cross stitch

First of all I would like to let you know that I seem to be having a problem with commenting on some of your blogs, not all, but enough to make me feel frustrated with the blogger the last couple of days.

So, it is not that I don't want to come and visit, I am not able to :(( I hope this will get sorted out soon.

I haven't done much stitching this week, at the moment I am preoccupied with our tax returns.

As most of you in UK would know, 31 January is the last day for submitting tax returns.

If you haven't done it by that date, a big bad wolf will come and eat you. Well, not quite, but he will impose a hefty fine !

At least I wanted to catch up with your blogs, but as I can't, I looked for a subject which would hopefully interest some of you -  cross stitch.

I am not really a crosstitcher myself. I get bored with repeating the same very small stitch over and over. And it is hard on eyes. But -

recently I came across this book.

Quote: "this book is perhaps the first to document all the different motifs by origin used on traditional costumes", meaning Palestinian embroidery.

It is very different from the normal cross stitch kits you buy in the shops.

The book is full of beautiful, colourful designs, enough to make you want to take up cross stitching.

Isn't it beautiful?

I would like to try to use some of the designs on a quilt sometime in the future.

My record on cross stitch embroidery to date is very poor, yet it was probably the first stitch we all learnt.

A few years ago, to try to remedy this fault, and to take a project on holiday, I bought 2 kits, one for me and one for my DD (she is so much better at cross stitch then I am).

This is my one.

I saw these particular kits at a craft show and immediately they caught my eye. Why? Because the designs were so different. They are taken from watercolour paintings of the artist Michael Powell and I just love them. I wish I could afford to buy one of his watercolour paintings. Do have a look at them here .

Sadly, my cross stitch became UFO, but now and then in the summer it sees the light of day and I manage few stitches. A long way to go yet....

Enjoy your weekend!

Jolly Red

For a long time I wished for one of  Jolly Red larger needlepoint tapestry kits. The price tag has always stopped me from getting one for myself, so I asked Father Christmas this year. And he obliged!
I received one of their latest designs, the Arts & Crafts Tiles.
Jolly Red is a local company, based here in Somerset.
Kelly Fletcher (mrs jollyred, as she calls herself) used to have a shop on a small trading estate in Hambridge. It was there where I met Kelly for the first time, on one of the courses she used to run from time to time. It was a wonderful day spent learning
"how to", I still have very fond memories of it, and of the lovely lunch next door, in the restaurant of the smokery at Brown & Forrest, which was included in the price of the one day course.
Kelly since closed the shop and moved down the road, where she now concentrates on designing her lovely kits, and promoting her business. Although a small company on the surface, I have seen Jolly Red kits in many shops, including large stores and there is the on-line shop of course. The kits vary in sizes, so there is something for everyone. Do check out the Christmas Stocking selection, a project for next year perhaps?
The kits are well made, clearly printed on a good canvas and include enough Anchor tapestry wool. They also run a making up service, should you need it.

As you can see, despite a busy week socially, I have started stitching already. I find this an ideal winter project, in the front of the fire. I even manage to watch the TV at the same time!

I did listen, Kelly, I am staring from the middle :)

Kelly also has a blog Jollyredstitches.

pre-Christmas mutterings

I did not intend to start my post in this way, but events, as they say, overtook me.

 Vaclav Havel, a former president of the Czech Republic and a great statesman, died today.

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I have some wonderful childhood memories of Christmas, spend usually in my grandmother's house, on the edge of a village, deep in the Czech countryside. These paintings by Josef Lada remind me so much of that place (less the ruins in the background). Yes, there was always snow. I remember the time my parents and I were picked up late in the day from the train station in the next village and driven in a horse drawn sleigh, through a spooky forest, the only light being a reflection from the white snow, and arriving to the warmth of my grandmother's country kitchen, smelling of baking and freshly cut Christmas tree. Memories......

I have always been fortunate to be able to spend Christmas with my family, be it with my Czech family as a child, and later with my own family in England. I have always tried to pass on that little bit of Christmas magic to my own children, and in the last few years to my beautiful grandchildren (although I could never quite manage the horse drawn sleigh here in England).

When my children were away studying, we told them not leave anyone on their own at Christmas time. So there was the time we received a call from our son, a day before Christmas: "mum, there is this girl from Australia, she has nowhere to go for Christmas". So arrived Katherine, with a bottle of Bundaberg and spent the holiday with us.

We have not always been able to be all together. There was that tearful "I miss you" phone call on a frosty Christmas Day from our offspring travelling in Australia. But we just put it down to those "few" beers on the beach :)

But Christmas can also be a difficult time for some people, those without a close family or friends, or those touched by a recent personal tragedy or loss, and feel that Christmas will never be the same again. Hope is a great thing and they say that time is a great healer...

