Quilts, Tussie Mussies and Weather Vanes

Here I am again! I can't believe how much blogging I've been able to do whilst on holiday this week, as well as some creativity, gardening and a bit of going out and about too. Midway through the week I had a lovely day out with three good friends of mine. We met when our oldest children were babies (we have 11 between us), and more than twenty years on we still meet up regularly for days and evenings out. Our get-togethers have changed over the years from livey, fun events with our children playing together, to calmer, quieter (and just as much fun) occasions where we get the chance to wander, chat and drink coffee. This week we decided to go to the American Museum in Britain which is just outside of Bath, a country house which houses a collection of Americana.  I hadn't been here for a while, and was looking forward to seeing it again. We had rain to start with, but it turned into a very sunny day indeed, and we were delighted to see this woodland full of bluebells on our arrival.

A brightly-painted wagon was one of the first things to greet us.

And then this fabulous bank of daffodils in many different varieties.

Daffodils must be one of the most seratonin-boosting flowers around.

Claverton Manor, which houses the museum, sits high on a hill overlooking a beautiful valley. 

In fact, the canal where P and I walked last weekend is far below. Below the front lawn is a tipi which some children were playing in, an incongruous sight in such English countryside. I was quite tempted to venture in myself.

Grand vistas opened up around us and once the sun came out, the views got even better.

This is the Mount Vernon Garden which echoes George Washington's garden in the US. There were formally-clipped box hedges, and then a more relaxed spring garden.

These double daffodils caught my eye - aren't they lovely?

There was blossom,

and a delicate flowering currant,

which looked pretty against this little garden house,

and a stone grotto - I liked the graceful stone shell.

The gazebo was painted, like my own shed, in the palest blue although perhaps it's a little more ornate than my shed.

There was a little shop which sold herbs, and inside it they were hung up to dry. If I had high ceilings it'd be fun to do this at home.

The shop also sold tussie mussies - I feel the need to make my own tussie mussie, although I might not carry it around with me in public.

After a delicious lunch there it was time to look around the house. Inside it's very grand as you might expect, elegant and well-proportioned.

The period rooms have been brought here from the US, wood panelling and all. The writing desk in this room was rather appealing. I can imagine myself here, I think.

This stunning dress was worn at a ball which George Washington attended. The guide told us that the staff at the museum like to think that it may have danced with him!

This was my favourite room. The walls are stencilled with strawberries and the white lacy bed canopy is crocheted. Isn't it pretty?

The Museum is famous for its collection of quilts, some of them very old indeed. They are amazing works of art, ranging from the 18th to mid 20th century, painstakingly stitched, appliqued and patchworked. I took so many photos of them that I decided to put them into little mosaics to stop this post from becoming over-long. I was pleased that they came out well as we weren't allowed to use flash and the quilts are stored in a room with the windows shut to prevent fading.

Some are incredibly intricate and contain symbolism, the designs and motifs carrying meaning which would have been very familiar to the women who made them.

There was lots of beautiful embroidery too of animals and insects, and even a quilt with a repeated pineapple design.

After all this quilt-related excitement, we headed back to the cafe for a restoring cup of tea and a cake - well, we did need to keep our strength up. Then it was into the Folk Art Gallery which was a visual feast. I loved this Lady Liberty weather vane, a recent commission by the gallery.

Here are some naive bird sculptures,

and more gorgeous weather vanes.

I thought this little jumping horse was delightful, and loved the rich, deep red walls of the gallery which really set everything off perfectly.

After a quick look around the American toy exhibition (for some reason I forgot to take any photos there), and the Kaffe Fasset shop we headed for home, tired but having had a lovely day out together. I can recommend the museum, especially if you're interested in textiles, and shall leave you with my favourite quilt: an attractive nine-square one in yellow, green and cherry red.

See you soon x

Along The Canal

Hello again! Last Saturday was beautiful down this way - it was bright and sunny with real warmth in the air. On a day like this we couldn't stay indoors, so we pulled on our walking boots, drove to Bath, parked on the outskirts in a place we know well, and headed down to meet the Kennet and Avon Canal as it snakes east out of the city. It truly was a gorgeous day with the bluest sky I've seen this year. 

The narrow boats were looking very jaunty and colourful indeed, some with little gardens on top, others with bikes parked nearby. 

There were dogs, and people sitting in chairs in the sun chatting, and a good many craft chugging up and down the canal. Every time we walk here on sunny weekends we seem to see a narrowboat which has been hired by a stag party - last summer there was a boat full of pirates, and this time men in fancy dress - hilarious!

