quilts | Stitchery

October ’25

At the end of April I set off to Portugal to walk 200+ km along the coast. We had a nasty surprise at the outset because due to a power outage in Spain and Portugal our flight was cancelled just as we had arrived at the passport and security check. At 9.30 pm we found ourselves, and all the others on the flight, without our plane to Porto. Having had a doubt during the afternoon I had researched other means of getting there which is how at quarter to one in the morning we found ourselves getting on a bus, we had to change at Bilboa but it meant that we would only arrive 24 hours late and miss the first day. It was a long haul, the first bus was comfortable but the second had no suspension and the Spanish and Portuguese roads are not the smoothest but we finally arrived. Ten days of Atlantic coastline was magical and until the last couple of days really wild. After the third week spent exploring the Algarve I came home with a head full of ideas and the creative juices began to flow.

A sea view and a piece which resulted from the trip.

I had only a week at home before going off again for 5 days but in that time I decided to sign up for an online course with Claire Benn through the Fibre Arts Two platform. The trip was to the other side of France where we had great weather and visited Arc-et-Senans an old royal saltworks with the most stunning architecture and Besançon and its citadelle amongst other places.

Arc et Senans at sunset from the gardens.

Again many ideas and I felt ready to spend the summer producing some new work. Doing the course on-line motivated me, Claire is an excellent teacher and I found myself rethinking how I work. I was using earth pigments and recycled fabric and it all felt so right. I love stitching whether with the machine or by hand but we were encouraged to look at our work and see if we needed to stitch, it is a different approach and it really made me question what I was doing. I have used the long dry summer to experiment and start to understand how I can achieve the results which inspire me. I still have a long way to go but it is so exciting!

Now have gathered together some new work which was exhibited a few weeks ago at the local Fete des Arts where I was exhibiting for the fifth time at my friends’ house I was curious to see how my ‘new’ work was accepted.

Once the exhibition was over, less of a success than previous years probably due to the weather, I headed off to the Gers region for two weeks. The first week was with a walking friend, the second with the club. It is a beautiful area and almost each village has some curiosity to discover.

Some of what we saw along the way, churches, fortified villages, transhumance (sheep walking three weeks back home from their summer pastures in the mountains), ecclesiastical stitching etc.

I have continued to keep, more or less, up to date with my journal quilts for the UK Quilter’s Guild Contemporary group and also with my work for the Fifteen by Fifteen group, and, needless to say there is also some new work in the pipeline as soon as I have time.

Below are three of my Fifteen by Fifteen pieces on the subject of decay. The last two used earth pigments for the base colour.

Damp November

Posted on November 28, 2024 by carolinehiggs

Here we are at the end of November, the time has flown by since I last updated. At the beginning of October I spent a night in hospital for planned sinus glitches that was followed by a light dose of shingles so it was relief when I set off for the UK at the end of the month to visit family and friends for three weeks.

For once I was around for the journées de patrimoine and I went to the Mairie in la Rochelle to see the textiles on display, these comprised of a life size contemporary embroidery (cross stitch) of Aliénor d’Aquitaine celebrating 900 years since her birth and some rather wonderful wall tapestries.

The last Saturday in September saw me invited to teach around a hundred ladies at a friendship day for France Patchwork south of here near Angoulême in the Charente region, a little hectic but I believe that everybody went home happy with what they had achieved and I failed to take any photos!

At the beginning of October I hung 17 pieces at Le Sauzy, a parish hall which holds many different types of events . The hanging space is well lit and I was delighted to be invited to exhibit my work for a couple of months.

The UK was foggy, damp and cold but there was plenty to do and see. I made use of my National Trust membership to visit two lovely properties, Oxburgh House in Norfolk and the grounds of Knightshayes in Devon. In the former were the most lovely embroideries, rich leather and burnished velvet wall coverings which were a real surprise. The bed hangings arrived at Oxburgh around 1761 and were removed in the 1950’s and taken to the V & A which has loaned them to the National Trust.

The grounds of Knightshayes are fantastic and many of the plants are labelled, there were a surprising number of plants flowering and luckily the rain stopped for our walk around the woodland garden. The were some woven willow structures of wildlife secreted amongst the trees.

I also visited Country and Eastern in Norwich which has a collection of South Asian artefacts. Not only were there old textiles on display but also stunning carved wood and some enormous windows and doorways. I was particularly drawn to the Pakistani and Indian pieces. The building is an grade 2 listed old roller skating rink with the most incredible wooden roof. It opened as a rink in 1876 but a year closed due to financial difficulties and had a chequered career until it was transformed to its present use in 1993. There was so much to see in the museum section and to buy but I managed to keep my hands firmly in my pockets.

En route between friends I visited the Honiton lace museum, they had an interesting display of lace from all over Europe showing the different styles, then also drawers of lace in chronological order some of which was so fine and intricate. The first piece is the Esther Clarke flounce which was made for the Great Exhibition of 1851. I also managed to find my grandmother’s old house which I hadn’t seen for sixty plus years but which I recognised instantly.

On the stitching front I haven’t done much, the quilt I made for god-daughter’s wedding present was finished on time and was safely delivered, it was large and I had trouble photographing it, I had to hang it sideways on the washing line, hence the photograph is a little strange. I embroidered some of the panels and tried to keep to the colours that she liked to try and keep in harmonious. The whole piece was hand quilted.

I finished the last two pieces for Fifteen by Fifteen on the subject of Children’s books the first was The Adventures of Robin Hood and the last will be divulged later as we have not yet had the reveal. I am now trying to catch up with my journal quilts, September’s is posted and the last three for the year will be done very soon. All the quilting took up a lot of time and I now want to get back on track with creating, I need to make some new work, not that I have any exhibitions planned for 2025 as yet, because I have sold some of the newer pieces and I prefer to exhibit new work when I do exhibit.