Just We Three

No, not We Three Kings, but Stephen, Delphi and myself.

We are all ready for Christmas. Well, as ready as we can be,

We have yet to take delivery of Delphi's main present ordered online but are assured that Father Christmas will deliver it on Monday. Monday is D Day. Duckday. How I'm going to get it into her sock without her seeing, smelling or hearing it...is a moot point but I shall cross that bridge when Duck is eventually delivered. We can only hope that Delphi will be out working with Daddy, on that day.

The tree is up and trimmed and there is a mountain of presents underneath to be divvied up come the day. The mantel piece is decorated to within an inch of its life. The garden is festooned with tasteful twinkly lights.The hallway has been transformed with birds, holly, ivy and mistletoe and glistening heart shaped wreaths.

And of course the stockings are tied to the hall bannisters.
Ah yes, the stockings.

It all started with Delphi's own Woof Woof one.

I felt left out. I've never had a stocking. Well, not one I can stuff with chocolate and earrings and perfume. SO, as you know I made one for myself.

Then Stephen, not to be left out, we decided, Delphi and I, needed one too. His had to be rather different.

So there we are..we three.....all lined up and waiting. Delphi's is already full to bursting point with goodies and bless'er, she knows that things are in there, she stops on the stairs to sniff but she never attempts to ravish said stocking. She's a good girl and is waiting for the right time.

She has heard the song, with the line "...so be good for goodness sake..." over and over and over and over, ad nauseam, wherever we go and she has taken it to heart.

Yes. We are very pleased with our efforts.

But what do we do now?
Aha! Never fear.

I woke in the middle of the night with

an idea. 

I had to write it down just in case I failed to remember it come getting up time.
SO, with this in mind I shall fiddle and play and see what I come up with. It's all the fault of those stockings...this idea,
And I have no notion of where it will take me. To Happy Days I hope.

I shall have a blog holiday now for the Festive Season but will be back in the New Year with said idea fully formed. < ahem >.

Hope to see you on the other side.

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR all you GYR'ers.

Crafty Thinking.

I have been a 'crafter' for 50 years or more....long before the word crafter was invented. Back then we were creative people who simply made things which other people preferred ( if they could ), to buy.

I have been a professional crafter since my early twenties. This meant that what I made was sold to the public in such quantity, that it paid the mortgage. Many of the companies which were founded when I was young are still going. They were founded long before many of the present proponents of the crafting revolution were born! Many fell by the wayside after a good run at it. Nowadays, I don't consider myself a professional, as I have retired and I just play at it. But I still consider myself ( if you will forgive the unashamed plug ), professional in the execution of what I do.

There has been such an explosion of 'crafting' lately. The television and magazines are full of it. Everyone, we are told, can do it. Hmmmm can they?
Everyone CAN MAKE SOMETHING. Not everyone can be an artisan. Certainly, not everyone should sell to the public.

I only sell at craft fairs at Christmas, nowadays. The rest of the year frankly, is not worth bothering with. Years ago I could sell what I made all year round. I tailored my production to the season, as a good craftsman should. Sadly, however, I have watched, over the last 30 years, the British craft industry, dwindle to a pale imitation of its former self.

So, not only has the word 'craft' it seems, changed its meaning but the world of British craft has changed beyond all recognition.

Back then, there were a great many small companies producing original, beautifully handmade goods with the sweat of their brow and blood of their thimbleless fingers ( or those of their outworkers.) The public demanded no less.
If the item was not well made, fit for the purpose and original - it did not survive their scrutiny. They did not buy it. The company would have gone bust. So the British craft industry thrived.

Then, the world began to open up - people started to travel more. They went to the Far East on their hols. They realised that they could get things made there much more cheaply. They brought things back with them ( as folk have done ever since the ark pitched up on Mt. Ararat! ). Companies which began to have things made abroad, turned up at fairs. The death knell sounded for those makers who spent their days hunched over a table, pouring their soul into their hand made items. The Trade shows I attended began to be filled more and more with foreign goods. It was hard to compete. It was impossible to compete. Gradually, public taste was changed, they became more fixed on price and less on quality and originality.
It was rather a chicken and egg situation. Do you offer the public what you think it should have, do you if you like, educate the public or do you follow trends and go with the flow regardless? It's a tough one if your inclination is to stick to your old fashioned values and remain a 'craftsman', an artisan.

