People - and Things

Last weekend I was at Steeple Ashton where Wiltshire Guild has its HQ. I was there to teach Woven Shibori. It all went with only one hitch. I had forgotten there was an error in one of the drafts and one poor weaver thought she had something looking very odd and it did. The error was in the lift plan and I managed to work out what was wrong so that was embarrassing but not disastrous. We dyed all the samples with Procion MX and one sample was untied. It was okay so I breathed a sigh.
Then I picked up Kirsten Froberg  on my way home past Swindon station and we spent a happy two days discussing weaving topics. She had an appointment with a robemaker in Pershore (just down the road from Malvern) on Monday so I drove her over and stayed to listen. Very interesting. If you have just been appointed Vice-Chancellor of University X, you order your robe from him. So the place is full of black velvet, red and yellow silk, ermine, hat moulds for tricornes and so on. Fabulous ribbon, heavy gold motifs - - indeed everything that a textile nerd finds attractive. Kerstin has a photo which I am hoping she will email to me.
If that was not enough, the robemaker took us into Pershore Abbey and showed us the embroidered copes and altar cloths which were stored away. Quite breath-taking.

It was raining hard so we went Beckford Silk Mill and looked around. Then home to steak and kidney pie. Today we walked on the Malvern Hills before she caught a train to Gatwick on her way home.

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