Out and About

This week has been very busy.  After the heatwave that we experienced the week before when I did very little because it was so hot, the weather broke at the weekend, which was just as well because my younger son ran his 100th marathon, in pouring rain.  He was supported by his running friends who were brilliant, and because this run was made up of 5 laps of 5 miles many accompanied him on the final lap including my grandson.  I am so proud of them both.

My son in the white cap

Arriving at the finish, arm aloft

The cake!

His shirt!

We were all drenched by the end but luckily the sun came out in the afternoon and we started to dry out.

A few weeks ago I was asked to accompany someone to the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham.   Now I don't usually go to this one but I decided to go so off we went from Northampton station on Friday morning.  A great many very fit young men on the platform and we realised they were on their way to Edgbaston where England were playing Australia in the Ashes.  However we got off before them 

and after walking round the stalls, where I was extremely frugal and only bought a pattern and some sewing machine needles, we looked at the competition quilts.  I took over 70 photos but I am not going to show them all and have just picked out a few.

 I loved this one based on the London Underground map and entitled 'Mind the Gap'.  It was Highly Commended..

What fun this one was - Dame of Australia - based on Dame Edna Everage and an Emu and made by an Australian.

Entitled 'Mary Simon Re-visited' this Baltimore quilt I found stunning.  It is hand quilted and hand appliqued.

Finally (I have not subjected you to too many photos), I was pleased that there were juniors exhibiting because I think it is so important to pass on these sewing skills to the next generation.  I loved this one:-

'I Wore That When'

Second place in the Young Quilter/Embroiderer aged 10-13 years.  This young lady had minimal help and used recycled clothes and buttons.  She used hand and machine quilting.

A good exhibition in good company, so thank you for making me go!!

Sock club was yesterday and I have finished my 'cable' socks that are the current project.  However they will be going off to Yarndale for the Sock Line, with my patchwork socks.

Patchwork socks

Cable socks

I have now started a new pair of socks for a friend, but what will be our next project?

Crafty at last!!

With June such a busy month at Chester Farm, I have been glad of some time to just sit and finish off a few items and pick up a few UFOs and generally relax.

The first item that I was determined to complete and has been around for 18 months was my Attic24 Woodland blanket.  I was given the pack as a Christmas present in 2017 so my sons will be pleased to see it finished at last.

I have loved making it but I must admit that when I was down to my last few rows I found it was like reading a good book: I didn't want it to end but just go on and on......!  However what to do next?

Well this was a no-brainer because sometime ago I started a High Tea crocheted fusion quilt, using my Mini Mania squares.  

Three down and about 15 to go but as they are all different sizes I am going to have to think outside the box for joining them up so that will be a challenge.

My monthly smocking group still meet and I am currently working on a cover for the Lever Arch file that holds my patterns.  This is picture smocking and I have found it extremely difficult and has certainly stretched me.

These are going to be Bay Trees in blue pots so still some way to go - next will be the tree trunks before I have to do the background.  The pleats must be held together either with smocking on the wrong side (back smocking) or on the front and so that is what I have decided to do.  Something light, easy and quick before I have to complete some Christmas baubles.

Sock club has continued at Purlwise and our latest challenge is to make a pair using proper cables with a cable needle.  Isn't that lucky because I am completing this pair

which is from a Debbie Bliss pattern though the wool is the WI yarn from Hobbycraft.  These are going off to Yarndale for Winwick Mum's sock line for charity along with my Patchwork Socks that I wrote about here.  I have until September but am working on them everyday.

Once again Higham Piecemakers are going to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in October but unfortunately I have a previous engagement.  However I did go last year and bought a couple of bag patterns as I thought Piecemakers might like to have a go at this one on an 'All day' session.  

I thought this was interesting because of the woven panel on the front.  I have made it in denim though any fabric heavier than a quilting fabric will do.  I am very pleased how it has worked out and providing the strips for the weaving are cut out beforehand it should be finished in a day.  Note: this is a copyright pattern and I will not be printing it off however if any group members who read my blog want to pay for it that is up to them.

