Welcome Wilkommen Bienvenue

Thanks for visiting ! Please leave me comments, I love to read what you might think about the boutis (which is also known as "Broderie de Marseille"), please share with me what you have seen, what you love, how-tos, good museums to visit, pattern origins, and so on ..... you get the idea !

Thursday, August 19, 2010

V&A and Penshurst Place
















One of my favorite things to do in London is visit the V&A. I have been many times, and never get tired of it. Unfortunately, I was not able to visit for the quilt exhibition, but I did buy the book from Amazon and have enjoyed looking through it.
This time, I took my daughter, who was patient enough to help me look through the textile samples. I was specifically looking for anything that looked like boutis, or could be related to boutis - and I was not disappointed ! Initially searching through the whitework samples, I didn't find anything, but once I moved to quilting I saw a sample piece that I thought was exactly right and the right time period. It was a pillow cover described as "Cotton quilted with linen, backstitch. English first half of 18th century". It had the typical flowers and vines, plus an unusual star motif. I was thrilled, how did that stitcher find the pattern, know about the cording, and so on ? Please contact me if you can shed some light on this type of stitching in England.

Being English, and loving gardens, I can usually find time to visit a country house with a nice garden, and this visit was no exception. We visited Penshurst Place in Kent, a lovely old home with a beautiful garden. I have been before a number of years ago, but still enjoyed the beautiful house with its antiques and comfortable sense of history

I have almost finished my large boutis piece, more on that at the beginning of next week .....

4 comments:

hiromi said...

You went to V&A! I envy you. I deeply love the museum. One of my students visited there at the beginning of last month to see the quilt exhibition, and she told me it was really realy great.
My last visit to London was 2007. I hope the opportunity to revisit there will come to myself soon...
Hiromi xxx

Angelikas quilts and knits said...

Das ist eines meiner Wunschziele :-)
Liebe Grüße
Angelika

Erna said...

Thanks for sharing these photo's, looking forward to the boutis work.
Hugs Erna

Lou said...

Very beautiful pictures and I love the gardens and I envy you to see the V&A
Nicole xxx