Autumn Cottage Diarist

Threads and Colours and Quilty Things

 
Colour themed knitwear and needlepoint by Kaffe Fassett

I have been a sewer and a textile collector for most of my life. In my teens and early twenties, this love was put to practical use, running up most of the clothes that I wore on my grandmother's Edwardian Singer machine, using all the fiendishly clever and intricate mechanical attachments to make dresses of equally intricate construction and embellishment.

Decades passed and I moved on from collecting and sewing my own and others' garments to an interest in patchwork and quilting, stimulated by a ten week class with textile guru Valerie Campbell Harding - a woman who opened my eyes to a way of looking and seeing that can now never be unseen (rusty rooftops and peeling paint on old doors have a beauty all of their own that I had never noticed before Val made us really LOOK at them). That particular encounter occurred prior to the emergence of the Internet - so when that phenomenon took off, it was to quilting and textile groups that I first gravitated, making new cyber-friends that I have now known for over twenty years and whom I fully expect to be friends for the rest of my life.

Bringing up a family, caring for elderly parents and business ventures saw the stitchery go 'on the back boiler' for a long period, while other academic interests stepped in to engage my mind. Cerebral interests did, I suppose, overshadow the manual 'art making' - not for lack of interest, but simply lack of time. But recently all this has changed and the Siren Song of my life-long love of cloth has echoed in my ear again (or has the Sauron's Eye of a fabric addiction settled on me once more?!). This resurrection has been prompted by a visit to the Welsh Quilt Centre in Lampeter whilst on my recent mini holiday...

1930's wholecloth quilts with intricate hand quilted patterns

...followed, just a couple of days ago, with encountering again the explosion of pattern and colour that has always been Kaffe Fassett, bursting upon my eyeballs at Mottisfont Abbey. The exuberance of the Fassett exhibition pulled out from the depths of my memory the utter joy and delight of personal expression writ large through the medium of thread and scissors. Coupled with enjoying once more the historical and heritage aspects of the craft of Welsh Quilt making, you now find me once again determined - after twenty five years - to make a proper home for my sewing machines, cutting tables and enormous quantities of fabric stash.

Let the scissors flash and the fabrics roll, my friends - Roz is about to get snipping and stitching once more!!!

Welsh Quilt Centre, Lampeter - 'Rural Industries Bureau Quilts of Wales, 1921 - 1939'

A pieced quilt from 1825 (click on any image to enlarge)
A handsome hand quilted dressing gown

Metal quilting templates

Unique 'Jester' quilt edging

The 'Jen Jones Challenge' modern quilt exhibition 2017, also at the WQC

A deserving Visitor's Choice machine quilted Winner (above)

Memorial quilt using spent medication packaging - imaginative, exciting and successful

Kaffe Fassett at Mottisfont Abbey 

Explosion of colour - yes? Using floral themes...

Interesting contrast with the sober quilted dressing gown from 80 years before

Agree 100%!

Back and front of needlepoint upholstered chair

(I'm not the only person to be 'blown away' by KF's work...visit Weavers Journal blog for a description of my friend Cilla's wonderful day with KF himself - Inspiration Central!)

Needlepoint and Knowledge

Crocuses

A while since I visited the Hungerford Antiques Arcade; wandering around the town in bitterly cold wind has not raised great enthusiasm in me over the last few wintery weeks. But this week I combined a visit with lunch with a dear friend who lives in the town, which turned an ordinary Tuesday into a Sacred Ordinary day. Here are a couple of the things that I discovered and reconfirmed;

1. Things are not just inanimate items, but have a whole history of their own - they carry other humans'  history within them. I have collected textiles for forty years, at one time sewing myself everything that I wore, and at another time pursuing the City and Guilds courses in embroidery, both pursuits from which I learned - the hard way - that a beautiful end product usually only comes with much toil before hand.

Magnolias

Sunflower Basket

It was with that understanding that I carried back these three Elizabeth Bradley needlepoint pictures - beautifully framed - for a bargain price. I know that the needlepoint kits now sell for £130.00; that the frames would probably have cost £40.00 each; yet I purchased each framed and finished picture for £8.00. But the biggest understanding was of the many, many hours put in by the unknown stitcher who made them; to that person, I nod in respect and admiration. Your pictures now have an appreciative home with me.

2. How I love books! They are without doubt, a lifelong addiction for me. I think the addiction stems from the fact that I grew up in a home with virtually no books; I can count those I remember there on two hands. As I have grown older, I have accumulated thousand upon thousand, providing me with access to all that I desire - information, escape, understanding and inspiration.