Many of the goods coming in from abroad were tatty and badly made. They used inferior materials and were produced in less than ideal situations. Still, because they were encouraged by magazines, the T.V. and advertising, the public bought into this idea. The General P became much much less discriminating as a result. That lack of discrimination is still here with us today. Only much worse because, with the explosion in the U.K. of those producing hand made goods, we now have a whole strata of poorly made, unoriginal run of the mill British items. Sad.

I shall probably lose friends with the publication of this blog post. Especially if I air my views on Facebook, which I think is rife with this sort of thing. There are many super hand made items on Facebook - don't misunderstand me. But there are equally, a great many poorly made, badly thought out, trite ( If I see one more hessian heart tied up with string I'll scream!), overdone, unoriginal items out there. And not cheap either.

No apologies to http://www.etsy.com/listing/101801470/50-off-shabby-chic-stuffed-hessian

Nearly every fair I go to, there is someone, who has been 'crafting' for a mere few months, producing an idea that has been done to death, that wasn't their idea in the first place. The magazines make me smile. " Here is a craftsperson  who is making  THIS.... oh how lovely! They have been doing it a WHOLE YEAR..and now they are established. " Piffle. Nine times out of ten there is very little skill in what they do, it's not original as I say and, having made a study of how long these people trade...they are here today gone tomorrow. I could give you a list of advertisers in the back of these magazines who were plugged to within an inch of their life on the web but who, now are NOT FOUND items when you Google! The saddest thing is, these people are clogging up the works and diluting the pool.

So let's hear it for the truly CRAFTED item. One that has and will stand the test of time. That is not so simple and banal that it can be copied by anyone with a needle. One that has been thought up and is produced by someone with some SKILL and DEVOTION to what they do. These people are out there. Please Joe Public - patronise them and not those ideas that are pathetically brainless in their idea and execution.

I have watched the 'craft market' decline with foreign imported goods. I have watched its resurgence - its regeneration with the bring back 'knitting and crochet' revolution ( yawn ) - all very well but do think of something original and different please and make sure you are good at it before you foist it on the public- and I have watched the type of goods on offer slide into a mire of unoriginal thought and poor craftsmanship. I'm upset by it. I'm also irritated by it.

Let us make an analogy. Let's take the craft market ( already under threat because of the prevailing climate of jitteryness about the economy,) and liken it to a sponge cake. You can cut slices of that cake - it is after all only so big a cake, thickly or thinly. If you slice that cake thickly you are more likely to get a whole piece. If you try to slice it thinly, it will fall to pieces. See what I'm getting at?

We have a situation where there are too many 'crafters'...the cake is slicing too thinly and we are all the poorer for it.

When you go out to look for handmade goods, please keep in your head the fact that the word 'craft' in its dictionary definition means and I quote from the Oxford English.....
" Skill in doing or making something, as in the arts; proficiency.To make or construct (something) in a manner suggesting great care or ingenuity. An occupation or trade requiring manual dexterity or skilled artistry."
And with this in mind, look at your purchase with a clear idea of what you are buying. Don't be influenced by the herd. Think for yourself.

Felt Pretty

I am sitting at my computer at 1. 50 in the morning. It's not something I would normally be doing, you comprehend. But for quite a bit of pain in the bits and pieces, I would be snoring my head off along with my husband and dog.

It's not conducive to sleep. Neither is their snoring..but I digress.

In my post Thrifty Thinking I showed you the few small decorative boxes I had made for friends for Christmas, to contain bath bombs and the like. One good friend will be getting something a little bigger and more unusual.

Take one ready made Christmas stocking from Hobbycraft. Cost - about £2.50. You couldn't buy the felt for this.
Onto this rule diagonal lines and then make inch squares. Sew with a chain or running stitch. I used gold foil thread but plain is fine.
Using some dark green felt cut a circle which is about as big as a tea plate. If you like you can scallop the edges to make it more tree-like. Offer this up to your stocking and draw a line around it where you think it should go.