Right that is all so I shall settle down to work on one of my WIPs as I channel hop between the Men's Tennis Final at Wimbledon and the World Cup Cricket Final.  Oh it's a hard life!!!!

Day dreaming on my bike

As my regular readers will know I have an e-bike (electric bike) that I try and ride at least once a week in the summer.  Now the weather is fine I cycle to Higham Piecemakers with my panniers on the side stuffed with what I shall need and think, virtuously, that I am taking up one less car parking space!  It has been helped by having my local 'Greenway' extended almost to the hall, so little cycling on a busy main road, but going home about 4.00pm there are always small groups of school children wandering home completely oblivious to what is going on around them, and when I ring my bell usually make some remark like 'Love the bike' in a sarcastic manner, to which I always reply 'So do I'.  I'll show 'em!!

Anyway after  a party yesterday I decided to get up early and go for a cycle ride this morning.  Well I didn't get up early as planned as my bed beckoned, but I did get out later in the morning and I pottered off.  The villages I passed through or by were having/or had had fêtes that are a very common thing at this time of the year.

Sign behind says 'Cluck Off'!!

Local people are trying to fight having a huge number of chicken sheds being built near their houses.  I don't blame them as the smell and flies + the lorries going in and out would be appalling.  The roads are narrow country lanes. quite suitable for biking but not lorries.

I thought how typical this is in the UK - every village trying to raise money for charity, their church, their church hall etc.  I passed the garden that was open and was quite tempted to stop because there were refreshments! 

Carrying on from my last post about Chester Farm and the awful weather we had, by the middle of week 2 things were improving and so they lifted all the pots from the ditch.

 These two photos show the very large pot, probably used for storage.  The pitting on the outside was deliberate as something (I can't remember what!) was laid on the outside before it was fired and the pitting was the result.  The egg tray is large about 12" square so gives some indication of the size and the pot was very heavy.

 Some very decorative pots above with an indication of size by my finger.  It is on occasions like this I wish I had more than one pair of hands!!

 The photo above is the rim of a vessel painted with this simple pattern and I was told it is 'Rushden ware' so locally made.

A collection of pottery pieces all washed and ready for bagging.  I get great pleasure handling these items that are about 2,000 years old and I am probably only the 2nd person to handle them since then - the 1st being the finder.

A Roman floor tile.

 A Roman coin ( one of many found on the site) though I cannot remember who this was.  Apologies for the blurring of the head.

And finally, a really rare find - Roman glass, from the neck of of a glass vessel.  Apparently, as now, broken glass was often re-cycled.

I decided to go on one of the tours that were arranged whilst the dig was going on and though I didn't learn anything new it was still interesting.

 Our archaeologist on the right with the newly renovated farmhouse in the background.

The dig going on in the Orchard, which as it was a Saturday were minus the students as it was the weekend.  The archaeologist's arm on the right pointing out burial sites and 20 more inhumations were found by the end of the third and final week.

Nothing to report on the craft side at the moment as I am trying to finish many different projects, whether crochet, sewing or knitting as I have so many different projects on the go and they MUST get finished.  However the sunny weather and the garden do beckon and I love being outside.

Chester Farm 2019

We are back again for three weeks at Chester Farm as mentioned here, thanks to a collaboration and financial assistance from the University of Leicester.  

I had a personal email from our archaeologist asking if I was free for these three weeks, so as is usual with me, flattery can get you anywhere!  So I said 'Yes' with the proviso that I could no longer dig (I can't get up off the ground very easily) but would be happy to pot wash, which I love.

So last Monday I was there at 8.45am along with some old friends and many students from the University. and after a briefing and a tour of the site we started work.  The weather was good to us on the first day

Just one of the areas being uncovered

and I had plenty of washing to do of items that are called 'unstratified' as they come from a badger sett.

Then the first 'find' of the week came in - a Roman coin, the best that the archaeologist had seen from this site with the head of Magnentius who ruled from 350-353AD and the coin is dated 351.  We could see all this with the naked eye and very little damage.

In the meantime I had been washing this piece of Roman Samian ware and became quite excited by it - I know I am very sad!

