A Victorian Tartan Wool Shawl

This is a 150 year old Scottish crinoline shawl with a genuine West of Scotland provenance, in a very subtle, slightly faded, green and purple tartan. Sadly, it's also full of moth holes, but it's a fascinating reminder of a previous fashion craze! I don't know what the tartan is - have tried to search for it, but with no success. The craze for tartan began in the early 1800s, with Walter Scott's deliberate romanticising of the Highlands, but these tartan shawls became very fashionable when Victoria was at the height of her obsession with all things Scottish (including her Highland servant John Brown!) These huge crinoline shawls were for warm outdoor use, when the crinoline hooped skirt was also in fashion, i.e. about the mid nineteenth century, so this is a rare and interesting survival.

Adding a Little Value

I love my old linen and lace. Can get excited, just rummaging through boxes of old textiles, wondering what I'm going to find next. I was thinking about this only the other day when I visited an antique centre, not a million miles from here. It's a huge warehouse of a place, with various dealers renting space. Some of them have their goods beautifully arranged, labelled and properly priced, but others seem content to use this simply as storage space, with everything more or less dumped haphazardly in whatever area they are renting - furniture, architectural antiques, textiles. I got quite cross about the textiles in particular, and here's the reason why. People don't know how to treat it with love.
When I buy a box of old linen and lace, I sort through it all, as soon as possible. This preliminary 'sort' will let me know what I want to keep and what I don't. There will be a very few things that are damaged beyond hope of repair. There will be a few more things that may be of use to somebody but not to me. These will be put back into the saleroom at some point or - more often - donated to my local charity shop. The rest - the majority of items -  will be sorted out according to their uses: tablecloths, bedlinen, 'small stuff' such as lace edgings, hankies, doilies and so on. Next comes careful laundering. This is important because the dust harms delicate fibres and I like to get rid of it as soon as possible. Some things will have to be soaked, some washed carefully by hand,  some can go straight into the machine. I never use a boil wash, but I'll launder robust linen tablecloths on a long 60 degree wash, with a proprietory stain remover of some kind. Other items, fragile silk and wool, I will simply store carefully in acid free tissue, away from bright sunlight, with lavender to freshen them up. I have a huge old linen cupboard, which I clear out occasionally. It's amazing how often you can forget what is lurking at the bottom of a shelf - I found two stunning antique mixed lace cloths, carefully folded away, the other day. I had bought them a few years ago and forgotten all about them!
After the laundering and drying - outside in the fresh Scottish air if possible - comes the ironing, with a commercial pressurised steam iron, and - where appropriate - some spray starch. Believe it or not this is my husband's job, and he makes a very good job of it too. It is also at this stage that faults can be checked and noted, although no matter how closely you examine something, there will always be one or two that 'get away' which is why, when I'm selling online, I always offer a refund if a customer is disappointed.
Now all of this certainly 'adds value' - but I honestly don't do it just for that reason. I do it because I, myself, value these lovely pieces of old needlework. I like to think of the people - usually women - who made them, who devoted time and trouble to them. To me, these things are precious, and should be treated as such.
Which leads me back to that antique centre. What was really distressing, for me, was to find - in some areas at least - boxes and bags of rather lovely old textiles, simply abandoned to cold and dust. Linen tablecloths with fine crochet edgings, flung in a heap, with the dust of years still on them.  But with astonishingly high prices all the same - too high, sadly, for something so obviously unappreciated and unloved. If you are going to get into this business, you have to love that you deal in. Otherwise, how can you possibly enjoy selling it to somebody else?

More Tablecloths Coming

Our weather has turned very wet and windy over the past few days. Last night, in particular, I was reminded of the first line of that wonderful Ted Hughes poem -  'This house has been far out at sea, all night' - which was exactly what it felt like. Anyway, it puts me in mind of upcoming winter festivities, and reminds me that in October and November, people always start to visit The Scottish Home, looking for large tablecloths, preferably large white, linen tablecloths that will look stunning for parties of all kinds. I've been stockpiling a few, so will be listing as many of them as I can, online, between now and Christmas.

