Monday 6 July 2009

Gorgeous freebies, SAL update,& Grannys' Album


Hello, lovely people, what a strange week we have had.Searing heat up in the high 80's, and then turning to extremely heavy bouts of rain the next.

Here is something I thought you may like whilst I was having a surf around the stitchery sites. I found this gorgeous little rabbit block as a freebie at http://zuill.us/andreablog/category/embroidery/free-patterns/ I just couldn't resist. Thank you Andrea. I have stitched it with 2 strands DMC on Calico. Andrea has quite a few cute little patterns which are intended for patchwork, but could be used in many other ways.

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The picture below is of my sewing efforts so far, of the free Stitch A Week SAL that I am participating in on the Yahoo Friendly Stitchers Group. ( The link is at the top on the left). I am a bit behind, but am catching up gradually.

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I must tell you of another stitchery site that I have found which has some delightful little embroideries/stitcheries which are supposed to be used to make a small quilt. The lady who is offering the blocks called 'Verandah Views' is Cheryl, and the Freebies can be found here at Willowberry Stitchery:http://willowberrydesigns.typepad.com/willowberry_designs/verandah-views-free-stitchery-patterns.html

As yet I haven't started stitching, but no doubt I will start stitching them shortly. They are in my list of to do's.

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Granny's Visitors Album.........

As I don't have a lot of stitching to show you this week I though you may like to see a few things from my Grannys' Visitors album. I inherited this album before she passed away back along in the 1960's, as she said she wanted me to have it, especially as I was interested in Victorian times and history, and also art. I don't think that it was actually her visitors book, but more so the ladys' whom she worked as a Companion for, back at the turn of the century. The lady was quite elderly, and Alice, Emily Garrett, my Granny, I believe was given it for some reason unbeknown to me.

The earliest date in the album is 1834, and it seems has been added to gradually over the years. There are many lovely little drawings, and poems in it, in the most beautifully elegant writing. Quite a few of the written pieces are in French. As I do not speak French and have to use translator tools to read it, I find it most frustrating that I don't know what these pieces of literature say.

If I have any French readers of my blog I would dearly love to know if you are able to decipher this beautiful French text. I think that if you click on the pic it will go large hopefully.

This is some of the art that is in the album, I have tried to look up the artist, of the Turkish style man but to no avail. If anyone reading this blog has heard of W.Warman...... could you please let me know what you know of this artist.
This next picture is a pencil drawing of an African scene, back in the 1800's



Christmas card from the 19th Century


Early Victorian Christmas Card
Next time I blog I will try and decipher some of the poetry, I don't know who the poems are by, but some are very beautiful.


















































6 comments:

  1. What a lovely ASAW, Dawn, you ARE doing well. I have an Alexandra (Edward VII's queen?) album that belonged to Peter's grandmother, she put in snippets just like your gran's lady. Thanks for all the links.

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  2. Your bunny is sweet!! And your SAL is coming along nicely. That album is wonderful!! What a treasure!! A treasure on every page more like! I would love to have something like that.

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  3. Dawn
    That album is lovely. What a treasure!! Next time put in a picture of the album itself. Would love to see how it looks. By the way are you sure of the African scene. Looks like India to me - the banana and coconut palm and the garb of the girl carrying the pot - it reminds me of the country side here.
    Will check the freebies sometime. And I need to find sometime to read the rest of your blog too.
    shobi

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  4. Hi Dawn! Your ASAW is coming along beautifully! I'm far behind too but hopefully both of us will catch up soon. Thanks for all the freebie sites, your bunny is adorable! What a treasure you were given in your Gran's visitor book! What fun is that to have those pages to "stroll" through? Each page is a mystery in itself! Thanks for sharing! *Hugs* DJ

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  5. Thank you ladies for taking the time to look at my blog, and your nice comments. I do appreciate hearing from you all, and all the others that I know who visit my site, and don't leave a comment.

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  6. Dawn im in love with your bunny lol i love it :-) and your ASAW is looking great too, i love a challenge and researching (sad i know lol) and have tried looking up info on this W.Warman so far havent realli found anything but if i do il let you know :)

    There a little something for you on my blog have a look xxx

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