24 hours in Ross-on-Wye ...

 

I love history & the back stories to people & places, it puts everything in context & things make more sense. Because I was not born on these Isles but have lived here for almost 3 decades, there are gaps in my understanding of the complexities of the history that I like to fill. 

I joined hubby on a trip to Ross-on-Wye, a town we had not visited, he was there for an all day golf  competition, I was there to enjoy a new town, an opportunity to explore on my own as I don't visit the county of Herefordshire too often. 

The early morning drop off meant I could watch the town wake up from my café seat with a hot cup of coffee after our 2 hour trip from our county of Shropshire. 

I downloaded the visitor guide & then set off around the many streets of the little town, walking each one to the end of the town section & popping in to the many shops that caught my eye. 

This might be a bit controversial but I find vintage / antique shops to be a little lost in a town has something like 14 charity shops so vintage home wares are very evident.  I think we become selective as we get older & I prefer not to accumulate but to each their own. I seek out specific items when I need them so it is interesting to browse & to see what is in demand. I think my reluctance stems from clearing out aged relatives homes … 

I found the 16th century Market House to still be the centre of things, maintaining its original purpose. 

It was not a market day but people, young, old, singularly or in groups sat about on the steps or the benches, chatting, eating a sandwich, relaxing, scrolling their phones or just enjoying music from a busker in the square. 

The upstairs Made in Ross gallery had a fabulous selection of handmade wares - paintings, music, art, felt objects, wooden items etc.

It had a most fabulous view through the double doors across the square & down the street.  That spot was where announcements & proclamations would have been made in times past, from an elevated position above the crowds gathered in the square below. 

Opposite was an imposing black & white building that had belonged to John Kyrle (1637 - 1724) known as The Man of Ross. He is celebrated all over town, including a memorial in St Mary's church & on a pub at the end of the High Street that is named after him. 

     

Late afternoon, I took my iced drink to Prospect Park, situated next to the church, that John Kyrle had given to the towns folk for leisure. 

It had a public drinking fountain at one time, essential in times past when water was not on tap. 

He never married but his philanthropic influence was immense. 

The park is still well used & I enjoyed the coolness under the trees, relaxing & watching some squirrels inquisitively trying to catch my eye in case I had something to eat in my bag. 

Churches are a font of local knowledge & this one was no different, set with elaborate memorials & impressive windows. St Mary's church has been the cornerstone of the town for centuries. The Gothic Markye Chapel, set to the side contains the war memorials & it is always humbling to see how many men in each town gave their life in service to their country. 

 Alms Houses  were established in England from the 10th century to provide shelter & care for the impoverished in the community, often widows left destitute & in need of support.  

These neat row of houses just down from the church date to 1575. I have seen similar ones in towns in Shropshire, they hark from a time when that was really the only safety net people had centuries ago, that & the work house. 

    

The church had a notice board charting the history of one family & their connection to the slave trade in Jamaica in times past. 

The notice board at the church doors gave mention of a Plague Cross & pit in the grounds & I set off to see it. 

The cross commemorates 315 souls who died in the great plague of 1637. They were hastily buried each night without coffins in pits just to the side of the cross. 

The Revd Philip Price officiated at the mass burials each night, a Christian act in the times of crisis. 

The reality of life in times past very evident, life was so fragile, death was never far in those times & mortality was high. 

The close around the church has the Royal Hotel, on the site of the Bishop's Palace that was home to the Bishop of Hereford in times past. 

The original timber structure dated to the 12th century. Opposite is stone walls on a raised position. However, the tower & wall dates to 1833 when the new road was built & the mock gothic town walls & tower were constructed.  They are now almost 200 years old  & part of the landscape, as if they had always been there. 

We had a drink on the pub terrace later in the evening, enjoying its elevated position over the River Wye & the surrounding countryside. 

One the end of the High Street behind this, was a The Old Court House with glass covering the original stone window with bars on it. Just opposite was a note on the old Swan and Falcon Inn to note that Horatio Nelson visited it in 1802. 

The information blue plaques & notice boards set about town & on buildings really brought the history to life so you can visualise & appreciate the long passage of time in the town. 

Because I was to be in town the whole day, I chose a central hotel, The Kings Head, a traditional coaching inn. We used to stay at a similar one in Stokenchurch, Hampshire  & I love the quirkiness of these old places. 

This one did not disappoint with its odd spaces, creaky staircase, uneven floors & dark wooden beams.   Our room was on to the High Street & cars rumbled past before it quietened down late evening. 

You could hear people moving about as the floors creaked & settled down for the night. It is sobering to think that people have stayed in this coaching inn for about 700 years. 

Breakfast was downstairs & I glanced down & saw a glass with a stone well set in the floor. 

The landlady said the well is about 50 feet deep, not used now but it was once essential in times past. This really brings the past in to focus & the age of the building is evident in these things. 

I had a very interesting 24 hours in Ross-on-Wye, I am so glad I seized the moment to have a change of scenery. 