A few weeks ago, while summer was still in full swing, I found myself advising a good friend about laundering the linen tablecloths which she had used for her birthday garden party. We attended the party, staying with her in her beautiful old Oxfordshire farmhouse. The celebrations went on just about all weekend, because some of the guests came back for lunch the following day - but as order was restored, we were left with a pile of tablecloths marked with food and wine stains. Linen, however, is remarkably forgiving. I recommended that she use Vanish, or some similar proprietory stain remover, and give them a good long machine wash - not a boil wash, which is unneccessarily harsh - but a two hour 60 degree wash, and then hang them outside to dry in the sunshine. To her surprise, she found that even one or two old stains disappeared and the cloths looked as good as new, all ready for the next celebration!

An Old Willow Pattern Irish Linen Tablecloth

I love willow pattern crockery in blue and white, especially those wonderful old earthenware platters that you sometimes come across. There's something about old blue and white ware that goes extremely well with dark wood furniture. Now, 'brown furniture' has had a spell of being deeply unfashionable here in the UK. You can still pick up an Ercol oak dresser with matching table in your local saleroom for the proverbial 'song.' Less, in fact, that you would pay for flat pack chipboard. Much of it has been transported, in containers, to the USA, where they seem to appreciate this solidly built and really very attractive furniture rather more than we do. However - as so often happens in the antiques business - times and fashions are changing. It has a lot to do with ideas of recycling, or upcycling, I think, with the fashion for all things vintage, both in clothes and household goods. (I've been wearing vintage for years, since I was a student, in fact. I like to think I was ahead of my time, rather than just poor!) We may not all be quite ready for a complete resurgence in the intricacies of Victoriana  but people are certainly beginning to appreciate real wood, either the lovely chunky simplicity of genuinely old oak, or the later equally lovely lines of well made oak furniture from the 1900s.

All of which also goes some way towards explaining the growing popularity of lovely old linens, for bed and table alike. Why spend a fortune on new polycottons, when you can get fabulous antique textiles for a good deal less.  In one of my recent auction lots of old linens, I found a new and unused (albeit very grubby)  'double damask' Irish linen tablecloth, patterned all over with an absolutely gorgeous Willow Pattern design. Not only that, but woven into the cloth itself is the actual willow pattern story:

'Koong Shee, daughter of a rich mandarin, loved Chang. But her father, wishing her to marry a wealthy suitor, shut her up in the house to the left of the temple. Chang, disguised, effected her release and the lovers, pursued by the Mandarin, fled to Chang's island.They lived happily there until discovered by the wealthy suitor who burned down their home when from the ashes, their twin spirits arose in the form of two doves.'

So unusual - and imagine such a tablecloth being used - as was probably the intention of the company that made it - with a willow pattern dinner service. What a talking point that would be!

Indian Summer

We have had a rainy July and August, here in the West of Scotland,  but now the September 'Indian Summer' as it's sometimes called, seems to have set in, with bright, if a little chilly, sunny days and rather more chilly nights. In fact, I note with some misgivings, that 5 Celsius is forecast in Glasgow for tonight which is pretty wintry. All the same, I like this time of year, like it, in spite of misgivings about the slow slide into winter that it brings in its train. I like gathering blackberries, and sloes, making apple and blackberry pies, and sloe gin for the wintry months. I Iike the blonde stubble in the fields when the harvest is done, and the vividness of the colours, and the way you can almost feel the season changing around you. The house martins which have been nesting in our eaves are still there at the moment, with the final brood of almost grown chicks poking their heads out and pretty much ready to fly. I suspect that in another couple of weeks they will be gone. And, as always at this time of year - wearing my various business hats - I'm thinking about my writing, (a  novel to be revised before the end of September, so that my agent can send it out, while I embark on a first draft of a new project) and my online antique textiles shop to be refreshed and restocked for autumn, with winter parties in mind - lots of lovely table linens and napkins for dinner parties and other celebrations!

