in the 1800s - each set would have a different timbre/pitch and so the drivers of other wagons would recognize who was coming towards them.

On a dark windowsill, a collection of various metal implements.

Above and below - two different views of Charles Wades' kitchen in the cottage, with items from his collection proudly on display.  The leather Porter's Chair beside the fire was his favourite seat.

Below: you can see another, larger, set of Bellfry wagon bells. 

The kitchen table set out for a meal.

The old box bed in the corner was where Charles Wade slept each night.  He married relatively late in life (he was 63 and his wife 44) and they lived together in the cottage for 5 years before moving to St Kitts in 1951.  He came back to England in 1956, but was taken ill and died at Evesham.  His wife survived him and lived to the ripe old age of 96.

The Constipated Elephant and Other Unusual Things - Snowshill Manor, Glos - Part 1

It was the hottest day of the year last Thursday - in some parts of the country (Cambridge for instance) it was the hottest recorded day ever.  I will concede - it was a tad too warm for me.  However, we had bought a couple of things at auction in Gloucestershire and needed to go and collect them.  The day before, we decided to tag Snowshill Manor (which belonged to Charles Wade who collected all the wonderful things inside it) into the day out - I have wanted to go there all the time we have lived here (William Morris' beautiful manor house (Kelmscott) is also at the top of the list.  Fortunately we have AC in the car, and it wasn't too bad a journey to the auction, but when we walked around the town it was pretty muggy and airless - and HOT.  However, we threw caution to the wind and derring do got the better of us and we drove on to Snowshill - getting a bit lost when near by as signage was non-existent and the road map we had not the most accurate.  We ended up having a little exploration of nearby villages including the wonderful village of Stanton which is where we would like to live if we ever win the lottery (don't hold your breath!)

You have to walk across the parkland (photos of wild flowers in another post) to get to the house, although I believe there was golf cart type transport for those who couldn't walk that far.  I took it easy and it was good to stretch our legs after hours in the car.  The house was not nice and cool as this house is - it held onto the heat and when we walked into this first room, I absolutely MELTED.  How I didn't end up as a puddle on the floor is beyond me!  However, lots of distractions whilst mopping my steaming brow, including this amazing cabinet in a Venetian style first popular in the 16th C, although this is much later and dates to about 1850.  A friend of Charles Wade found this in a shop in Taunton and quickly wrote to his friend, urging him to buy it.  The front is tortoiseshell, inlaid with brass and semi-precious stones.

This scale model is HMS Romulus - the actual full-size ship was made and launched at Buckler's Hard (in the New Forest) in 1777.  She carried 44 guns and within 2 years was part of Admiral Arbuthnot's squadron which attacked and captured Charleston, South Carolina.  Sadly by 1789 she ended up at Mauritius as a hulk, after having been captured and used by the French.  She must have had a very hard life to be abandoned after just 12 years from launching.

Another lovely piece of woodwork, carved and gilded and I believe, Chinese again.

There were a couple of magnificent "Armada chests" in the room - here is one opened to show the amazing lock system - German manufacture I believe, and each individual piece beautifully engraved with designs.

In the 1940s, when Wade purchased many of these Oriental pieces, prices were relatively cheap as no-one wanted such pieces in their homes.  Like large lumps of Victorian furniture today in fact!

This carving of an elephant amused me as he had SUCH an expression on his face and looked like he was . . . a tad constipated!!

It is no surprise to learn that Charles Wade was by profession an architect, as these scale models of houses for Hampstead Garden Suburb filled almost an entire room (on the tops of display cases).  He was born in 1883 and after leaving school he was articled to an Architect in Ipswich.  He went on to become a pivotal influence on the designs of houses at Hampstead Garden Suburb (led by Raymond Unwin, with Edwin Lutyens as consultant).  He was of course influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement.

This was a lovely well-equipped dolls house in "Mermaid" (all the rooms had different names - we started off in the Turquoise Room.  I tried to take a photo of the larger one, which had a downstairs room done up as a shop but a lady was stood in front of it doing her hair - repeatedly, so I gave up.  

A photograph of Charles Wade, with quite an intense expression, dressed up for one of the theatrical dramatic performances that he and his friends enjoyed.  I don't know how we missed it, but there was a costume room - so we will have to go back.  Apparently hid collection ran to something like 2,500 items of apparel.  Because of the sheer number of items, most of the collection has been moved to Berrington Hall near Leominster (that's just been added as another house to visit soon.)

Part of the display of children's toys, which was a delight.

Two Lace Making pillows and a wonderful old felt hat - drover's or Ag. Lab's perhaps?

Finally a collection of pattens, worn to keep shoes out of the mud when going across the yard.

More tomorrow.