North Wales

We hired a guide for the day to take us around to some of the sites in North Wales. We started at The Ugly House Tea Room.

 

 

It may not be gorgeous on the outside but I think the inside is rather cute.

 

 

Next we visited the National Slate Museum which tells the story of slate mining in this area.

 

 

We attended a very interesting demonstration on how slate is mined and split. Common uses for slate include as a roofing material, a flooring material, and for gravestones. This is how the slate is split.

 

 

And this is how the edges are finished.

 

 

The museum also has the largest working waterwheel in mainland Britain. The waterwheel was constructed in 1870 by De Winton of Caernarfon and is 50 ft 5ins in diameter, 5 ft 3ins wide and was built around a 12in axle.

 

 

We then visited Beaumaris Castle. Work was begun on the castle in 1295 but the King's priorities changed, construction stopped in 1330, and the castle was never finished.

 

 

 

Next up was Caernarfon Castle. The town of Caernarfon has a walled old town similar to Conwy.

 

 

 

We even stopped at the town with the second-longest place name in the world:

 

 

In case it is not obvious to you how to say it, here is a pronunciation guide:

 

 

And here is what the name means:

 

 

On maps and road signs it’s called by its nickname “Llanfairpwll”.

 

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Conwy Castle, Walls, and Plas Mawr House

Conwy Castle and the wall surrounding the town were built between 1283 and 1287. The castle has eight towers and a 91-foot-deep spring-fed well. The wall has 22 towers and is the most complete medieval town wall in Britain. Inside the castle there is a scale model of the town as it might have looked around the year 1312.

 

 

Today the castle looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the walls look like this:

 

 

 

 

This cute sculpture is in one of the castle courtyards.

 

 

We also visited Plas Mawr, a rare house from 1580. Built during the reign of Elizabeth I, Plas Mawr was the first Welsh home to be built within Conwy’s walls. It is said to be the oldest house in Wales.

 

 

 

 

These critters were on the ceiling of one of the rooms.

 

 

 

The weather vane was very special too.

 

 

The town of Conwy is located on the River Conwy.

 

 

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Conwy, Wales

We traveled to Conwy, Wales today by train and had a few hours to look around. The first interesting thing we saw while walking into town from the train station was Conwy Castle. The town and the castle were built in the 1280s and Conwy has the best medieval walls in Britain.

 

 

 

 

 

Even the train tracks are scenic.

 

 

 

Conwy is also home to the Smallest House in Great Britian. According to Wikipedia: "The house, which has a floor area of 10.0 by 5.9 ft (3.05 by 1.8 metres), was used as a residence from the 16th century until 1900 when the tenant was a 6-foot-3-inch (1.91 m) fisherman named Robert Jones. The rooms were too small for him to stand up in fully and he was eventually forced to move out when the council declared the house unfit for human habitation."

 

 

Our bed & breakfast, on the other hand, is quite a bit larger and very charming.

 

 

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London St Pancras Station

After a few days visiting friends in Folkestone we took the train to London for an overnight in a hotel before traveling on to northern Wales. Our train arrived at the gorgeous St Pancras station. Here are a few photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the inside.

 

 

 

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Needlework Update

I have finished a few needlework projects in the last year so it seems time for an update.

 

First up is a blanket for a new baby. I purchased a pre-finished baby blanket then embroidered five of the panels.

 

I took an online class through the EGA (Embroiderers' Guild of America) called Creating Beaded Gardens. It was taught by Nancy Eha. I had a lot of fun with this and it was difficult to stop adding flowers! For some reason the fabric looks a bit bluish in this photo but it is actually purple.

 

 

This is a cute little needlepoint project called Color Delights - Rainbow designed by Kathy Rees. The stitched area is only 4" x 4".

 

 

This next project started started almost 6 years ago. It all began with a trip to Gloriana Threads in May of 2011 to learn about dyeing thread and ribbon. Her colors are absolutely wonderful and she was selling single colorway sampler packs containing one each of the various types of her silk threads and ribbons. It was love at first sight for me when I saw the Topiary (color #115) sampler packs. I purchased one, confident that just the right project would come along at some point.

In 2013 I signed up for an Embroiderers' Guild of America Correspondence Course taught by Mary Long to stitch a needlework toolcase. My Topiary sampler pack of threads contained almost everything I needed for the project. It took me only a few weeks to finish the stitching. But completing the interior was a bit more difficult. The pattern called for Ultrasuede but that product is no longer easy to come by. Over the next 3 years I occasionally looked for a source of this product without success (one online shop sold what they called 'Ultrasuede' but it turned out to be plain cotton fabric dyed to give the appearance of Ultrasuede).

In the summer of 2016, at one of my Sampler Guild's stitching events, I happened to mention that I was searching in vain for Ultrasuede. One of my Guild members said she had a stash of Ultrasuede remnants and I was welcome to look through them to see if any of the colors would work. One of the colors was perfect for the project and the piece she had was just big enough to do the job. With the interior finished at last, I went on to make the remaining two items I needed. One was a decorative cord for putting around the edges and using for the closure. I made this with more of the Topiary thread using the Kumihimo Japanese Braiding technique. The other item was a button for the closure. For this I made a Dorset Button using a single strand of Topiary silk. Our group had been shown how to make Dorset Buttons in April 2013 in Shaftesbury, England while on a Mary Hickmott New Stitches tour of Southern England. I think it all turned out rather well.

 

 

These are some Christmas ornaments I finished throughout the year. They are kits from Mill Hill with threads and beads stitched on perforated paper.

 

 

Each year in February my sampler guild brings in a nationally-known needlework teacher to give a talk at our annual Tea and to teach a class or two. Last year that teacher was Jeannette Douglas and one of the classes she taught was this one called Common Thread II.

 

 

I liked her design so well I bought another small one of hers. This one is called The Spring Bird.

 

 

I have already started on Christmas ornaments for this year. This is from a kit I bought in England at the Knitting & Stitching Show. It is called Brandy Pudding and is designed by the Spellbound Bead Co.

 

 

 

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