Post 651

Not sure what to call this post as its a miscellany of things.  Day out in Salisbury (nothing unusual in that as the city isn't a long journey from where we live), my birthday (what - another?) and more makings from the Stitched Sewing Organizers (apologies again, this a US book title).

On Saturday we went to Salisbury to the museum there which currently has an exhibition of the late Terry Pratchett's life and work and the artwork of two artists who worked on his books.  Terry was the author of the Discworld fantasy books who live locally to Salisbury, but what we hadn't realised was that there was a book signing event too with the signing of a new book called Terry Pratchett's Imaginarium by artist Paul Kidby. who was the illustrator of the Discworld books. The museum was bustling with fans of his books (some dressed like some of the characters in the books) but it was worth seeing including the display of his office.

As the museum was busy we decided to take this in two parts and went across to the Cathedral for lunch. It was a cold if brilliantly sunny day and this made most of the detail from the front of the Cathedral, even from a distance

And the photo below was from the quadrangle

We took the opportunity to see the Magna Carta, one of only 4 of the originals in the country. amazing that the writing was so clear and well preserved  having been written in the 13th century and it is housed in the Chapter House, of the quadrangle, which in itself is an amazing piece of architecture.

After that back to the museum to see the other parts of the building and seeing a gallery of Iron and Bronze Age and also Roman discoveries and artifacts from the surrounding Wiltshire countryside.  Also rooms with Salisbury history and ceramic and costume galleries with quilts. I was able to take a few photos without flash with my phone.

 The two pics above are the same quilt, and a map of one of the villages.  Below a Grandmother's fan quilt.  Sorry I didn't take much information here. Also there were a lot of examples of Downton lace, worked in Downton just south of Salisbury.

So after visiting there we moved on into the shopping areas and all the bustle of Christmas shoppers but we also took time to see the Christmas market stalls there.

My birthday was came and went (62 years now) but saving celebrating until David and my 40th anniversary in December, when we go away for the weekend.

I've made a couple more items from The Stitched Sewing Organizers book, one of which I'm quite disappointed with, but have found out that others on the Instagram feed have also had problems with. It's a boxy pouch and I had a fight with the fusible wadding sticking to the woven interlining, but when all put together the corners of the pockets on the side of the pouch didn't tuck into the seam allowance of the bag ends.  So it will require some re-working, but you know the feeling when something hasn't gone right in the process and doesn't end well either.  Either undo and start again or chuck it all and start anew.  Still deciding on that one....

I also made a Sliding Box which was quite a bit larger than thought.  I used Fast 2 Fuse for stiffness, which worked ok, but not as effective as pelmet Vilene would have been.  In spite of that it looked good and pleased with the resulting box.

So that's it for post 651.