Standen

I am loving being on holiday! Especially when the weather is so agreeable and obliging- days like this are not to be wasted and yesterday The Mother, The Brother and I packed a little picnic (egg and ham wraps) and journeyed off to Standen House & Garden in East Grinstead, West Sussex. We had heard through the grapevine, that some of the work by the very talented designer/maker, Kaffe Fassett was being exhibited there, and as the interior of the house is well known for its use of William Morris designs in its furnishings- it was a combination not to be missed! What we hadn't realised, and was a fabulous bonus, was that they are getting ready for a tulip festival which starts next week, and the gardens are completely covered in the most fantastic display of every kind of tulip imaginable!

Every part of the garden had some kind of tulip border, tulip pot, tulip field or tulip flower bed, which combined with the usual and more permanent flowers, like the wall of Wisteria, made for an exceptional display of colour and design! Chelsea eat your heart out! Apparently around 10,000 bulbs were planted in preparation for this festival, although as most of the flowers seem to have bloomed already- there may be none left by the time the actual festival time rolls around.

The house itself is relatively new and modern in the grand scheme of things, with building work starting in 1891 and finishing three years later. It was commissioned by The Beale family, headed by James Beale who was a highly succesful solicitor from Birmingham, along with his wife and seven children. They moved from Birmingham to London so that James could manage the London office of Beale & Co, a family firm specialising in railway work. The Beales were an interesting family who travelled widely and had a very strong interest in Arts and Sciences, employing the architect Philip Webb who was a leading figure in the Arts and Crafts movement, to design and head up the project for a comfortable country home.

According to the National Trust website, 'Standen was designed to look as though it has always been here- almost as if it has 'grown' out of the rock face and is a part of the landscape, however the land that Standen now stands upon was originally made up of three farms: Stone, Hollybush and Standen.' These buildings have been incorporated into the design of the new house, which was fully modernised for the time, complete with central heating and electricity. We especially loved the conservatory room which was full of orchids, cacti, palms and other strange looking plants. It's probably a room that I would spend a lot of time in if I lived here; imagine all of the windows wide open, looking out to the lawn beyond, hearing the birds chirping in the trees. Blissful.

The house is stuffed full of William Morris designs, some of which I recognised immediately, and others that I needed a bit of a gentle reminder of their names. I learnt a little fact about the beautiful bedspread in the bottom left and centre images of the above montage; it is the William Morris 'Acanthus' design, and was supposedly hand stitched by his younger daughter, May, as a commission for a wedding present. It disappeared for a time but after about a hundred years locked away in a trunk, it was anonymously donated to Standen in the 1990s on the condition that it would always be on display; beautiful isn't it?

An artist who is often linked to William Morris in terms of inspiration and use of colour is Kaffe Fassett, and it was an absolute joy to be able to see some of his work up close and personal at the exhibition and throughout the house. The colours are astounding and the large quilts which are hanging on the walls are breathtaking in their complicated simplicity. It's amazing to see the individual stitches in the tapestry cushions and and panels, and see the little blemishes in the stitching on the quilts. The Mother was gleefully pointing out areas of machine stitch where the lines had come out from 'in the ditch' and made a little wobble- tiny imperfections that get lost in the bigger picture but show the hand crafted element up close. Nothing hand made should be absolutely perfect in my opinion, there should always be a little something to make it unique.

The colours outside reflect the colours within, I imagine Kaffe would be totally inspired by the glorious tulips covering pretty much every surface. As we are only just out of Easter, there was still an Easter themed trail to follow, in the shape of these cute little crochet bunnies. We didn't find them all- there were seven in total- but we did quite well. Poor things were mostly strapped to various trees- do you think they look like an Attic 24 pattern?

 In the Upper Garden (which was surrounded by fantastic views across Weir Wood reservoir and Ashdown Forest) there was a sweet little hut designed by Will Shannon. Nicknamed 'Bothy', it's a tiny little space just big enough for a cabin bed, chair and log burner. The walls are covered in an open weave woollen fabric which keeps the space feeling very warm and compliments the beautiful mottled stained glass in the large window and also in the door. I could definitely do with one of these in the back garden!

The views really are incredible, and there is a walkway and viewing platform that curls away from the house to take full advantage of the area.

Who needs trips to the tulip fields in Holland when you can achieve the same effect in the back garden of a country manor house?!

If you are in the area, I would thoroughly recommend you visit Standen, stat! Such a fabulous combination of arts and crafts, nature and nurture- I think the Beale family would be proud of how it has evolved.

Display Crochet

I've finished another display garment for work. This time a Stylecraft pattern, number 9294 in the beautiful Batik DK Storm (1913). I really liked working with this yarn, it was soft and pliable and was a beautiful colour. It's a blended yarn, 20% wool and 80% acrylic and you can feel the difference from a 100% acrylic yarn (although in my humble opinion, Stylecraft do the nicest 100% acrylic yarn in Special DK).

I'm not really a jumper person but the decorative pattern is very pretty. It was nice to work up, although I will admit that I frogged and re-hooked the sleeves several times. There was just something about the sleeve part of the pattern that I couldn't get my head around. I think I got there in the end and it was a relief to be stitching the pieces together.

