Bucket List!!!

On my way...

Today Karen and I put a check next to one item on our respective bucket lists: a course in metalwork embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework! We are one day through our two-day class and feeling completely reaffirmed that we have been doing it correctly. And learning new things. Karen even taught the teacher a new thing - Gutterman spools of thread become needle cases. Who knew? (Karen, obviously!).

As if taking this class wasn’t a huge deal for embroidery geeks like us, the Royal School of Needlework is housed in Hampton Court Palace. Even the classes are in the Palace. This is one of Henry VIII’s palaces! All six of his wives lived there with him, not all at the same time, of course :-). Now the history geek in us is coming out as well!

We met in a specific room and were escorted to get a visitor’s pass complete with our photo, and then up the long, ancient staircase to the classroom. My expectation was a stone room, perhaps with wooden paneling, but instead the original walls are covered and it is a cozy, even warm room. There are about ten of us, including three Americans. So many is probably a rarity. On the tables were kits with the necessary supplies for the project which is a metalwork snow bunting.

Kits opened and we went to work, putting the snow bunting together step by step. Two layers of padding to raise the body, a leather head, satin stitched beak, and then the metalwork. First the thin silver passing threads which were couched down with coloured thread to indicate the colouring of the bird. Couching is passing a simple thread over the fancier thread to hold it down. After a few rows of that we went on to Pearl Purl, a tight coil about a millimetre in diameter. Stretching it out a bit, like a miniature slinky, so that the thread would slip down between coils, we couched that on around the bottom of the bird. As the stitches slip down between the coils they are invisible. The effect is really impressive. Tomorrow we will go on to some more complicated styles. We will not be able to finish the bird in class, but it will give me a great thing to work on when I am resting up from future days’ exertions.

At the end of the first day

The brown body on the left is merely the padding. The little button is a marvelous gadget, a magnet to hold needles. Below is a taste of what we should end up with:

Our teacher Becky Hogg’s example

Becky’s stitches are a heck of a lot more even and consistent than mine, but I am improving project by project!

Hampton Court Palace sits back a ways from the River Thames west of the old city of London. The city has now grown around it, but it still sits in all its glory. It was originally built by Cardinal Wolsey, one of King Henry VIII’s most trusted advisors, in the early sixteenth century. It was a glorious building which caught Henry’s eye. More grand than any of the royal palaces, Wolsey received a lot of criticism for its opulence . To avoid Henry’s wrath he gifted the palace to the young king.

The front gate of Hampton Court Palace from the inner courtyard.

Quite a gift, isn‘t it? Wolsey must have really chastised himself for his greed. The Palace is an amazing piece of Tudor architecture onto which subsequent kings continued to build. With my fascination with the Tudor period, that part of the Palace will always be my favourite. We did not have the time or energy to explore the Tudor rooms today. We had to leave something for tomorrow! We did view some of the art galleries, drooling over many of the paintings which showed anything from medieval gold laying and painting techniques to construction of a late medieval kirtle (an under gown) and men’s hose. Paintings like these show us how clothing was constructed amongst many, many other details of medieval life. The photo below, a wonderful shot by Cristian Bortes, shows some of the amazing chimneys which grace the skyline of the Palace.

Credit: Cristian Bortes.

It grows late and I am truly knackered. I need some energy for tomorrow, so I will say goodnight for now.