Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Hand crafted dining and kitchen ware


Spent a lovely weekend near Lake Balaton picking cherries and cooking on a fire in the garden. So many cherries, tiny wild strawberries and redcurrants.
One of the lovely things about Hungary is the strong tradition of folk craft and using what one has to hand.... I recently met a master craftsman who fashions bowls and kitchen implements out of wood from his garden. With a choice of cherry, walnut, yew, ash, beech , plum and apple. They will be on the webiste soon but here is a sneak preview, they are entirely natural and finished with linseed oil or beeswax .

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Elizabeth Baer Textiles


Elizabeth Baer was at Petworth dispalying her wonderful antique and vintage French textiles and sharing her wealth of knowledge. Here is a picture of a very pretty boudoir chair covered in toile de jouy. My camera skills werent up to much that day, it is not the best picture but you can see more on her website and blog.


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

fish swimming through the roof




The only obvious advantage of having left my internet stick in the UK is working in a wifi cafe with a shoal of shimmering fish swimming in throuh the roof.












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Monday, June 1, 2009

Parna is featured in the Daily Mail today -Cloth Cult

Parna is featured in the Daily Mail today.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

French textiles at Petworth House textile fair







Above are pictures form Linda Clifts stall at Petworth. Linda specialises in lovely vintage /antique patchwork quilts, paisley shawls and French linens.
My next post will feature some French textiles from Elizabeth Baer



Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Petworth House Textile Fair




The above is part of a stunning hand embroidered bed cover by Sophie Pattinson

http://www.sophiepattinson.co.uk/ . Sophie works with groups of disadvantaged women in Bangladesh to make these stunning pieces.

Sophie was one of the exhibitors at the Textile Fair at Petworth House. The pleasure gardens of Petworth House were a wondeful setting for the textile fair over the bank holiday weekend. We were blessed with beautiful weather. There was a wondeful mixture of textiles old and new and I will be featuring some of these in more detail over the coming weeks.









Thursday, May 14, 2009

Hungarian embroidery


As I helped a friend move into a new flat the other day I spotted this sampler on the kitchen wall. Embroidered in 1934 on fine, hand woven linen it shows the embroidery styles /techniques. Most originate from a particular region- more on this later