I hope you have enjoyed the account too, 

Dee  

Experimenting with flex frames for pouches

 Summer time away from tutoring means I can spend time just playing with the sewing machine & trying out things I have had in my mind. 

I did some book bags from my Making Zen workshops in May & I loved the fabric combinations of the peacocks & blue roses, with a pale green fabric lining as well as the script fabric that is a favourite. 

I looked at the fabric bits this morning & remembered buying some flex frames some months back that I thought would be useful in little fabric purses or pouches. 

Mine were from Ebay, sold as 'metal internal flex frames' & are available in various sizes. These are about 3.5 inches long. 

Because I had not used them before I had to make it up as I went along. 

I cut 2 peacock  sides, 2 thin green lining sides, 2 script pieces to use as the channel for the flexes. 

I hemmed the 2 script pieces on the sides so the sliders would glide through, 

I assembled it ready to sew - the peacock fabric right sides up, then the narrow script channel laid on top of the first fabric, then the lining & sewed through the 3 pieces along the top. I did both sets of 3 pieces. 

I opened it up, lining up the peacock fabrics with the lining together, & the channel pieces were to the patterned side, away from the side stitching. 

I started on the bottom of the lining, leaving about 1.5 inches to turn it all through. I stitched all the way around, ending again at the bottom but leaving the opening space. 

I turned it through the opening, ironed it flat then I machine stitched the lining space because this was a test one. 

 I inserted the flex frame & had to bend the little metal part over the base to hold the pin in place. 

To improve on,  I would make the channel thinner & narrower. The channel fabric words were upside down - something to be aware of next time. 

An interesting learning curve as I have made little pouches with a channel but put in string so this is something I will try again (I also have another 9 flex frames in the pack so that might inspire me)

Is this something you have used? What tips can you share? 

Thank you for stopping by, you are always most welcome to share & comment. 

Dee 🧵🪡📍

Making Zen - a tsunobukuro style bag

I am enjoying doing some of the creative work from the May Making Zen workshops. These were the previous ones  I did recently: 

Weaving remnants with intention 

Sewing a pouch with a gusset 

On a lazy Sunday, I got to one I have been wanting to do, this tsunobukuro style bag for holding a small notebook, art on the go, a journal etc. In the workshop there was a notebook to go with it but I decided against doing it, I might still. These bags sometimes have a tie on the top or shoulder bags, mostly just a medium weight fabric  ... 

The bag construction is both simple & intricate. This is my paper template I made while watching the workshop. You start off with your rectangle, have the fold towards you. 

If the bag is not lined, it needs to have neat edges so I decided to do the lined bag which I thought would be quicker. 

My outer & lining fabric was 24 inches by 8.5 inches. 

I sewed them right sides together, leaving a space on the side to turn them through then handstitched that closed & pressed the fabric edges. 

With the fold of the rectangle towards you, the fabric is loosely folded over in a crossed over shape with about 4 inches between the folds to form a V. 

Crease the bottom fold then bring the left hand side over to meet the middle part. PIN in several places to keep that shape.

Flip the fabric over & bring the second side to meet the centre, pin again. This should now form a rectangular shape that is taller than wide. 

It can be sewn together in 2 ways - on the inside by hand or machine, starting at the corner & just to where the side flaps meet the main fabric. 

I did the patterned one this way. Turn right side out & lightly press. You can add a fabric / ribbon tie if you wish. 

For the second one, the construction was the same, it was machined with a lining fabric, but I joined the folded in sides with a blanket stitch and pearl cotton no8 on the top. 

This was quite tricky & I caught the inside fabric near the corner, but I did not unpick that little stitch. 

I personally prefer the patterned fabric but will make the machined seam bigger next time to reduce the bulk when it was pressed through. 

It is an interesting project that took me longer than I thought even though  it was an easy sew. 

I hope you will be inspired to have a go at one of these interesting bags. What would you use yours for? 

Thank you for stopping by, you are always most welcome. 

Dee 🪡🧵

Making Zen - Weaving remnants with intention

 I love participating in the Making Zen creative workshops twice a year - there are 25-30 workshops over the week  & I make notes of the new techniques I want to return to. The online workshops are for 24 hours only unless you purchase the VIP pass.  This year again, there is an ethos of using what you have rather than buying additional supplies & I am embracing this to whittle down my stash. 

Sometimes I am not sure if the workshop is 'me' but I watch as many each day as I can because knowledge is power, & I have often returned to my notes months later when I thought a technique would be useful for a completely different project. 

Lisa's Weaving Remnants with Intention was one such one - first painting a background on a thick card, marking out the weaving holes then using remnants / scraps to make a woven piece. 

I had some card that I painted but then thought it was a bit flimsy / wrinkly so I merely glued a second sheet behind it to strengthen it & give it substance.  Then it was time to mark up the painted card with pencil for the weaving threads - 11 holes marked top & bottom, lining up perfectly. I used my sewing awl to make the holes neatly. These were then threaded with a pearl cotton thread to make the warp threads of the card loom. 

