Showtime

It seems like an age ago, even although it is only just over 6 weeks since the Scottish Quilting Show was held in Glasgow. How times have changed as the venue is now kitted out as one of the Nightingale Hospitals to deal with the expected surge in hospital patients requiring ICU beds as a result of COVID-19.

In March though not only was it my first visit to the Scottish Quilting Show in this venue, but it was also my first time exhibiting a quilt and stewarding at a show too!

My And Sew On quilt from Quiet Play's 2013 SAL was entered in the Contemporary Category with the title "A Quilters Cupboard". It didn't win any prizes and I certainly wasn't expecting it to, but I now have that first foray into entering a Quilt Show under my belt!

I had volunteered to steward at the exhibition too, which meant that I had plenty of time to admire the stunning quilts that were on view. One that was much admired by many of the visitors had taken 15 years to complete, a fact that was quite reassuring to the majority of the visitors when told, who claimed never to be able to create anything like it :)

This denim quilt was one of my favourites.

It was my first time visting the venue so I wasn't prepared for all of the questions about the location of toilets, particular stalls or products, having assumed that all I would be asked about as a steward was the quilts :)

Next time I volunteer to steward I will make sure that I have worked out in advance where all the facilities are in relation to the stand!

Getting into Goldwork

This blog has been somewhat neglected of late but today I resolved to finally show you some of the things I have been up to.

Just before the world went into lockdown I was lucky enough to attend a Beginners goldwork class given by the extremely talented embroiderer, Liz Boulton. Liz had visited my EG group in the past so I knew that the class would be inspiring and it was!

This was the sample Liz showed us at the start of the class, amazing isn't it? Needless to say we were not expected to produce a piece quite as stunning as this in the Beginners class :)

We were given these silk fabric squares, which had already been machine stitch outlined by Liz, ready for us to add the individual goldwork motifs.

Liz had provided us with a kit containing all of the materials that we would need, so we were ready to go.

 First up, the Couched Purl and Padded Kid Spade. As you can see we cut out the spade motif from some felt and attached it to the fabric background. The felt shape is actually two felt motifs, one slightly smaller than the other, layered up largest on top. Then we traced half of the spade motif onto a piece of gold kid and attached it with small, stab stitches to cover one half of the felt. The line of kid in the middle of the felt is covered by a piece of pearl purl. The day was full of hitherto unknown stitching terms!

Alternating colours of purl were stitched down over the felt padding to cover the other half of the spade and the entire shape was outlined with stretched pearl purl.

It all sounds pretty straightforward but those little pieces of purl were pretty slippery to deal with :)

Next up we had a go at creating a couched circle. The aim of the stitching was to pack the lines of twist so closely together that you cannot see the background fabric through it but, as you can see, I didn't quite achieve that. I am happy with how it turned out as it was my first attempt at couching twist thread.

The third motif, the triangle, involved more couching, this time with a matching thread so that the couching is less obvious. We started at the top of the motif and worked our way down alternating between the two sides.

These three motifs were all started and some of them finished at the class.

The final motif, the Club, used techniques from the other stitching so, in theory, should have been more straightforward to complete.

I had the most trouble with this though, which is always the way isn't it when you are back home with no expert on hand to explain where you are going wrong!

I ripped out the kid covering the felt once, the pearl purl outlining the shape once and had several goes at the purl chips. So, what you see is far from perfect but as they say finished is better than perfect :)

 The final touch involved some trapunto quilting to fill out the tramlines around each motif.

I did really enjoy the class and my first attempts at goldwork and definitely intend to do more of it when I next get a chance.

Linking up to TGIFF at ChrisKnitsSews

Below ground in Beaune

After a lovely morning marvelling at the Hospices de Beaune and a delicious lunch (of course!) we were suitably refreshed and ready for the next stage of our Beaune exploration.

This time we were heading underground!

Down into the depths of the largest wine cellars in Burgundy to be precise :)

The Caves Patriarche are made up of around 5 kilometres of tunnels underneath the centre of Beaune and they hold around 3 million bottles of wine!

Our tour was self-guided, which was a bit daunting at first but we were soon in the swing of navigating our way around dimly lit tunnels packed with rows of very dusty bottles. There were plenty of signs warning visitors not to touch the bottles but as you can see not everyone could resist the urge to leave their mark :)

Extra-special bottles were safely tucked away behind bars to keep them out of the reach of the public. These bottles were part of a collection from the 1959 vintage, which the sommelier later told us is considered to be the best vintage of the last and the current centuries.

A number of the bottles from this vintage are due to be opened in special ceremonies in 2020, 2050 and 2094! It is quite something to stand in front of bottles of wine that you know will not be opened until after your lifetime!

Once you have navigated your way around the dusty cellars there is, naturally, an opportunity to taste some of the wines that are languishing in those cellars. In the Patriarche cellar rather than viewing and tasting the wine with a glass, these tastevin, or tasting cups, are used. The silver-coated cups were in use before the advent of electric lights, when merchants needed to assess the quality of wine by candlelight. The shallowness of the tasting cups and the raised patterns on the inside of the cups allowed prospective purchasers to assess a wine for clarity as the dim lighting in the cellars would bounce back from the shiny surfaces and highlight any impurities in the wine. Nowadays the silver tasting cups are more usually given as Christening or Birth presents, but back in the day every Burgundian wine merchant would carry his own tastevin around with him.

I am happy to report that there were no impurities in any of the wines that we tasted and I am sure you will not be surprised to know that our purses were considerably lighter, but our bags were heavier by the time we wandered away from this equally interesting aspect of Beaune :)

Cheers!