At the junction of each square sew a sequin...colour optional, but leave the squares inside the tree blank. No point in adding sequins here.
Cut out, in paler green felt about 25 small leaves - some facing one way, others the opposite way. Onto these sew with fairly large stitches, some veins, with dark green embroidery thread. Sew these to the green tree shape, positioning them carefully, some over the edges. If you are clever you can do this job in one process.

Leave a largish gap in the middle of your tree. Between the leaves sew with large stitches and with green embroidery thread, pine needles, here and there. Then add some red sequins to look like holly berries.

Cut out, in cream felt a bird shape which will fit into the middle of your tree. Cut his beak ( 2 ) and his wings ( it's up to you how many layers there are - I have four ) and his tail in a separate colour. I used brown. I also used a different brown for his face and the darker version for his crest for the top of his head. Sew with embroidery thread, the feathers of his tail and wings. Make up the two parts of the beak in yellow felt and stuff lightly. Close up the beak and embroider the central line. Cut another piece of cream felt for the back of the bird and lightly slip stitch around him leaving the bottom open so you can lightly stuff him....Hmmm stuffed partridge....)...not too fat now.
Close him up.  Add the beak as you stitch around him. Stitch on a black bead for an eye. If you like you can embellish him a little with red thread. Sew all the pieces of the wings together and add the tail.

Cut in yellow felt, eight pear shapes ( two each pear ) so you have a pair per pear < sorry >.
Slip stitch these and lightly stuff them.Close them up and then with brown thread make a semi circle and an inverted V shape at the bottom of each to indicate the indentation in the bottom of the pear.

Now sew all these to your tree shape, but leave some parts of the bird ( eg. his tail ) and the pears free of the backing.

Before you stitch the tree to the sock, add sequins and beads here and there for a bit of sparkle.

In brown felt, cut out a tree trunk - three branches at the top is sufficient. Sew this to the bottom of the tree. ( Make sure you leave a space for this when you sew on the leaves and pears. ) Pad this very lightly and slip stitch the bottom.

Cut out a banner in cream making it bend a little. You will also need two wavy ends, ( you can find patterns online ). Stitch the running thread and then the words and sew this over your tree trunk.

Add a wavy edge to the top of the stocking ( cut out a paper pattern for this - you'll find it easier to measure, ) and add sequins where ever you like.

Finally make a bigger pear with two padded leaves and add this to the hanger which is sticking out of the top of your stocking.

This stocking is based on one which is a kit from Bucilla ( I am informed no longer available - that is why I made my own ) which was HORRENDOUSLY expensive here in the U.K.

I made this one for about £5.

And about 24 hours of work, over a week.

Tremendous fun and pretty result.
Do you think she'll like it?
I think she would like it even more if I put a nice little something in it don't you?

Happy stitching!

Light Fantastic!

Last year when I came to take out my Christmas lights ( and I have five sets just for the tree alone ), I found to my dismay that two of them had gone kaput.

I bought another set but found that, when they came, they were rather short and were really only fit for the very top of the tree.
So this year, I am being prepared and am buying early for Christmas....I'm concerned you see, that the best lights ( those I inevitably want ) will sell out and I'll be left high and...well... dark.

I've ordered some sweet little red berry lights from my friend's shop and have ordered these from John Lewis to be delivered to my local Waitrose store...how convenient is THAT!

I thought they looked rather like real cones.

Blow me...this year I looked at my lights ( I shan't be caught out twice I can tell you....) and ANOTHER set has gone. This is the beautiful set of complex lights that look like mini chandeliers - the set everyone comments on when they walk in my sitting room as I string them up along the mantelpiece.

It's a conspiracy!
These lights I had from Linda Barker only 5 years ago and they weren't cheap I can tell you! Luckily my very handy husband made them work again but still a few at the very end remain unlit. There is nothing we can do, he says.

My mantelpiece with the lovely chandelier drops...working

We are being encouraged to be green and to go for LED lights as they burn less energy. They are however much more expensive than the old fashioned - "look for the white bulb, take it out and swap yer bulb and bingo! they work again type". It's possible to buy this kind of set for £3.99, LED sets are £15.00 upwards.

Are we being LED up the garden path do you think < sorry >?


So, I shall bite the bullet and buy. But I won't be happy if they too go kaput in five years time!



I rather like these too!

Rather like little violets I think.

The tree with five sets of working lights.