I had some fabrics at hand from the other Zen project I was working on so these were cut  or torn in to strips, along with some wool to be woven on the 'loom' to form the weft threads. 

It was very relaxing to do something different & the little loom took no time to fill with interesting threads & fabrics. 

Lisa encouraged us to put in a quote or something & I decided mine was simply 

                               JUST DO IT 

I am guilty of procrastination & spending too much time planning so just going for something new is liberating.  Make something rather than just think about it too much, go with intuition. 

A great workshop that I had not blogged before, so I hope it inspires you to try something new. 

Thank you for stopping by, you are always very welcome to share my content 

Dee 🧵🎨🖌️👩‍🎨

Making Zen - sewing a pouch with a gusset ...

 Twice a year, life pauses while the Making Zen creative retreats are available on - the online workshops over 5 days are a creative wonder because I am exposed to new techniques that I did not even know existed by fantastic tutors online. 

This past one in May came at a busy time, but I printed off the materials list & saved the worksheets as they became available. I watch each day (4-5 workshops), make notes of the new techniques & do some I can fit in. They are available for 24 hours unless you purchase the vip pass. However, being time poor, I fit in the 24 hours & take inspiration from the new techniques. 

I often combine the techniques to make the most of it. What was really good was that all the tutors encouraged us to use what we had - make do & improvise; that is great for the environment. 

One of the workshops was using your fabric scraps to compose a new piece in colouring with your scraps. The tutor encouraged us to sort  fabrics, cut them up, rearrange them etc in to a unique new item with intentional use of colour & pattern. 

This was quite challenging to select with intention but I embraced it, recutting & re-assembling mine several times. I kept my colours to a  limited palette that I liked.

The second workshop was using a piece of silk fabric to make a pouch with a gusset to carry around sewing supplies when you are on the move. 

I decided to use the fabric from the 'Colouring with your Scraps' workshop that I had made as my base. It ended up on the pile, the unfinished effort willing me to finish it & today I finally had some time. 

I had decided on 2 shades of purple thread to go with the predominant colour & so it came downstairs to the conservatory table when I could work on it on the table protector where the threads wouldn't catch. The remit was to do some stitching over the joined fabrics, Sachiko or other & I used the variegated purple thread for that. 

I love just winging it, deciding where the stitching might complete a shape or add to the design. 

I used curved French seam stencils to give me some nice shapes. 

I use a heat erasable frixion pen  to draw lines on my work because a quick application of heat from a hairdryer or iron & the lines are all gone. Using a curved stencil makes it so much easier to get the shape you want too so you can concentrate on the sewing & get the result you want.  

The pouch was to be finished off with a gusset each side in felt & I confess to not having done one before so I consulted my workshop notes & the little drawing I did for help. I have a box of synthetic felt squares & found a colour that would go well with it. 

The top edge was first stitched, then the gusset was stitched to each side with a running stitch before the whole pouch was hand stitched with a blanket stitch all the way around. 

I need to add a closure to the pouch, perhaps a wrap around one to finish it off?  I am rather pleased to have ticked 2 workshops off the Zen retreat list (I had completed another 2 previously during the workshops) so this is a good result. 

As always, I am so grateful to the tutors who give up their time for these retreats. The video recordings, material lists & handouts all take their previous time & it gives so much inspiration. I have several more I want to do now that I am on my summer break.  What would you use this pouch for? 

Thank you for stopping by, it is always greatly appreciated. 

Dee 🪡🧵📍

A summery fruit loaf

Summer has arrived with some hot days for us - the humidity is high & it is rather draining. 

Being the weekend, we felt like something with our tea, but in my view, it is too hot for cakes. However, tea loaves are much lighter & they give you that energy hit when you need it. 

I really just winged it - this is how I did it ... 

In a bowl combine

about 1.5 - 2 cups raisins,  currants, cherries, cranberries etc - whatever you have to hand that you enjoy. 

Pour boiling water over a large mug of 2 bags of peach &  orange tea (with citrusy baobab) or whatever tea you have to hand. 

Pour over the fruit & leave to cool so the fruit can plump up. 

I left it for about 20 minutes but you can leave it overnight or for a few hours for really plump fruit.

I mixed 200 g of brown sugar with 200g of butter (optional), then added the fruit & the tea liquid to the bowl, mixed it up (mainly to break up the dates) then added about 300g of self raising flour & 1 egg.  I mixed it all briefly. 

This was placed in a lined loaf tin & baked at 160-170 C fan for 1 hour or until a knife came out of the centre cleanly. 

The loaf cooling safely away from all the things that buzz about in summer ... 

I think the next one will have lemon or orange zest in it for a zingy summer taste. There is some variation in online recipes about adding butter to the recipe - without is obviously healthier but I have done it both ways & both work. 

It does need to cool before slicing - I was impatient & sliced some which crumbled a bit as it was still hot ... 

Definitely better option to cake in hot weather with an ice cold juice. 

What is cooling  on your baking rack at the moment? Tell all ... 

Dee 👩‍🍳🍞🍇🍊