January & the start of a new stitchery and design year.

For my love of Vintage,

Stitchery & embroidery.

Welcome all to the start of Homespun Stitchworks year of stitchery talk!  I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and New Years Eve and you are all ready to get on with creating and looking forward to my ramblings about my love of vintage and stitchery.

Well firstly I would love to share with you today one of my gorgeous Christmas Gifts and starting with the red stitching sampler picture that my husband bought for me ..  it is stunning isn't it.
It is already hung with care and I keep walking past it and staring at its beauty, I am a very lucky girl indeed.  I am glad I waited to decide where to hang it because it is in a totally different place than I had been heading for when I was intercepted by a horror struck husband .....

This particular School stitchery sampler is in reds and whites and when my husband bought it for me before Christmas, as you know, I was with him.  It is Circa 1870 and stitched by a C Jones.  It names the school as Yates School, which is around the Bristol area.  I am going to see if I can find a C Jones around that time in old school records ... This task would have been so much easier if the young lady in question had one, stitched her full first name and two if her surname was not Jones and a more unique surname, however I have got a lot of interest in this so I am going to give it a go!

Another thing I learnt from the lady my husband bought it from is that usually if a school sampler of
stitching techniques was done on red fabric it meant it was stitched in a workhouse or orphanage! I did not know this.  In this case however she said it was not the case as she named the school.

Did any of you get any gorgeous stitchery or stitching books for Christmas you would like to share with us all, if so please do I would love to hear about it. Any books that you would like to recommend?  I had some so I will start a few book reviews over the next few weeks, if you do not have any of the ones that I am going to show you then you can start a list of them, because there is always Birthdays or treat yourself days ..... I had a bale of books as another Christmas present from my hubby and I always look forward to these.  Included in this bale were some lovely cook books, as some of you may know this is my other passion, cooking!  I had one on pumpkins, mac and cheese recipes ( one of our favourite suppers) another on just chicken dishes and a great baking book.  Then I had several calligraphy books which are fabulous and then came the stitching books!!  I had some beauties so I will be sharing them with you.

Literally I have not picked up a needle more than 3 times over this Christmas break but last week I was able to snuggle down in the chair in front of the fire with some hand embroidery.  I have, however, been pleased that I have had lots of ideas for 2017 so I will be having a design day a week for a while again to get the ideas on paper and I am excited to get started and back in a normal routine as well.

We had Christmas here at home and our great friend from Devon joined us from the Wednesday before until 27th of December with family and friends joining in on different days it was really lots of
fun.  Silly hats ( got pictures to prove it!!) and fun and games.  Then we packed up and went back to Devon until the 2 January, it was my turn to rest a little and get cooked for because our friend is a chef ..... It was wonderful.

Whilst in Devon I managed a trip into Honiton and to my favourite little antique shop.  It was open between Christmas and New Years Eve so I was able to amble around at my leisure and yes I found a few goodies to share with you.




As you can see I bought a few bits, two very old
wooden coat hangers, a gorgeous 1930's perfume bottle ( that picture does not do it justice but I will show you a close up) some linen covered buttons, tiny mother of pearl buttons, and several gorgeous pieces of hand embroidered cotton lace trimmings and the patterns are stunning - thrilled is not the word for it.

The close up of this gorgeous little perfume bottle.  For its size it is heavy and has the detail of cut glass and square shape of the era.

I have a tiny collection of antique perfume bottles and this fits straight in with them.



Over this festive season we were lucky enough to meet up with some great friends at their home, Liz and Jack of The Washerwoman fame and had lunch with them.  We chatted and caught up and it was not long before we were all talking vintage, fabrics and fairs!  It will not be long because this year there are some fairs starting in February I believe but I need to find out some facts.  The one thing I am sure of is that the Vintage Bazaar is back on Saturday 4th March 2017 at The Corn Exchange, Market Place, Devizes SN10 1HS.  How do I know? well I had lunch with two of the organisers of the VB ... Liz and Jack! ...

So there is one for your diaries already, if you have not ever been then its highly recommended and to kick you off for the season ahead there can be no better .... I will be there so if any of you are going and spy me, come and say hello. If there is a pile of beautiful fabrics, buttons or lace .. I will be the one head first into that!

Well that is it for today as I really need to kick start this year and get organised and find my basket of stitchery.

I have missed writing my blog and I hope you all enjoy another year of my ramblings.

See you tomorrow and as always Happy Stitching! XX