Above our heads some white frothy blackthorn blossom was blooming. I can't get enough of blossom-against-blue-sky photos lately - I'm sure that it does me good just to look at them.

In the autumn there will be soft blue sloes on these branches, but at this time of year clouds of tiny white flowers with long spidery stamens decorate them.

The hawthorn leaves looked almost neon green in the light.

Looking strangely unseasonal, a very healthy mistletoe plant was growing quite low down in this tree. Funny how we all forget about its existence after Christmas.

As we walked along the towpath we passed lots of cyclists and walkers, and families enjoying the sunshine.

On the bank a group of celandines shone very brightly indeed. It felt as if the day had been filmed in 'glorious Technicolour'.

And over a very well-to-do garden wall a pink ornamental currant looked very pretty against that sky.

The Georgian terraces and crescents of the Bath skyline gleamed on the hills around the city as sheep and their lambs grazed quietly in the sunshine.

As we walked back to Bath we stopped for a cup of tea at the Holburne Museum, and I couldn't resist taking a photo of these tissue paper flowers, an Easter workshop creation. 

They really did make me happy, in such pretty colours that they reminded me of the tissue paper flowers I used to make at school for Easter bonnets and Mother's Day cards.

Refreshed by our tea, we walked on into the city to pick up D from work. The buildings looked beautiful in the sunshine, the pale stone reflecting the light. Jane Austen referred to it as 'the white glare of Bath', and I can see why. The houses were built on great wealth and were designed to impress.

The tall, elegant Georgian terraces are very pleasing to the eye. We come here regularly for shopping and entertainment, but I never fail to enjoy the beauty of the place.

When we were first married we lived in Bath for a few years, before moving to the town we live in now. We rented the top floor flat in a Georgian house similar to the ones above and had wonderful views across the city. The stairs were hard work, though!

After a bit of a stroll we finished up in the centre of Bath, collected D from work and headed home, tired and happy.

I hope you enjoyed our sunny April walk - you're very welcome to come along next time.

See you soon x

Botanical Doodles

Hooray! We have made it to the Easter holidays (odd that Easter is already behind us) and April is here. We have a good few things planned for the two weeks which lie ahead, but I am looking forward to some of my own creative time, and time outdoors in the garden. There are plants to put in and seeds to sow, edges to be trimmed and beds to be weeded and dug. I can't wait. Here's the April page of my calendar.

I have been doodling lately with my rediscovered fountain pen and new purple ink which I mentioned  a while ago in this post. There are few things I like more than writing on the cream-coloured pages of my notebooks (when I first read George Orwell's '1984' I was struck by Winston Smith's illicit enjoyment of opening his journal and writing on its cream pages).
And so I have started to make little inky doodles of my favourite subject matter - yes, you guessed it, flowers and plants. If you search for botanical doodles on-line you will come across a mind-boggling collection of amazingly complex and beautiful flowery designs, often for colouring. Mine are not as ambitious as these. I started by copying botanical doodles from Pinterest to 'warm up', but soon started to come up with some of my own.



I like the idea of reducing a plant to its most simple form on the page whilst still keeping it recognisable.



I never tire of the wonderful forms of plants: the shapes of petals, the angle of stamens, how the stem joins the flower, how side shoots are arranged. The variation in nature is extraordinary, and I have really enjoyed trying to capture this in quick little doodles, conjured up from the familiarity of plants I know well. Having said that, some of the doodles are quite abstract.

I find that drawing with ink is like painting with watercolours - the colour is translucent and allows the paper underneath to shine through.

They take seconds, rather than minutes to draw, and are quite engrossing and addictive.

Here's my favourite, a plantain - I was pleased with this one. I've always enjoyed the slightly space-age shape of them, and am looking forward to seeing them in grassy verges and meadows in a month or so.

During a quiet moment in my lunch break the other day I got out my coloured biros and drew on lined paper from my jotter. The pressure to produce something 'perfect' disappears when it's not done on the pages of a beautiful notebook, but a scrap which can be discarded. I've stuck them into a nice brown-paper notepad.

I experimented a bit with colouring-in, but discovered that I preferred them monochrome - very unusual for a colour-freak like me.

I hope you've enjoyed my doodles. I'll leave you with some hawthorn twigs which I picked from a local hedgerow and are greening up nicely in my little stoneware mug.



See you soon x