My own good fortune is to have had access to books at pittance prices from Martin Smith, the book dealer that I have known for twenty years, also based in the Hungerford Arcade.

Martin has been my downfall, space wise - it is his fault that we often clamber over piles of books here at the cottage... but it is also (partially) thanks to Martin that I was enabled to venture, in another life, into dealing in antique books and prints. It is also thanks to him that I acquired some antique, handwritten journals which led me on a continuing voyage of investigation and exploration to the beloved city of Venice - an adventure which is not yet ended.

Look at the feast of knowledge and information between board covers which I brought home with me this week - all for the total sum of £10.00;  tell me what else you can get for that amount that will explode your mind as much as these magical tomes? One life is not enough….

A Passion for Fabrics

I've had it since my early teens, when I made all my own clothes with my Granny's Edwardian sewing machine (a Singer, with foot treadle and weirdly wonderful 'attachments') and started a stash of cloth by the yard and both constructed garments and embroidery going back to Elizabethan times.

Twenty five pounds worth of luscious loot!

It was not until I started researching my family history that I found that  the excuse for my craving might go back even further than my own lifetime - an ancestor was, apparently, a textile merchant in the City of London in 1760. Recent research on genetic memory suggests that it might well be 'in the blood' in more ways than one.

Embroidered silk remnants

Printed silk - Chinoiserie toile de jouy

Later I trained as a soft furnisher and upholsterer - a pursuit which went 'on ice' when my children were born  - but the thrill of seeing and touching beautiful fabrics has never gone away. You will thus understand my delight at attending the annual fabric (and interior decoration items) sale of  locally based but internationally active Interior designer/decorator and textile supplier, Ian Sanderson.

 Hand-printed wallpapers

Cottons in colours to match the summerhouse

The bargains were monumental - I left with an armful of embroidered silks, crisp cottons, plush chenilles and also four rolls of hand printed wall papers - all of which will be used, in some way, in creative workshops and personal gifts for friends. It was blissful to wander around the bolts of beauty, handling fabrics which cost big bucks at full price. I bought only small pieces (if you saw how much fabric I had in store here already, you would understand why…yardages and remnants only outnumbered by books!) but I'm already planning what to do with it all. Meanwhile, I'm just looking at it, smelling that 'new fabric' smell - and fondling. Oh, yes, fondling silk is a deliciously pleasurable activity today!

Silk chenille brocade

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It's All in the Detail

It's All in the Detail

Red-thread cross stitch on white linen

I've collected textiles for four decades now and I have always been particularly drawn to the details of  traditional costume; in the use of colour, the methods of construction and also, more recently, the symbolic nature of much of the stitchery and other ornament. I thought it may interest some of you to see some details of the costumes worn by the folk dancers from several agricultural co-operatives (mostly from the environs of Lisbon and the Alentejo) , who gave a really exuberant  display of dancing in Rossio Square (Lisbon, Portugal) on May Day this year (2013)

Particularly intriguing for me were the gold frontal jewellery worn by some of the women - clearly as part of a distinct local costume (their garments were, in contrast to the other dancers, very plain and sombre - which only served to show off the gold to greater advantage). The gold was fashioned into many symbols - mostly of hearts but with some crucifixes, and also a number of gold coins set in filigree frames. It would be fascinating to discover more about the reasons why particular symbols are present and also how they may cross cultural boundaries and be used in many different ways and places.

I can see I have some reading, talking and listening (particularly, I suspect, to Rebecca ) to do - and also some hunting to find my books by the intrepid traveller, collector, interpreter of symbology and all round amazing woman Sheila Paine. So much to discover, so little time - but for now, enjoy these few images and a little of the flavour of Portuguese folk dance

Another example of cross stitched borders - this time white on black

A detached pocket (? - difficult to see structure) - note the revered heart symbol upon which 'AMOR' is stitched

A lovely example of simple smocking over the hip to contain fullness of fabric in the skirt

More red stitching on white - note the lettering over the left breast. Also a relatively modest gold frontal display

More stitch detail and a considerably more elaborate display of gold jewellery.

A closer look at the weath displayed on this woman's breast - many hearts and some crosses...what else can you distinguish?

Static images for the detail - but here is a taste of the atmophere  on the day, when the themes and colours came alive with music, gaiety and friendliness, all helped along with a generous helping of balmy sunshine!

 

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After a Gap, a Gathering of Thoughts (and Pictures!)