I stumbled upon these...oh how I would love to add them to my collection of old Christmas decorations.....but they are all the way over in America...and would probably cost a packet to ship.

They're little foil light reflectors. I have a set of late 19th century metal candle holders for the tree rather like them. They would be good tree fellows I think? But no.....

A garland from Cothele house in Cornwall 20, 000 dried flowers.......

Now if was really pulling out the stops! THIS is what I'd do.....

A garland made from flowers with hanging lights. Apparently it takes three men to get them in place!

Cothele...a National Trust House in Cornwall.

I don't have three men and I don't have a house as fine as Cothele!
We'd be doing more than just gathering rosebuds! Phew!

Thrifty Thinking.

The Christmas making season is upon us. I do quite a bit of making for friends for Christmas and I have made a start.

A friend who likes little Marks and Spencers boxes of Champagne Truffles gave me a box the other month - she knows what a boxophile I am. She followed it up with a very thoughtful present of a filled box of truffles and so Iended up with TWO boxes.

I immediately knew what I would do with them as they were crying out to be used a homes for silk corsage flowers or pomanders, being of a round disposition, you understand. ;)

I took off the labels, leaving the bottom of the box with its dark brown almost black finish. I cut a circle in a matching paper, ( all the papers I've used are Stampin' Up. They are such good quality and never tear or wrinkle when gluing them. I'm sure you could find some good papers in your collection). Then I glued that to the bottom to disguise the shop label.

Next I took a LONG piece of paper ( still not quite long enough I had to join it ), and glued that to the side.
If you make sure you have a decent overlap on both top and bottom, you'll be able to bend it over the top of the box and onto the bottom-  which is of course the top. IN other words, bend the paper into the cavity of the box and glue it and then over the flat top.
It helps if you snip the paper first down to the level of the box.

Whilst this is drying you can create your flower. For the second box, I used a very pretty lining silk in cerise interspersed with an embroidered net which I picked up at the Kensington Dollshouse Festival a while ago. This is finished with a tiny sprig of 1950's gold net, a couple of toning ribbons folded and glued ( for the top rose ) and some unusual tiny bobble trim, I got from an old scarf, in cream. A gold button decorates the top flower middle and two buttons are placed one on top of another in the corsage flower. A brass one and a mother of pearl in a dark red. To disguise the holes in the top button, I squeezed a little pearl drops in gold into them.

Then it was all mounted onto black stiff net and a clip was attached. If you want a tutorial on how to make them GO HERE> Then I mounted the flower on toning card and stuck it into the centre of the box lid.

The  first box was created in exactly the same way in a sophisticated colour palette of black, gold and cream.

I used a  paper edge punch to make a decoration for the box top and used a lovely textured off white Bazzil paper.

The pomander was made in the same way as HERE>

Never throw any of your parcel ribbon away. The black wired ribbon came on a box of cosmetics I had for Xmas, one year. SO useful in small amounts.


The flowers are made from cream lining silk and gold tissue ( which doesn't, I have to say, crinkle well with heat, but I persevered.) Again in the middle, is a gold button and a little rosette of the 1950's gold net.

Never throw boxes like this away...if you are crafty!

You never know when you might need them :)

What's more...apart from being a present chosen with care and a lot of thought for the recipient... you would never buy something like this in the shops. Or if you could, you'd pay and arm and a leg.

And who amongst us in these straitened times, has that to give?

What WOULD we craft with ;) ?

The Birds and the Bees.

Many of you will know that, in my younger days, I was part of a Morris dancing side. The kit we wore then, was a white blouse, with a white embroidered in white skirt, knickerbockers with broderie lace on them and a pale blue tunic which went over the head and was secured at the waist by a band. Red socks, red shoes and of course, bells completed the outfit.

After a while, I began to be a bit bored with our ordinary Kit!

As I was a musician half the time and a dancer the rest, I spent much of the time with my back to the audience. How much nicer I thought, if the audience had something to look at, on my boring blue
back.

So I took out my needle and embroidery threads and, with the help of some books on Roumanian embroidery, I stitched some pretty flowery patterns.

How boring was the front of my kit now!

So I stitched  two little fellows from the Lindisfarne Gospels whom I called Bill and Ben.

