Post 16 tapestry and third cousin

I still have the voices of the Retreat in my head. I keep getting a shock when I hear an accent that corresponds. Jean speaks to me in the lift - telling me that the doors are closing, or I have reached my floor. At dinner last night I was sure Phillipa and Sandra were having a conversation on the table behind me, but alas, it was not so. Richard was ordering at the bar, but when I looked, he had transformed.  I rather hope these voices don’t leave me.

Fine weather - even a little of it makes such a difference! This is what greeted me when I opened my curtains this morning.


I was, therefore, waiting when the Quaker Tapestry doors opened at 10am.

I took a lot of photos. There are no signs or instruction not to do so. These images are for personal study purposes only. Please only use accordingly.

I wanted to focus, this time, on the stitching rather than the stories. I couldn’t ignore the narrative entirely, however. It is powerful and engaging. I find myself wondering why I am not a Quaker.

I love the way some  images are created with a few very simple stitches. It is especially true of the crowds.

I don’t think I noticed before how much couching is used - often quite long threads couched down in different ways.

There is also that skill - conveyed by Nicola in her class last week - of creating expression with a few carefully placed stitches.



Even the work by children says a lot with economy.










I had a good look at the text and the movement of Quaker stitch between small and large font.

I noticed that chain stitch is not a favoured stitch, but is used sparingly - as here on the socks (or leggings).




I love the different effect with different use of the same stitch.



Blending colour is another evident skill.

In other cases the background fabric is used to full advantage with only outlines needed to convey texture


or,  again, by clever variation of stitch and colour.








In this cluster of figures, the speaker's best suit is couched in a more complex manner than the suits of his audience.













Very rarely, a little decoration is used.

I love the way this crowd scene is sketched in to create movement and flow.


It's quite a different technique used in the flow of water.

Here figures are given identity using only an outline. while, below, the figure is anything  but simple..





These Naive figures capture essence.

This New Zealand panel shows another way to stitch sheep!


I got into conversation with the woman on duty this morning. She was stitching a Ruskin lace sampler - explaining that she is not good enough an embroiderer to work on the panels, so she just sticks to Ruskin! Her work was lovely.



I came back to the hotel where I had arranged to have lunch with Brian and Pauline Duffield. We had never met but Brian and I have corresponded through our family trees on Ancestry.com. We are third cousins. Our great, great grandfathers, Thomas William Attlesey Duffield and Jasper James Duffield were brothers.They were carpenters, as was their father, who moved from Norfold to London - presumably for better work opportunities. Thomas William Attlesey Duffield then moved north to Jarrow to work as a craftsman in the shipyards. His brother Jasper travelled north to act as the best man at his wedding.

We had such a good time - and discovered shared interest and experience. Both Brian and I trained as English/History teachers. Both of us majored in both English Literature and English Language, studying Old and Middle English. Brian taught and headed up English Departments in Cumbria for many years.  He took children on excursions to the Wordsworth Museum where he got them writing poetry.  We didn't stop talking - about our family history challenges, Wordsworth, Cumbria,  family history stories...

We are both short of Duffield family photos. I shall be consulting my cousins to see if anyone has any photos at all of our grandmother Ada;s family.

I had organised with the restaurant that lunch was to go on my account, so there would be no argument. So firm, however, were Brian and Pauline that this was to be their treat, that I uncharacteristically yielded. I had to undo the arrangements I had made - but it was worth it to cement this friendship. It warms the cockles of my heart, as my mother would have said. I am grateful.

After Brian and Pauline had left, I went for a walk around the area behind the hotel, and found a couple of interesting shops, particularly one selling handmade wooden furniture and items.





I also located the  Museum I am hoping to visit tomorrow. The forecast is for returning rain, so I hope I can manage it. I am equipped for cold and showers, but not well equipped for drenching rain.


I then returned and did a bit more stitching while the light lasted. I finished the rhubarb leaves, rhubarb and lavender. My buttonhole stitches are more sparce on the perle edges. Might alter.


I had trouble with the bullion knots in the lavender - only because it was difficult to perform the needle 'scoop' necessary with the layers of stitching and the tightness of the hoop ("never scoop in a hoop" was more like "can't scoop in a hoop"). I got there in the end, however.

It has been a pretty amazing day, if I manage nothing else in Kendal it will have been worth spending time here once again.