Visit to the American Museum in Bath

Now and again I visit family in Bath and on my last trip I fulfilled a wish to visit the American Museum.  So on a glorious Sunday I made it to Claverton Manor close to the University of Bath.

If you are at all interested in American history it really is well worth the trip. I went to see the textiles but there are many other rooms devoted to early American history. The lower level has a large screen explaining the early exploration of the country, displays about the Declaration of Independence, the American West and Native Americans. The ground floor has a lovely Country Store, a Folk art gallery and rooms set out in different periods.   Many rooms include bed covers and clothing. 

I saw a very nice embroidery sampler made by Hannah Taylor dated 1771. 

The first floor has more period rooms but here you will find the textiles collection.  The quilts range from the eighteenth to the mid twentieth century. They hold over 200 quilts and the collection is considered to be one of the finest of its type in Europe.  The quilts are displayed in special hanging frames which you can turn like the pages of a giant book.   You can only take photographs without a flash so apologies for the quality of my pictures. 

This one is the Baltimore Album Quilt from 1850 and was made by a group of ladies and a close up next

This next one is called the Chalice Quilt for obvious reasons..

And this splendid black and white coverlet was made on a Jacquard loom

Finally I came across the Shaker Room with it's delightful slender furniture. The Shaker people wanted their communities to reflect their notion of heaven. since there is no dirt in heaven, there could be no dirt in Shaker villages. cleanliness was, therefore, an important part of everyday life.

"Clean your rooms well: for good spirits will not live where there is dirt. There is no dirt in heaven". 

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Visitors make their own earrings and more

I closed my studio doors to visitors last Sunday feeling very pleased with how my 'open studio' had gone. It is quite a lot of work.....not just designing and making things but deciding on presentation and pricing, as well as personal advertising and social media.

As I do both textiles and jewellery I had quite a bit on display. The photo shows me in my gazebo with my textile wall hangings and quilts. There were also a few bags-mostly sold- and a few items such as cards and felted notebooks.  

I decided I would try to set myself apart from other jewellery makers in Cambridge Open Studios and offer a 'make your own earrings' service. This proved quite popular.  An early visitor and friend from Cambridge Quilters made quite a visual impact with her bright green top that I suggested she made a button necklace. Funky eh? 

Next comes Tania who works for Spirus, the marketing company used by COS.  Tania was inspired by these acrylic discs to make herself some earrings. 

Another visitor created these freshwater pearl drops

and Agnes put together range and purple to make these. Apologies for the not brilliant photo quality.

There were many more but I love these next earrings made by a good neighbour. Hilary was desperate to make some earrings to match the red skirt she was wearing. Red is a tricky colour to find in glass beads but we managed!   I think these earrings are stunning, especially when the red bead is teamed up with Swarovski crystals--not just tiny bicone beads but one which is more of a flat disc. 

This week has been one of sorting out my studio ready for more creativity including a special commission for another Cambridge Open Studios artist who asked me to make her a one-off pearl necklace.  It's quite an honour and privilege to make something unique that you know with be treasured by that person. 

If I have any followers 'out there' then I must apologise for having such a long gap between blog postings. Not a great plan since blogging is supposed to be regular. In my own defence, I've never wanted to blog about random things such as what I cooked for dinner. My aim is to write about my creativity whether that be textiles or jewellery. 

My only excuse is that I've been very busy...however, not with anything worth blogging about.  In other words, I've achieved nothing much that I can call 'creative'. My grandson came to visit-took time to get over that! Then I did two events to sell my jewellery. One at C3 church and the other at Rock Road library. In both cases, I sold nothing but I suppose they do promote the bigger event of Cambridge Open Studios. 

Next we had a holiday (Zakynthos) only to return home to find a close family member in hospital. That was a month ago. Busy with hospital visits AND getting ready for Cambridge Open Studios I've had a lot on, as they say.  I may have mentioned somewhere that I am one of the organisers of the event and I've been occupied with that, emails here and there all the time.

Holiday villa in Zakynthos 2016

So, onto Cambridge Open Studios.....apart from preparing my own studio, I've helped coordinate a project to promote an event for the Arthur Rank Hospice Appeal. They are trying to raise a further £2M to complete their brand new hospice here in Cambridge. Their fund raiser asked me whether Open Studios artists would decorate a MDF heart, display it then hand it over for an auction later in the year. Of course we would!  I've already blogged about mine but I've been quite active finding photos of hearts created by our members on Twitter and reposting them on the COS News Page, etc. We had an amazing whole page article about the hearts in the Cambridge Evening News with my heart top centre.  The hearts are lovely; each one different yet marvellous.  Search on Twitter @ArthurRankHospice or @MarionCurtis53 to view some of them

I was asked to do a radio interview for Cambridge 105. Hopelessly early, I watched Julian Clover do his programme and eventually I chatted for almost ten minutes on his show. I think it went well, however, since I wouldn't like to hear the sound of my own voice, I haven't listened to the interview but here is the link:  Cambridge105

Outside my studio

This weekend sees my final two days of  my open studios exhibition. The photos shows my unique Cambridge Open Studios bunting made from upcycled discarded screen prints from the COS yellow flags which are given to every member. 

I have both textiles and jewellery on show with many items for sale. So far I've had a far few visitors and hope to see more in the next two days. I'm open from 11am until 6pm both Saturday and Sunday at 107 Perne Road, Cambridge, CB13SB. Parking close by. 

View inside the gazebo 

Another view inside the gazebo

Yet another view with a couple of my favourite pieces

Table with cards and small textiles items on display.

Starting to blog is quite scary. I've been thinking about doing this for a while and at last I am going to take the plunge.....

So, a bit about me first. The photo shows me at my weaving loom. I learned to weave when I was at school and enjoyed it so much that I decided to do a degree in textiles technology at Bradford University.  Life brought me to Cambridge and I became an art teacher, later teaching textiles in Design and Technology.  My interest in textiles continued with developing skills in bobbin lace and several years ago got lured into patchwork and quilting.

I hope to Blog every week with tales of my various interests including work in progress and mini tutorials.