Bill and Ben began to get a bit lonely on the front. So I added a couple of birds and snakes also from the Lindisfarne Gospels - a beautiful Mediaeval illuminated manuscript I much admired.

Of course...there was just a little space to squeeze in a few more flowers.
Then I added two Dorset Buttons I'd picked up at the Wimborne Folk festival, in Dorset, naturally.

So now, everyone front and back had something to look at. Except me. I couldn't see any of it.

So I began a running design along the hem.

The last bit was one of the birds I had already stitched for my final City and Guilds exam piece as I liked him so much. He's a Mandarin Duck.

And the final bird on the hem was a Wren.

There wasn't much else to stitch onto!

But I found a corner!

Right where the buttons did up at the sides.

And I had started a trend. Others in the side decided they too wanted to have embroidery on their kit which reflected their personality. My dancing partner, Trish embroidered a huge Dragon on the back of her pinafore. Hmm....What did that say about her I wonder ;)

I no longer use the kit. But I take it out now and again and look at it. I might be tempted to add just a weeny bit more.
:)

Remember, Remember....

High winds and lashing rain have taken a toll on the garden.
Not to worry - it's only 80 days to Christmas! :)

But before that, naturally, we have to take in Halloween and Firework Night, November 5th.

The first, of course, is left over from our primeval past- All Hallows Eve, when ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in your nighty, are allowed to roam the earth. When the boundary between the living and the dead thins for a night and we can all, so it's said, feel the presence of the otherworld more keenly.

Harvington Hall..a place where ghosties and ghoulies might be found.

No sooner do we get this over and done with than we have Bonfire Night.

Now I am not a killjoy. I am all for people having fun. But not at others' expense. November the fifth, and it seems, two weeks either side of it are just plain hell for some. Especially for our four legged friends. There are also a few people who, heedless of the inconvenience to others, will let off their fireworks at an ungodly hour of the night. There is a rule that it all has to be over by 10p.m. but some will just flout the rule.

I do not like November 5th.
I dislike it for the reason given above and I hate it because it glorifies an incident in our National History which I think it's best, if not forgotten then properly understood..

History is not considered relevant to modern life! Children in school in the U.K. learn tiny pockets of sugar coated history which are divorced from each other and as a result they have no concept of where they themselves, appear in the grand scheme of things, nor of the continuity of National life and why the today we experience is 'how it is' and how it came to be so.

Peacock Butterfly in the grounds of Coughton Manor

How many people celebrating Bonfire Night know what they are actually doing? Under half I expect. And those will be of a certain age. < Ahem >.

I cannot in all honesty celebrate, with a smile and a toffee apple, an event so steeped in blood and so fundamentally nasty as The Gunpowder plot.

Not that I am with the Plotters. Though my sentiments I have to say steer that way, today in the cold light of the 21st century. And its politicians. :)

Coughton Manor one of the Recusant family homes

My friend Valerie Drew and I are avid history buffs. We love the 17th century. An age when all those elements of life we take for granted ( good and bad ) in our own age, began to coalesce and form into institutions, ideas and inventions which shaped not only little old England but the rest of the world too. The century, to our mind, when everything started to become more modern.

And because we are 17th century enthusiasts ( with a smidgeon of the late 16th century thrown in ) we are great studiers of the 'Gunpowder Plot.'

Over the next year or so we are making it our business to go to every place associated with the plot, the people and the places.
And many still exist.

Coughton Court. To this house the plotters escaped but rode on.

For those who may be reading this who are not familiar with The Plot - here is a potted version.

Henry VIII  in about 1533 wanted a new wife...the old one was too old to give him a male heir.

Henry got his way by divorcing ( unheard of !) his old wife Katharine of Aragon and marrying a young bit of floosie Anne Boleyn.

The Pope who was boss of everybody- and soul, excommunicated him..ie: told him that he was a very naughty boy and he would never go to Heaven.

Henry retaliated by forming his own Church with himself at the head. Effectively he was an English Pope. He rejected a lot of the mumbo jumbo of the Catholic church ( his words not mine ), and made up a lot of new mumbo jumbo to replace it. Many of his courtiers followed suit, many didn't.

A lot got their heads cut off, a lot more lost money and lands.
Henry got rid of the Monasteries - think of all that lovely money he could release - and did.