More Gorgeous Madeira Work

I've been listing some absolutely gorgeous Madeira work tablecloths in my Scottish Home eBay store, this week. They are so beautiful, and the work is so fine and detailed that they must have taken somebody many hours to make. They have obviously been professionally laundered, many years ago and then  put away. This one, pictured, still had the blue tissue paper from the laundry between the folds! They are part of a wonderful lot of old linen which I bought at auction in Glasgow, recently, and may well have come from one of the city's big, beautiful houses. They certainly look as though they have been treasured. Whenever I talk about old linens, somebody invariably asks me 'but what do people DO with them?' When I reply that they - er- use them for the purpose for which they were intended, i.e. as table and bed linens, I see a certain amount of scepticism setting in. There are people who simply can't imagine appreciating anything this old, and they certainly can't imagine having to launder and iron it. When I tell them that there are actually people who enjoy this, who love caring for these old textiles - and I'm one of them - they just shrug and turn away. Fortunately, not everyone feels the same!

Culzean Castle

We were at our local 'stately home' today - Culzean Castle - for a picnic. Last year I bought my husband a large picnic hamper for his birthday so that we could have civilised picnics, in the old fashioned way, with a tablecloth and real crockery! (Like the picnics which Mole and Ratty indulge in, in the Wind in the Willows.) To be honest, the weather in Scotland during July and half of August has been fairly hideous, so we haven't had a picnic since late spring - but today was the perfect day, so we packed the wicker basket with goodies, and set off. Culzean is the National Trust for Scotland's major attraction in this part of the world, so it tends to be extremely busy on warm sundays, particularly since this is the last weekend before the Scottish schools go back. But if you go reasonably early, you can find all kinds of quiet nooks and crannies, often with convenient picnic tables. Ours was at the back of the fabulous walled garden, so we had a walk round first and admired the herbacious border, which - at this time of the year - is wonderful. I'm so envious. Our cottage gardens look lovely in spring, but they never seem to look quite so beautiful in high summer. Culzean's Head Gardener is a woman, and - although I have been visiting the castle for years - I have to say that I have never seen the gardens looking so utterly gorgeous as they did today. Apart from the stunning borders, I particularly loved the row upon row of traditional, old fashioned annuals, such as Larkspur, Love-in-a-Mist  and Asters - plants which I haven't seen massed together like this since I was a child. The gardens sell plants, too - which is an excellent idea. And they aren't 'bought in' as they are at so many visitor attractions. These are genuine plants from the gardens, so that when you see something growing, and like the look of it, you might just be able to buy it. I came away with a deep purple astilbe called Purple Lance - a beautiful plant which I had been coveting as soon as I saw it in the border. 