The photos aren't fantastic but if this pattern speaks to you then I've photographed the details you will need below so you can track it down. There is also a version without the sleeves if you would rather, haha.

After finishing the above jumper I kind of threw it stroppily at the lady who runs the yarn department and said I was never doing a garment again. In return she just kind of stared at me and sheepishly handed me another parcel with the below pattern and yarn with a desperate kind of plea. So I guess it starts again!

Sunset Stitchscape Minis

Happy Easter Monday all! I just had to share the above photos with you- aren't those blossoms beautiful? It's a fabulous tree living in my Grandmother's back garden and is the pinkest pink! Which seems a silly thing to say but it also has a fabulous sweet smell and was attracting lots of insects which just proves how lovely it is.

But enough about my obsession over blossom trees. The real point of this post is to show you my completed Sunset Stitchscape Minis!! Ta-daaah!!

I really like these. They are very different to my previous stitchscape minis which were a bit more natural in colour. These ones have very much been inspired by the rich, fiery colours seen in the sky on my bus journeys home. I was a little worried at the beginning that the colours were too much, too bold, too vivid, but now they are finished and I've added more green to them, I'm pleased with how they have turned out.

I think I have mentioned before that these were based mostly on one sunset print fabric that I picked up at the Knitting & Stitching show at Olympia this year. I loved how the colours changed through the fabric and how each mini stitchscape bounced off of those colours, whether it be orange, yellow, pink or purple.

There are some standard things about stitching these little ones that I hope never to change- like the bullion knot flowers which totally make them. They are the piéce de resistance!! Mwah! (kisses fingers in an Italian style and channels the inner Gino D'Acampo) Molto bella! No, seriously, I am never really quite sure if a stitchscape is going to work until the final layer goes in. For some reason, these little flowers, whether they are bullion knots or french knots, really pull the whole piece together. They add colour, texture and perspective- you could almost reach out into the landscape and pluck a bunch of the flowers to bring home to decorate your table, know what I mean?

I hope the happy feeling these sweet little stitches bring never goes away.

Weald & Downland Living Museum

Happy Easter!!

We celebrated by having a full English breakfast this morning whilst handing round the chocolate eggs and then hopped in the car to go to the Weald & Downland Living Museum in Chichester. It is really beautiful there, luscious green trees and fields stretching out as far as the eye can see. Interspersed between all this greenness (which is Pantone's colour of the year by the way), are the sweetest little medieval and Tudor houses.

I've always wanted to hop in a TARDIS and visit the past and I guess this is the closest we are going to get to time travel. Lots of little historical houses, perfectly preserved with their own vegetable plots and outdoor privys, straw beds and cooking utensils.

They have a variety of different buildings there; houses, shops, market houses, a Victorian school house, a church, workshops, gypsy caravans, a water mill (which doesn't have any water), and lots of other industrial type buildings, all dating over a 950 year history. They have different daily demonstrations too, and some of the houses you wander into have the fires lit.and helpful people telling you about the history of the place.

Several things struck me as we wandered around; the first is how smelly it must have been to live in some of these houses with enormous fires. Even with the lack of glass in the windows of the early houses which must have created a through-draft, smelling of bonfire the entire time must not have been fun. The second is how tiny people used to be! The ceilings are very low and the stairs narrow and twisty- makes you wonder how many twisted ankles happened! Saying that, my size eights clomping around the place are probably twice the size of the feet that used to traipse these stairs.

The museum is absolutely vast with the most beautiful views, did I mention that? I love England in springtime when the trees are starting to burst out. The sun was in and out a lot so my panoramic photo has some lines in but I hope you can appreciate the beauty in it.

I think the above house was my favourite. Maybe because it was the most modern and had kitchen utensils I recognised from our own kitchen, but maybe also because of the volunteer dressed in appropriate costume working on her stitching outside the front door. I could picture myself living there actually, although would probably have had to do something about the outdoor toilet!!

There were lots of wildlife and farm animals around, and other than the excited kids jumping all over the place, it was really quiet with only the sounds of the pheasants cackling at each other and the crows having an argy-bargy in the treetops.

We took advantage of the bags of duck food being sold in the shop and went off to make some friends of the feathered variety. The Brother was throwing his bag of grains at everything that moved (hard to believe he's meant to be an adult now) whether they were interested or not. There were lots of baby birds bopping around on the surface of the pond. Some of those little ducklings looked like they were still learning how to move their feet and were randomly zip zapping all over the pond like they'd been electrocuted.

As well as the buildings to look at, there are some beautiful areas of woodland to wander through and appreciate. Every now and then you stumble across another little building that you didn't realise was there, like a little gingerbread house... no, only kidding.

There were some little Easter related things to spot though, nests full of different themed items- like cute bunnies, eggs, flowers....

So all in all, a very Eastery day! Complete with lambs, baby birds, an Easter nest hunt, sunshine and spring greenery. I hope you all had a similarly themed day!