In the words from Slade's Christmas song:

Look to the future now
It's only just begun.

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I wish you all a very peaceful and safe run up to Christmas!

I would like also to take this opportunity to thank you all for your friendship and support.

Oh, and talking about friendship.

I have just finished reading a beautiful book "Astrid and Veronika" by Linda Olsson.

It is about two women from different backgrounds, one young and the other old, who form an unlikely friendship and learn each other stories.

Thank you Gudrun for recommending this book on your blog.

Jane Hall

I would like to return to my last week's post. Not all the pictures I took at the Exeter show have come out. Sometime I find difficult to take pictures at shows, with the interference of all the other lighting.


One of the pictures missing was the one I took of Jane Hall's small stand. Jane Hall is an embroiderer and a fabric artist with an enormous talent. She studied Design Embroidery and now works from her studio in Dorset.
I had the pleasure to meet this petite young lady at a talk she gave to our embroidery group a couple of years ago. Her work is beautiful. She takes her inspiration from the nature around her and the results are fantastic three dimensional pieces of art, worked mainly in silk, fabric & thread; many varieties of flowers, leaves, moths, butterflies, dragonflies, cobwebs, beetles, lacewings, tree bark; they all form "the cloth of nature", as she calls it.

I bought her book " Reflections of Nature" some time later and I am glad I did, it is a shear pleasure to read and to look at.
This is not "how to" book, there are no projects and no instructions. It is Jane's creative journey, from when she was a little girl, having tea parties with fairies and looking for tree-men in the woods with her grandmother. Her world has probably always been full of magic and this reflects in her work. She is an inspiration to anyone doing or interested in embroidery.
Please have a look at her website here and while you are there, do take a look at her wedding dress.
There is also a short introduction to her DVD:  http://youtu.be/XEMQlw7YNSQ.

Solveig Hisdal

I used to knit a lot many years ago, but with changing fashion and new stitching interests, knitting needles found their way into a draw. But with so many beautiful wools and designs around I felt recently that I would like to "knit something", but I could not find the right project.
My dilemma was solved when I came across this beautiful book by a top Norwegian designer, Solveig Hisdal.

All the designs in this book are knitted using Norwegian technique (knitting the whole body of the garment in one go on circular needles and then cutting into it for openings ), which I have not done before, but I want to try. It wasn't easy to choose which design to make. Also, the wool used is not available in UK, but I like to knit using the original wool, as it can be sometime difficult to find the right substitute and right colours.

Fortunately I was able to order the required wool directly from the Norwegian manufacturer, Ull.no.

Placing my order on Thursday, my wool arrived yesterday!

I can't wait to get started!

Norwegian inspiration

This has been a very strange summer, one we will remember, and I am not talking only about the weather. My mind has turned to other memories, some good, some not so.
I would like to share with you a wonderful one, another story of inspiration.
It all started with this large coffee table book, which DH and I bought many years ago, full of beautiful photographs of Scandinavian design and its simplicity, which we both love.

           But there is a picture which stood out; a picture of a house which we loved, somewhere in Norway. To be more precise, in a place called Balestrand, on the shore of Sognefjord, the longest and deepest of Norwegian fjords. And it had a story......

We said that one day we will go and find that house.

Some years later, in June, 8 years ago, we went on a journey. We packed the car, drove up to Newcastle and took a 24 hour ferry to Bergen, on the west coast of Norway. After an overnight stay in Bergen we drove north to Sognefjord, took a ferry across and then followed the fjord east. The fjord is over 100 miles long. And as we were driving in a heavy rain, we could not help wondering if this was a such  good idea. Eventually we arrived in Balestrand, on dark, cold and wet day. Our small, family owned hotel was warm and cosy.

The next morning the sun came out and at last we could see the beauty of the place. We stayed for 3 days.

And yes, we found "our" house, you could not miss it, Balestrand is not a big place. 

From the late nineteen century until his death it was a home of the artist Hans Dahl, one of many artists who were attracted to Balestrand by its beauty, by the contrast of water and mountains, and the clear light you find here.

This villa is one of several in "dragon style", built by newcomers, in the Swiss style, very popular at the time.

Hans Dahl, when studying in Germany, became a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Kaiser Wilhelm paid Hans Dahl a visit, in the summer of 1914. He arrived on a three-stack steamer, accompanied by a flotilla of twenty four warships, all of which laid anchor in the fjord just off the house's dock. It must had been a sight!

