Easton Walled Garden

We are having the most unseasonal weather this February and today saw us visiting Easton Walled Garden for their annual Snowdrop week.  The day has been beautifully sunny and warm so much so that we barely needed coats on.  It has been wonderful watching the gardens change and grow over the years and this year the display was superb.  The air was full of birdsong and bees and butterflies flying around.  Clouds developed a little during the morning but they added to the beauty of the day.

The visit started with a blast from the past.  Anyone remember Hector's House?  I've been singing the tune ever since.

https://youtu.be/K7Co2tdaPjg

I don't think the young gardener had a clue what I was talking about!

Looking across the parkland I could see a host of escapees in a hollow.

If you look towards the top of this image you'll see the blur of a very busy Brimstone butterfly.

The skies were really beautiful today.

I loved the beautiful lichen on the branches and the sight of the snowdrops glimpsed on the floor.

This structures are waiting for sweet peas to be planted out when it warms up some more.

An extra treat was an art exhibition in the stables at Easton with paintings by Dawn Wright and by Val Littlewood.  Val's paintings were beautifully detailed studies of various species of bee and their preferred food plant.  You can read about her paintings and about bees on her blog. 

Easton Walled Garden snowdrop week continues till this Sunday 24 February so you still have time to visit and enjoy their lovely snowdrop bank.  They open for the season the following Sunday 3 March.  How can it be nearly March already?!

Stitch Retreat Workshop

Following so closely on the heels of my Susan Denton workshop you will think I am always doing workshops.  This weekend I have had a tiring but fabulous time at a workshop with Angie Hughes organised by Nichola Keeble who runs the new(ish) company Stitch Retreats.  The Retreat was held at Stoke Rochford Hall which used to be my old stomping ground 40 years ago when it was a teacher training college.

Hard to believe this beautiful building had been almost destroyed by fire about 10 years ago.

 This beautiful Christmas tree in what used to be called the Crush Hall smelt beautiful.

We were so lucky with the weather all weekend and this was the distracting view from our seminar room.

Stoke Rochford sits in a beautiful parkland adjacent to a golf course and it was this rural location that attracted me when I was looking for a college in the 70's.
 

A lunchtime walk in the gardens revealed sculptural teasels and beautiful leaf shapes.

This fascinating glass fireplace dates to the early 20th century and must be beautiful with firelight flickering through the glass plates.

There were two classes running at the Retreat, our group with Angie Hughes and a second group with Mandy Pattullo.  Our group was 7 strong including Angie so we were very select, compact and bijou as they say.  It was lovely to have plenty of room to work and also to have lots of support from Angie who is a very relaxed and generous tutor.  

Our workshop centred on exploring velvet and that proved to be in an exciting and interesting way.  We worked with light coloured velvet and applied dyes, ink, bleach and stamps to it to gradually build up a base on which to work.

I explored several techniques that I havn't worked with much before and it was fascinating to see how different everyone's pieces were by the end of the weekend.

You can see that I was the rebel of the group, working in a landscape format instead of portrait and I chose to interpret an underwater theme rather than a garden.  By this time we had added machine embroidery and I had cut back some of my sheer top layer as I wanted to see where I needed to add more stitch and maybe some more stamps.  Just by coincidence, and probably because this venue was local to me, I had met 4 of the participants before, such is the small world of textile arts.  It was fun to spend time with new people and to receive tuition from a lovely lady.  I am going to do my best to finish my piece this week. Angie's piece is top left and was unfinished.

All of the work is beautiful and I loved seeing the way people combined the stencilled designs, stamps and colourways.  You can see the fabulous and exotic flower forms and colours that were used.  I hope I get to see some of the finished pieces some time.

You can see a short video of Angie's technique on Youtube and hear her beautiful singing voice.





We worked really hard over the weekend and enjoyed every minute of it.  The other group with Mandy Pattullo worked equally hard, maybe even harder, and produced some fabulous work.  We were invited to view their handiwork this afternoon.

Aren't these all fabulous?  They must have worked very hard as this was all collaged tiny scraps of old clothing and was all worked by hand.  If you know Mandy Pattullo's work you will recognise some of the creatures depicted.  I particularly liked the fox (by Liz Hands, fancy her being there :-)  ), the kingfisher and the blue hare. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole weekend and it was wonderful to share this creative time with friendly people.  Many thanks to Angie for all the information and techniques she shared with us and for making it a hardworking but relaxing and rewarding time.  Thank you too to Nichola for all her hard work and her great sense of fun throughout the weekend.  She worked really hard to ensure the hotel did everything to keep us happy and comfortable, not to mention well fed and watered.  Keep your eye on Stitch Retreats, Nichola has not been trading long but she is working hard to provide satisfying stitchy breaks with excellent tutors.

Another Little Day Trip

After our visit to Moulton Mill and the Flower Festival on Saturday I took the opportunity yesterday to join a local coach trip round 4 local churches which were also holding Flower Festivals. It seemed a good opportunity to visit buildings that I have often passed but never had the chance to go inside. Many of these buildings can trace their history back centuries and all were inspiring buildings.

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The church in the collage above is in the village of Donington, which was the birthplace of Matthew Flinders who was the first known European to circumnavigate the coast of Australia. He named many features of the coastline of Australia after members of his crew. Within the church is a display dedicated to Mattew Flinders including a modern stained glass window commemorating Flinders, Sir Joseph Banks, the botanist who was responsible for establishing Kew Gardens as one of the foremost botanical gardens in the world, and George Bass, the ship's doctor, after whom Bass Strait was named.

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An unexpected highlight of the day out was a visit to Springfields at Spalding. Springfields is one of those Outlet shopping places but it is also home to the Festival Gardens which are beautiful just at the moment, with all the tulips being in flower.

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I spent a very pleasant hour walking round the gardens and found the tulips glorious. If you click on the collage you can see a novel use for car exhausts! I would love to be able to make use of the rust on this sculpture. The sculpture in the bottom right of the collage is a type of windmill which should move in perpetual motion but was unmoving on such a calm day as yesterday. The surfaces of the paddles are all reflective but I couldn't get close enough to photograph them. Springfields will be especially busy this weekend when the annual Spring Flower Parade will be in full swing.

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This beautiful window was in the parish church of Gosberton which was, I think, the prettiest of all the churches. I have to apologise that I didn't photograph the church in its lovely setting. I'm sure that my DH and I will go back another time for another look as it is a lovely church. The double cross in the left hand panel is based on a cross in Southwell Minster and the Runic cross in the right hand panel is after a cross at Bakewell in Derbyshire.

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You can see from the photograph above that Gosberton's church is a substantial building. In all the churches there was the feeling of awe as your gaze is drawn ever upwards by the height of tthe building. I'm sure this was the intention when these buildings were erected. Many of the churches in Lincolnshire were built out of the wealth of the wool trade, hence their dramatic size. Gosberton was a particulary vibrant church with a great feeling of community and it was the only church that included displays by members of the local Embroiderers Guild and a Patchwork group. All of the churches had stalls to tempt people to part with a little money to maintain the churches. A lot of people had obviously worked very hard baking, sewing, knitting, and of course, there was plenty of tea and cakes on offer! Oh, and of course, the flower arrangements were inventive and stunning. A very pleasant way to spend a day.

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Today, apart from recovering from yesterday, I have been catching up on some of my sewing projects including making my first Little Gem. It just needs a little handsewing and then I shall be able to post it up here.