During my work with the Portable Antiquities Scheme (see previous post) I have been looking at 'pot mends' and I suddenly realised what this was - a Roman pot mend and it was confirmed by the archaeologist.  Yippee and so exciting. Samian ware was made in Gaul and therefore would have been an expensive item for Mrs Roman at Chester Farm to own, so when she got a hole in it, it would need repairing and so a lead plug would have been put in.

So the week proceeded with the weather being mainly good, though windy.  However Friday was awful and we all left site early looking like drowned and muddy rats.  There was one bright light

This trench full of Roman pots and these were going to be lifted on Monday (today as I write), because the person who found them was not going to be on site until then.  Goody thinks I, as I will get to wash them!!

I was there yesterday, on a glorious sunny Sunday and had a great deal to wash including medieval pottery finds, that I can now recognise and I took this photo to show how the original

trench was coming on.  The two ladies are working on a Roman road and the nearest working is a dwelling.  The gap between the road and the house is a ditch so that the road didn't get waterlogged.  Clever thinking.

What I am not allowed to show you are the skeletons that are now being unearthed to the left of this photo as this is a Roman cemetery.  They will be left in situ until the end of the dig, so that the groups of school children and others, who are going to visit can see them.  Then they will be lifted, washed (a job for me) and marked (also a job for me and others) before going for examination and research by the experts.  This will determine their gender, age, race etc.

But today the weather has changed and there has been constant rain and I decided not to go in as I am sure that there will be no digging as the wet conditions cause damage to the site and I doubt that the pots will be lifted.  Oh bother!!!!

Still I have been able to write a quick post and sort out my photos and show you these.

They are my patchwork socks using three different sock wools and from a pattern by Winwick Mum.  We had to complete them for the June meeting of sock club and I learnt a number of new techniques in sock knitting so well worth making them. 

In my element

Last Monday was another first for me thanks to my volunteering with PAS, so off to London I went by train early in the morning and all expenses paid!  I was going here -

The British Museum (BM)

for a training session and introduction to PAS.  The items that we were to see are all found by individuals either out walking (possibly field walking) or metal detectorists and some are considered to be 'Treasure' reportable to the Coroner before they go back to the finder who can sell them to museums or individuals.  The British Museum do NOT value items but send them to an independent valuer

Our first speaker was the Curator of the Horological Collection who showed us examples of small clock finds in the ground.  They cannot clean them up because they would disintegrate but they do use X-rays, which tell them a lot.  Watches were first made in the 1500s, which I did not realise .

'Treasure' can be different things - precious metals like gold and silver, or large quantities of coins.

About 2" across with gold rings on the points

This is a 5,000 year old Bronze Age 'bulla' made of gold!  Double click on the photo to see the intricate construction made without the tools we use nowadays.  Mind blowing.

Axe heads

These were found in South Wales, date 875-800BC.  They could have been buried by a metal worker.

These two photos are a copper alloy strap end, with two silver rivets (hence they are treasure) and are from the 9th century.  I love this face and makes me smile.

This beautiful item is gold with garnets set into it and is part of a sword pyramid.

This item is a silver barbel for hawks made by Will Englefield in the 17th century.  It is tiny.

We were also shown a gold Roman finger ring that I photographed but cannot show because it hasn't been to the Coroner yet!!

Next stop was the museum's Coins and Medals Collection, but no photography here at all.  It was a numismatist's dream with racks of coin boxes and we were shown different Roman coins.  The UK has the best database in the world for coins as we record the best.  We were shown Roman gold coins found by a river bank in Kent that could have been buried by a soldier on his way to the North and never coming back for it, as well as coins from the Hoxne Hoard 

After this we had a gallery tour of the BM and actually saw how the Hoxne Hoard was found.

So ended a brilliant day out, but before I left I had to visit this collection -

The original helmet from the Sutton Hoo collection

A reconstruction of the helmet

I have been to Sutton Hoo but never seen the helmet before.

So ended an informative training day, but not before I had booked myself onto a conference for PAS volunteers later in June, also at the BM!!

For anyone wanting to see crafty things, my apologies but during summer months these get pushed onto the back burner and also because this week I am looking after my younger son's dog so plenty of walks and exercise both for him and me.  Our local countryside at its best.