We spent our time just wandering around Balestard and its surroundings. All the time we were there the weather was glorious, a beautiful Scandinavian summer. At night it did not get dark, it was mid June, close to the longest day and so far north the nights stay light. Our hotel room overlooked the fjord, calm and beautiful in the middle of the night.

In the middle of this small town was a small shop, with a studio above, belonging to Bjorg Bjoberg, a local artist. We got talking to this lovely lady, she showed us around her studio and told us about many artist who come and spend time here.

We both fell in love with her work. Bjorg paints what she sees around her, images of Balestrand and many, many wild flowers. She illustrated this book, which is a sort of walking guide to this lovely place.

And here is the house again

 

Although her shop was quite small, she was already an owner of a large yellow house across the street, which she showed us around and talked about her future plans for it.

Balestrand and meeting Bjorg made a huge impression on me. I came away wanting to paint!

(I should point out here that I could never draw or paint).

Unfortunately I could not afford one of her original paintings, but a couple of her prints have been hanging on our wall since.

And there was another a very special moment. It was here we received a phone call from our daughter telling us that she just got engaged.

Did I take up painting? No, not so far. But meeting Bjorg Bjoberg inspired me to look around, to notice the beauty of simple things.

And may be this was about a different inspiration. It was about a picture in a book, which inspired two middle aged people ( I am being very kind here), to go on a journey.

Will we ever go back to Balestrand? Probably not, the memories are too good.....

You can read more about Bjorg Bjoberg here, see what she has done with her yellow house.

(You might need Google to translate).

Also, you can see more of Balestrand here.

Sally Page

When I finished writing may last blog about the Pythouse Walled Gardens, I was browsing their website and I came across their own blog A Year in the Life of Pythouse Walled Garden. The blog is being written for them by Sally Page. As soon as I saw the name, I went to our bookshelves and pulled out 3 books, all written by Sally.

When I saw the first book "The Flower Shop" - A Year in the Life of an English Country Flower Shop, in the National Trust Shop a few years ago, I knew I had to have it.

Sally has a passion for flowers and flower shops, which is very obvious from her book.

A quote from the sleeve of the book: "If you have two pennies, spend one on bread and the other on a flower, says a Chinese proverb. The bread will sustain life and the flower will give a reason to live."

Trained as a florist, she had a flower shop in London, before moving to the West Country, where she worked as a florist for Ted Martin Flowers in Tisbury in Wiltshire - "The Flower Shop". Sally and her camera recorded the life in the shop month by month. The book is not only about flowers, but also about stories around the shop, its customers, about Tisbury; beautifully photographed and including some florist's tips.

So when I saw Sally's next book, I did not hesitate.

"The Flower Shop Christmas" - Christmas in an English Country flower Shop.

The book is a record of the magical 12 Days of Christmas in the flower shop.

Again, beautifully written and with stunning photographs. It is the book to pick up in the run up to Christmas, to get inspired and to get into the mood. I love this book, I always find some new idea for Christmas decorations.

I don't have (yet) the next book Sally published. It is called ""Flower Shops & Friends" - A Year's Journey around English Flower Shops, in which Sally and her camera travelled around beautiful parts of the country, again it is record of flower shops and the communities around them.

The third book is  a small book "Flower Shop Secrets".

In this book Sally shares tips and hints of a florist, some from her previous books, some new, from what type of containers to use to how to stop tulips from getting droopy.

All profits the publisher makes from the sale of this book go to MSAADA, to help women and orphans of Rwanda.

Which brings me to a note on the publisher.

When Sally finished her first book, she could not find anyone who would publish it (!!??)

So her and her partner formed their own publishing company Fanahan Books, which is now publishing all Sally's books.

But Sally is not only florist, writer and photographer. She is also a painter, something I discovered when visiting her website and suddenly I was looking at beautiful paintings.

This is one very gifted lady.

You can read more about Sally on her own website and her blog.

One more quote from her book:

"A flower gives more then a reason to live - it gives us  a means to adequately express the full range of our human emotions."

These books are beautiful to give and to receive, to get inspired or to just browse.

A copy of Sally's first book travelled to Scandinavia with me, a present for my Swedish friend,

who loves flowers, but she also liked the "Englishness" of the book.

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Now you could say that this post has noting to do with my stitching. Perhaps.

But inspirations for our creativity is influenced from many directions and by many people.

Whenever I see something beautiful, I want to go and make something. I might not have the time or opportunity (or enough talent), but it does inspire me, and this is what enriches our lives. I am sure you will agree.

I will leave you with a couple of pictures I took at Barrington Court yesterday.

There is another story of inspiration I would like to share with you, next time....

Have a good weekend!