Great Western Auctions, Glasgow

  Finally bit the bullet and found our way to the Great Western Auctions in Glasgow. This is a large auction house, on the west side of the city, and we had been meaning to go there for a long time but various other commitments had always intervened. On Friday, seeing from the online catalogue that a very large lot of old linens was listed, we set off early for viewing day. The auction house is in Whiteinch, along the Dumbarton Road and we only managed to get lost three or four times on the way there! (Glasgow must have the worst set of road signs of any major city in the western world, and we don't have sat nav. I have managed to get comprehensively lost, driving about Glasgow, more times than I care to remember.) The auction house is a large building which looks like an old church.  I had a good rummage through the linen, which contained some spectacularly beautiful pieces, and decided that it would be well worthwhile to attend the sale. The following day - having only got lost once this time, though that involved almost heading through the Clyde Tunnel and finding ourselves back on the wrong side of the river! - we attended the sale.
The Auction House is tucked away beside a lovely old pub called Granny Gibbs. You can read a bit more about Granny Gibb herself, here but meanwhile the present day pub is handsomely decorated with flowers and hanging baskets, and extraordinarily friendly. With time to spare, we went in search of tea. The pub is currently having a new kitchen added, and they aren't serving teas or coffees but the lovely lady behind the bar made us big mugs of tea and chocolate biscuits, and then wouldn't take any payment, but just asked us to put something in the charity box on the counter! I've a feeling this is the sort of thing that only happens in Glasgow and it's one of the reasons why people fall in love with the city!
The Auction Rooms were friendly too - all the staff were cheerful and helpful and its a place I'd be delighted to go back to again. I'm sure I will. The linens were sold quite late in  the day, and I managed to buy them, bidding nerve rackingly against TWO telephone bidders. (Not something that usually happens with linens!) I paid rather more than I wanted, but not quite as much as I thought I might have to. A few lots later, I watched several boxes of vintage clothes hitting the roof in terms of price, and was rather glad that I hadn't wanted them! But, of course, Glasgow is a great centre for vintage fashions, with lots of extremely fashion conscious students and other people, and a plethora of gorgeous vintage shops.
Now begins the real work of sorting, and deciding what can be sold, what can't, what needs laundering and ironing - a huge task - and what is perhaps better left in its original condition. There is so much of it, that this could take a whole week. I'll post more about some of the individual pieces, which are stunning, as time goes by. But one little fact emerged which I did not know, and it's part of what fascinates me about old textiles, and how much they still have to teach me. Among the linens was an old, unused, boxed Madeira tablecloth and napkins, very pretty, with its labels still attached. These told me that - as you can see from the picture above - they were made in 'Madeira Island' - of Irish (or Iresh, as one of the labels reads) linen. I've been admiring old Madeira tablecloths for years without ever realising that they were embroidered on imported Irish linen!

The French Connection - Old French Whitework

When I was ferreting about an antique market in the South of France, near Perpignan, a couple of years ago, I found two beautiful old bonnets, in finest muslin, with delicately embroidered whitework. I was immediately attracted to them, because they seemed to me to resemble Ayrshire whitework so closely, and of course, as I've blogged about before, here,  Ayrshire embroidery began when Lady Marie Montgomerie returned from France, with a little sprigged and embroidered baby gown which she lent to her friend, Mrs Jamieson of Ayr, who copied the stitches - and started a whole cottage industry. These are, I think, day bonnets for young women to wear over their hair - they are a bit big for baby bonnets. The stitches with their sprigging and delicate infills, do resemble Ayrshire Whitework (although I have to say that a good deal of the Scottish whitework which I have seen, is even finer!)

 
What really fascinated me about these as well, however, was the fine muslin. I have never seen anything like it - it was like tissue paper - and had been crimped, probably with an old fashioned goffering iron.

I've decided that the time has finally come to let these go, so I'm listing them on my eBay shop this week, but I won't be too sad if they don't sell!

John Ditchfield's Gorgeous Glass

We have been visiting close friends who live in the countryside between Blackpool and Lancaster for many years now, without realising that they live very close to the glass blowing studio of the amazing John Ditchfield.  Last Sunday, we went to his Glasform studio and saw a demonstration that was quite magical in its skill and intensity.
Although textiles are my passion in life, I have always had a liking for glass of all kinds, whether it be amazing stained glass, or those small, slightly misshapen drinking glasses that you sometimes come across in charity shops, and realise that - against all the odds - they may well have survived for two hundred years and more. But there can be few things as exciting as watching a master glass artist at work - and John is nothing if not a master and an artist. There's something enticing about the way in which a magician of this kind makes the work look easy - when, in reality, it's both difficult and dangerous. Watching him, you forget the high temperatures and the volatility of the material  - until, of course, you see the sparks flying!
His pieces have been described as the antiques of the future, by David Dickinson, among others - and I've certainly seen them fetching high prices at auction. You'll have seen them yourself perhaps - paperweights, mushrooms, lilypads (complete with silver frogs) and other natural forms in amazing iridescent colours. But not everything here is in miniature. Outside the studio are a variety of large and striking glass sculptures including the strange flowers above.
But my favourites are definitely the vases. The shapes are simple and very beautiful, while the patterns and colours in the glass are endlessly complicated and enticing.