The Dark Side of Life in an Old Cottage

Most of you who have read Autumn Cottage Diarist for a few years will know that the cottage is some three hundred years old. This brings the great pleasures of living in a character home - but it also has its downside..old house equates with old window styles, and although the window in the photograph is a 1960's addition, because we are a historic 'listed' building we are required to make sure that all additions are 'in keeping' with the original house.

Though this window has an aluminium metal frame, (not much of that around in the 1700's!), the person who installed it did follow tradition in keeping to 'leaded lights' - small window panes linked and held together by lead 'cames' - strips with channels on both sides to hold the glass, similar to the much older windows we have at the front of the house.

The result of all this is that indoors can be particularly dark in most of the house - which is why the wall colour most of the way through is a buttery creamy yellow, and the new curtains are of a gauzy, transparent texture. I think they work well, though the fabric - a very open, almost net-like linen, was the very devil to work with.

The next curtains to be finished will be the much-nicer-to-sew glazed cotton for my sitting/TV room (see my last 'Snip, Snip' post) ...though since the garden is yelling for attention particularly loudly at the moment, goodness knows when they will be finished. They sit - and wait - and look pretty doing so - but there is a certain amount of reproach in their presence.

Have you got anything waiting to be finished that sits and reproaches you from the sidelines - and - the garden is my (feeble) excuse...what's yours ??  :-))

Snip, Stitch, Clickety Clack!

It started for me when I was five...when I took apart the drapes on the doll cot that my grandmother had laboriously made for me for Christmas. I was severely reprimanded and told how 'destructive' I was (the first of the litany of reprimands with which my childhood was littered) - when my intention was only to see how it had been constructed.

I have always been entranced by fabrics - textiles of any sort - woven, embroidered, printed, felted...stitched into garments or soft-furnishings, decorated, embellished, and then used for more of the same, making my (or others') interior environment just that little bit more beautiful, enticing, welcoming. (Is there some genetic memory passed down from my ancestor - a merchant in the textile-trading part of London in the 1770's? I like to imagine there is....)

But for easily the last ten years, my sewing machine and embroidery threads have been tucked away, as I have engaged in and been distracted by other ups and downs in life, and more cerebral activities have taken the place of the work of head, heart and hands combined.

Pressing in between stitching...much more patience to do this these days - one of the benefits of being older?

Until last week, when I needed to amend the length of a pair of curtains, just to add the finishing touches to the interior painting and decorating done by my son. Out came the (possibly rusty) sewing machine, threaded up (with the aid of a little bit of black paper so I can see the hole in the needle these days!!) And tested...in with the fabric, down on the foot pedal and wheeee.....away we went, and back came rushing all the joys of creativity with fabric and thread that I had forgotten I loved so much.

Yes - the old machine does need a bit of oil, and my technique needs brushing up - but it is not being packed away again...but installed in the sunroom, I think in pride of place (everyone else probably thinks 'in the way!' :-)) - and all the stitching (and mending!) that has been ignored and neglected for the last decade is being brought out and enjoyed once more - alongside that ignored part of myself that - I now realise - also needs to come out to play. I write and I think and I discuss, yes - and I RELISH those activities...but I
also garden, and cook, and stitch, and paint. ALL components are necessary for me to fully live - as I believe they are for us all.

What do YOU need to live your fullest life? Is there any languishing creative pleasure back in the recesses of your own memory that could be brought out again to play?

The next project already waiting - curtains for the little sitting room

What do your Present Cushions Look Like?

Tapestry covers taken from medieval wall hangings.

One of this blog's readers - Brigitte - asked me this a few days ago. No plumping or poshifying - here is a quick ramble through my big sitting room with my camera to show what cushions (pillows) I have there right now. Nothing very special - just indulgence of my love of textiles. Enjoy!

Blue and white cotton panel, taken from an oriental B&W plate, & a Bargello needlepoint cushion.

Fanciful gentlemen...

... and ladies a-playin' of the croquet - more tapestry panels (purchased at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire).

Two woven panels on a papier mache chair (yes - they ARE both upside-down - just noticed!!) - the chair rescued from a skip a few years ago :-)

Antique embroidered and beaded cushions & a devore panel from Venice over the back of the sofa

My favourite latest acquisition - especially awaiting my writing workshop attendees.

Further to our Previous Conversation...

Look what I've found while clearing out the drawers in my office. A lovely piece of drawn-thread whitework on fine muslin, which I bought, apparently, in Dinan in 1994! About 30 cm square - and all embroidered by hand. Isn't it lovely? Click on the picture below to see the detail.

It will make a lovely bed cover in one of the dolls houses - needs to be a special one, I think!