Kites...

This were my contribution to our display at SE Area Day.

Thank you for asking Jackie.

Making space...

This week the Tour de France has provided a marvellous excuse for lots of stitching and the Big Bang has started to spread into space.

and I have been making "space" . 

My scanner refuses to produce the proper colour and even tweaking in Paintshop Pro didn't work but you will have guessed that it is various shades of indigo. I have even started on the planets but I am trying not to get ahead of myself.  I am loving this process and listening to Jude's thoughts which gently set your own in motion.

And as for the Tour de France, I have marvelled at the incredible stamina of these men and enjoyed the spectacular pictures from the helicopter.  I didn't know there were so many camper vans in the world and it revived  happy memories of  holidays in France in the days when we had our own van.

The Big Bang...

After the Black Hole there was an explosion...

beginning the journey in Space.

Proud parent....

 well that's what I feel like.  It was the SE Area Day at Ardingly on Saturday and I am proud to announce that the Sevenoak's Branch came Second in the Challenge Cup.  The theme was Flight and this was our contribution.

Beginning.........

The Magic Diaries have begun.  I don't think I have thought so much in years, my head has been whirling with ideas and I have been fighting my usual impatience to see the end result.  In the day when I used to make clothes I would always confuse myself be reading to far ahead in the pattern instead of just taking it step by step.  So here is the beginning, a Black Hole!

 

First lesson learned, soft velvet is not the best fabric for making a base!!!

Just a few more....

images from Kentwell. You will have gathered by now that I really enjoyed my day. 

The animals

Still life

 the people

 the children

 

and cloth

 

The rag picker....

Near the end of the day at Kentwell (see below) we saw a bent figure shambling along the grass, as we watched the figure sat down with all the signs of fatigue.

After a little while she took a piece of cloth from her basket and examined it closely

She then began to pick at the cloth until she had hold of one thread which she painstakingly loosened and then withdrew it, so careful not to snap it.

Then she wound the thread  round the handle of the basket.

 As I stepped forward to speak to her someone who I imagined to be some sort of  upper servant stopped me and told me to have a care but I asked anyway.  The old lady told me she picked the threads and hoped that someone would exchange the for some bread as she was very hungry.
I know it was all role play but  for a moment time was blurred, this meeting touched me deeply. It depicted the hardships of our ancestors but there are people still in the world who have to pick rags. How fortunate are we?

Inside the house...

While the gentry waited in the dining hall

food was being prepared in the kitchen

Upstairs we found the stillroom, a delight for all the senses. Where potions and salves were prepared

and the sick attended to

after dinner there was entertainment

and the kitchen staff could eat their meal.

The Bead makers......

In  the woodland men laboured mightily!

and round the corner in a clearing we found the potter and the beadmakers.

There was a very friendly looking green man

a wonderful beehive kiln,  I thought the roof had a touch of Gaudi about it.

A pretty picture.

and a cloth which I am sure I could have found a use for.

Time travel.....

yesterday I stepped back to 1553...at Kentwell Hall.  I took over 100 photographs (so I will edit them a bit) and even then now realise the ones I missed..    The Hall and the grounds are given over to a recreation of life in Tudor times and great pains are taken to achieve authenticity.  The vist kept us absorbed for nearly five hours and kept the conversation and questions going all the way home.  One thing was evident though, for us the day had been about cloth. For rich and poor, the making, using, wearing  and mending of cloth was an intergral part of life. We saw the spinners and weavers

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the felters, cross I didn't take a picture of the hats.

 The dyers, (so taken with the results I missed taking the vats).

The laundry had been done.

and in the house the seamstresses stitched their linen with linen thread.

and everywhere people wore clothes which had been made to create as nearly as possible the clothes of rich and poor in those times.

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 (Mask on the last two thanks to skeletal mess)
There was one more personto do with cloth but for me she was very special and deserves a post of her own.