The Vintage Patisserie

Anyone watching The Dragons' Den this week would have been treated to the sight of the charming 'Angel' with her Vintage Patisserie business. The presentation was as enticing as the cakes, and - given the enormous popularity of all things vintage - this did seem to be an idea whose time has come! The dragons clearly thought so too, and Angel got her money and the help of a couple of dragons. The Vintage Patisserie sounds like a business after my own heart. Ever since I was a little girl and used to go to salerooms with my mother, who collected pottery and porcelain, it has been the vintage and antique textiles that have enticed me. And many years before they became really fashionable, I also loved vintage clothes and costume jewellery, scouring charity shops for lovely old items that I could wear myself. Now, with my own online shop, The Scottish Home, I source, launder and recycle (or should that be upcycle?) a variety of old textiles. My customers come from as far afield as Korea and Japan (where they seem to love embroidered teacosy covers in particular!) as well as much closer to home. I adore the rescue aspects of all this, as much as anything else. It's so rewarding to buy a box of embroidered or lacy table linens, at auction - sometimes dusty and grubby because they may have been stored in an attic - soak them, wash them, freshen them and then see them go to new homes, and a useful life!  I can't count how many times people have said to me 'nobody wants these any more, do they?' But actually, you know, they do. So good luck to Angel with her wonderful vintage look, her stylish cakes and clothes, and her planned Vintage Patisserie. I haven't seen anything quite so exciting since my first visit to Demel's in Vienna (another fabulous vintage patisserie) many years ago!

5 Tips on Placing Antiques in the Home

This week, The Scottish Home is delighted to introduce a guest post contributed by London Interior Designer Greg Kinsella. We find these tips fascinating, since it's a sad fact that too many of us impulsively buy wonderful antique or vintage items, but are then not entirely sure how best to display them in our homes!


There are certain rules of thumb you can employ for placing antiques in your home so that they exude just the right amount of charm without being pretentious or over-bearing. Here are 5 tips to help you make the most of your treasured collections:

1. Grouping

Any savvy merchandiser will tell you that placing an odd number of similar pieces of collectible antiques in a display will create the most appealing arrangement. So when arranging items on a shelf, follow this rule to draw the eye. Also you want to be sure not to group items of different genres together. In other words, it is better to have a shelf just for your glass antiques and come up with a different way to display antiques of another material or style.


2. Furniture Placement

To create a specific sense of an particular era, you can make theme placements for your antique furniture that feature a certain style in a room. For instance, if you have a collection of furnishings from a certain era, put them all in the same area and add any knick-knacks that match that time period in the same area, especially lamps and artwork.


3. Colours

When you paint the rooms containing your antiques, try to paint at least one wall the same color tone as your displays and furnishings. For pottery and earthware collections, choose a soft beige or brick red hue that will accent their natural colors If you are working with items like French provincial furniture, consider using a soft yellow or cinnamon color to highlight the decorative inlays and hardware features.


4. Mixing Vintage with Modern

Don't be shy about adding a few antique pieces to your ultra-modern rooms. The contrast between the old and the new accents your antiques and softens the stark effect which often results from the clean, modern lines of contemporary room designs.