Things jog along a while. Anne Boleyn is beheaded - Henry still hasn't got a male heir. At least he gets one with Jane Seymour his third wife ( who dies ) and, after a few more wives Henry dies happy. His heir Edward is only a boy. But he is a very Protestant boy with big ideas about the New Church of England. He comes down pretty hard on all the Catholics left high and dry with no church to complain to, here in England.

Oh dearie me.... Edward dies too. His sister ( daughter of Katharine of Aragon ) becomes Queen and  is Catholic -ALL CHANGE!
Back comes the original church and all the Protestants are now in deep water or more likely Fire!
She wasn't called Bloody Mary for nothing.

Mary too kicks the bucket. Now it gets really interesting. Waiting in the wings is Elizabeth 1st - Good Queen Bess, ( daughter of Anne Boleyn ). She too is Protestant- ALL CHANGE. Now the Catholics are in for it again.

Elizabeth doesn't want to rock the boat too much. She thinks it might be ok to be a Catholic if you keep quiet about it but some of her courtiers have other ideas. " But Madam! The plots..the Catholics are so good at fomenting plots..they want you off the throne and they want Catholic Mary Queen of Scots' little bum on the seat instead!"

After a while and a few plots, Elizabeth tightens up on Catholics.
And the Catholics, as they would, pull up their chausibles, brandish their rosaries, take a deep breath and...plot.

By the end of Elizabeth's reign ( end of the 1500's ) there is real trouble brewing. A lot of Catholic men have been sent abroad to study.....how to be secret priests. They come back to England and fan out to minister to the scattered flock of what is left of England's Catholics. Elizabeth's cronies hunt them down one by one. But more come. People welcome them into their homes, they build priest holes for them to hide in when houses are searched. Some are found, other aren't. All very clever and well...Romantic isn't it?

Elizabeth dies. James 1st comes down from Scotland. ( Son of Mary Queen of Scots ).But unlike his Mum he is Protestant too - with a capital P. He carries on the work, chasing Catholics.

It's getting rather too hot for Catholics now. They can't DO anything. Anything at all. They get promises of this and that but nothing ever happens.
And so, one day a few of them get together and they...yes...they PLOT!

Enter ( shall we call him ) Guy Fawkes. It may not have been his real name and he had lots of names but history knows him best as this. He and few friends get this idea that it would be a fine thing to blow up the houses of Parliament ( not the one that is there now, that is 19th century ) - with all the courtiers, bishops and archbishops and members of Parliament in it. VLADA BA BOOM. NO more Government. AT ALL.

So they manage to get together a lot of gunpowder and a few armaments and they hide them in the cellars of the Wesminster Building.
Poor deluded fools. They are a bit naive, actually they are INCREDIBLY naive and truly they don't have a workable plan at all. I mean...would you dry out sopping wet gunpowder in front of a roaring fire?
Oh yes they did.

They had no real plan of what might happen afterwards, no idea how to escape should it all go tits up.

Inevitably they were betrayed.
Hunted down.
Caught.
Tortured.
And executed in one of the foulest ways possible. ( No I won't go there...look it up ).

SO that is why I cannot celebrate November 5th.
Part of me says...what a pity they didn't succeed...I wonder what it might have been like now as a result?
Part of me says - the destruction would have been colossal. Not just Parliament but ordinary homes,  plenty of innocent people would have perished too, men,women, children and don't forget the dogs. There were a lot of dogs in London then ;) How awful.

But mostly I just think of the state of mind of these poor people driven to such an act by desperation. Naive yes, but brave, single minded, honest, devoted people who just wanted to be left alone with their religious conscience, to run their lives.

I have no religion. No faith, no creed at all.
But when I go to the places where these people plotted, walked, hid themselves in absolute fear and terror of being caught and eventually died.....I am totally in awe of them and of their conviction, their total commitment - come what may, their tenacity and their sheer bravery.

Val and I went to Harvington Hall and Coughton Manor both places associated with Catholic families in or around the PLOT.

Harvington Hall. Here are to be found some of the finest priest holes to have been made by Nicholas Owen

Lovely idyllic places filled with flower gardens.
So it's not ALL horrible :)

The courtyard at Harvington.

ALL photos courtesy of Valerie Drew.