5. Lighting

If your beautiful antique collection is not well lit, it runs the risk of not being noticed. Use embedded lights in display cases that eliminate shadows and have different watt bulbs for various items. Also consider overhead lighting fixtures or recessed ceiling spotlights to accent antique artwork or furniture groupings. A pair of vintage lamps strategically placed in your groupings can be used to add splashes of light to accent your most valued collections

More Bonnie Old Blankets

There is nothing quite like an old Scottish pure wool blanket for warmth, beauty and comfort. Most of the examples I come across here in Ayrshire are from the now defunct Skeldon Mill on the bonnie banks of the River Doon - and I've blogged about these on The Scottish Home before. But blanket weaving was widespread in Scotland and occasionally I come across other lovely examples. Just last week, I found two splendid soft woollen blankets with the label 'Lammermuir', registered in Scotland and Canada. I haven't been able to find out anything more about this presumably old blanket mill, although there is a new company - Pride of Lammermuir - in the foothills of the Lammermuir Hills, making the most beautiful traditional woven textiles.

People used to acquire these as wedding presents - some of them seem to have been put away and saved 'for best' and never used, which is a shame, since these are the most forgiving of textiles, and can usually be washed, even in a machine.

They look fabulous used as throws on a couch, or chair, or to dress a bed - or on children's beds. You have to be careful that a child with sensitive skin doesn't react to the wool, but I've found these blankets to be so soft that it's seldom a problem. Sadly, here in Scotland, these vintage blankets are so often thoughtlessly cut up for 'dog blankets' which seems like a crime to me.

In the old days, most village weavers would have woven their own blankets which were then taken to be treated at a 'waulk mill'. You can often see this term in placenames, especially in Southern Scotland, and in fact we have the remains of an old waulk mill just outside this village - and documentary evidence that the landowner, up in his big house, would sometimes have been paid rents in 'good woollen blankets'. Given the nature of our winters, they would have been very welcome indeed!

Lovely Old Buttons, Lovely Old Box

A little while ago, I found this lovely box of linen covered buttons, among various old linens at auction.

I just love the name of these - 'The Iris Box of Superior Buttons, containing an assortment of the most useful sizes.' These must be Victorian or Edwardian - the kind of buttons that you often find on the back of pillowcases, or sometimes on old nighties. There's something incredibly engaging about the design of these surviving items of packaging - they sometimes seem to retain a flavour of the period more than the items themselves - perhaps because it is so rare to find them in good condition!

Ardkinglas Gardens

To reach this wonderful hillside garden you have to negotiate the famous (or should that be infamous) Rest And Be Thankful. The entrance is well signposted, just before you round the head of Loch Fyne - where you can visit the famous Oyster Bar, if you want to sample some first class seafood! For those with less deep pockets, however, right next to the Oyster Bar is a little garden centre, The Tree Shop, with an excellent cafe where you can get freshly made sandwiches, home baking and a very good cup of coffee. You can also buy plants, shrubs and some rare trees, grown at Ardkinglas, on the other side of the loch. This is a hillside garden, so you need to be reasonably fit to negotiate the many steps, but the pinetum, where you can see champion trees like these, is more accessible. The formidable Scottish midges were having a field day when we went a couple of weeks ago, so be sure to bring some insect repellent. They don't actually like me, for some reason, and only bite me when nothing more succulent is available. I'm delighted about this, but it does nothing to help my companions, especially my husband, who is always mercilessly attacked. The gardens themselves are beautiful and the trees, including the tallest tree in the UK, Abies Grandis, are absolutely wonderful. There's something humbling about standing beneath one of these giants, and gazing up among the dizzying branches. These are monumental trees, trees with personality - well worth a small diversion, if you find yourself heading west from Loch Lomond.

A Rare Old Scots Lowland Plaid

I've only ever come across one of these before - most of them have been so well used that they don't survive or are cut up for dog blankets - but I sourced this here in Ayrshire, which seems fitting, since it's exactly the kind of thing poet Robert Burns might have worn. It actually looks rather as though he DID wear it, as well, since it has so many holes, and has been darned so often over the years! It is a traditional hand woven woollen, lowland Scots plaid, in cream and black check - very large indeed at 42 inches by 120 inches. It's what Burns meant when he spoke of rolling a lassie 'in his plaidie' and seemingly Jean Armour noticed him because he wore his plaid differently from the other lads, as well as tying his hair in a fashionable way - a stylish young man, our Rab!

Often, when I'm handling an old textile, I find myself really wishing that they could talk. Well, they do talk, in a way. Each piece has its own story and it's possible to do your research, and to find out something about that history. Also, wearing my other hat, as a writer, I always find myself imagining what the tale of each individual textile might be. But sometimes it would be very nice to know exactly what went on - who wove this, and where, who wore it, where he lived, what he looked like...

Meanwhile, another bit of news. I'm trying to persuade a friend who is a wonderful interior designer, with a real flair for these things, to do the occasional guest post on upcycling with old textiles. She has more brilliant ideas than anyone else I know, so watch this space for more possibilities.

Dragonfly

Hearing a terrible commotion in our conservatory yesterday, a sort of demented clattering noise, we went in to find a huge insect trying to find a way out. With a little patience, we managed to usher it gently towards the open door - but I must admit it was alarming because it was just so big! As my son observed, it looked about the size of a bat when it was flying about. It was a dragonfly, and large even by dragonfly standards. Once outside, it rested for a while on the wall, obviously recovering from the trauma and I managed to take a picture. We've looked it up and think that it must be a 'golden ringed' dragonfly which is the biggest British species. I have seen these before, but usually up in the hills. I'm now wondering if the larva hatched in our pond, or if it came from elsewhere in the village. Dragonflies have short, beautiful lives, and are said to be very lucky. The Japanese believe that they are harbingers of new light, and joy, while in many cultures they are said to herald prosperity! Let's hope so!

Textures and textiles.

Part of the charm of the gardens at Castle Kennedy lies in the succession of viewpoints - like the one on the left. There really is nothing quite like the light in the West of Scotland, and perhaps this is especially true in spring-time and early summer. There's a stillness and clarity about the days that I've seen nowhere else (unless like today, of course, when it has been raining all day!) and that in turn seems to emphasise the rich textures and colours of this landscape. I often think there must be some kind of correspondence between my love of old textiles, my interest in the old gardens, and the colours and textures of the Scottish countryside - and my desire to write about all of these in some form or other. They DO come together quite often, mostly in my fiction, I suppose. I still don't write very much poetry these days, although I did return to it for a brief spell - but it isn't where I'm most comfortable. If I could choose what to do with my time, I think I would spend most of my days writing novels, and short stories, with the occasional play, just to keep me on my toes! But I know that textiles and textures will always inspire me, whatever I write, fiction or fact.

Castle Kennedy

This time last weekend, we were coming home from a spectacularly wonderful day spent at Castle Kennedy, not far from Stranraer. I don't know why we haven't visited these gardens before, but I can recommend them. And - fortuitously - we arrived at precisely the right time of year, since the rhodies and azaleas were at their very best.

There is something soothing about this garden that is immensely appealing - perhaps it's the fact that every vista is so beautiful, and perhaps that the pathways are all of soft grass, which makes the walking very easy. All I can say is that it was one of the best days out I have had for some time - and I want to go back again as soon as possible. Not only that, but they were having a plant sale too - irresistible!

Old Irish Crochet Lace in Silk

This is another amazing find from the bottom of a box of very old and beautiful linen and lace but at first I didn't recognise it for what it is! Most of the Irish Crochet Lace which I have come across until now has been made in very fine cotton - but this seemed quite different, flimsy and silky. I soon realised that it was made in ultra fine silk thread - which probably indicates that it is older than usual - an Irish Crochet collar, made, with wonderful skill, in imitation of Italian Gros Point needlelace. But crochet it is - and there are shamrocks and roses among the flowers, which are so characteristic of this lovely old form of Irish lace. This looks as though it may have sat on top of a dress - it could be worn either way, with the point at the front or the back. It may well be Victorian. I think I'd be inclined to frame it up and simply admire it!