New Embroidery Group

At New Year, eldest son, Tim, took me to The Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge to an exhibition, “Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence”.  As you can imagine depicted were many domestic paintings of the 17th Century by Vermeer and his contemporaries. We were given an insight into daily life of this period.  Several pictures by Vermeer and De Hooch, especially, are known to us, showing Dutch home life, often lit by windows or open doors. The Museum also showed a collection of lace. Illustrated here is Vermeer’s “The lace maker”

I have written about Vermeer before, not knowing that I am related to him!! Through the internet Tim has discovered Dutch connections with Delft. My mystery Grandmother’s Scottish trading ancestor in South Africa, married Magdalena  Hendrika Vos, whose Dutch family had come from Delft. This has led us back to a cousin, artist Egbert van der Poel, b.1621, who has a painting of Delft in The National Gallery 1665.  We have found that he is a cousin related by marriage to Vermeer b.1632
He is mentioned several times in a new book on Vermeer so the family must have been quite close. .

All this was not known to me when I previously wrote at length in Stitch about Vermeer, reporting on the exhibition at The National Gallery  (2002) commenting on words used such as “calm, domesticity, serenity, scenes of everyday life” I now look at these pictures with renewed interest!

I shall always remember the day I went to that exhibition.  As I arrived home the bus conductor was on his mobile.  He turned to me and said “There’s going to be a war!”
The day was 9/11.

Carole Waddle, Gwen Hedley, Jenny Black

The speaker at our Christmas meeting was Gwen Hedley, the well-known embroiderer and author, who spoke on Collaborative Art Exchanges.
After suffering a major health scare for two years, her recovery produced a surge of creative energy (manifesting itself in an exchange project with four friends – two textile artists, a painter and a sculptor. Each friend would send Gwen their work every two weeks and Gwen would return four, one to each participant. A photographic record was made at each exchange.

For the purposes of the talk, the textile artist’s work was shown, but the main focus was on the artists and the challenge of adapting to different techniques, assumptions and ideas.  The painter Cheryl Papaslan used paint instead of stitch and found it difficult not knowing the size and shape of the finished work in advance. Micolette Goff, the sculptor, added all kinds of objects – driftwood, shells, etc. so that Gwen felt impelled to strengthen and blend them into the fabric.

Each participant chose a subject and owned that piece when it was finished. All the resulting pieces were shown at a local exhibition in Folkestone together with examples of their own individual work. To anyone wishing to organise this method of working, Gwen emphasised the importance of establishing strict ground rules and choosing participants carefully.

In conclusion, she herself found it a stimulating way of working which changes your way of thinking, especially communicating one to one. It opens up new pathways – allowing the other person to choose and accept that you will not know the outcome in advance.

Gwen remained with us after the lunch and set us a task based on the ideas of collaboration. We were asked to bring with us A4 sized pieces of coloured plain and patterned papers, a pritt stick, and plastic bag. The task was divded into four time slots of about 15 mintutes. Firstly we started with our own papers which we tore and stuck on to a background to create our designs (some drawn additions could be made), this was then placed into  the plastic bags with any remaining papers. Then on to another person for session two, we could rearrange and add more papers, then into the bags for a third session, and finally returned to its owner for session four  and a conclusion of the afternoon.
Everyone enjoyed themselves, having an opportunity to socialize, to look at the design processes of others  and exchange ideas.

I have been following David Hockney’s Yorkshire chalk wold landscape work for some years now, following a Salts Mill visit one summer.

I have been enthralled by landscape since childhood, have studied it and taught it.  I am still a passionate walker, and the regular landscape doses I absorb with this exercise, give me great joy.  I have just filled with photographs the “Out of Down” Scrapbook:  some members saw the beginnings of this at Box Hill and then at the Studio Day in St Albans last year.  It is now full of my images of specific locations, seasonal and daily variations recorded when hiking the chalk downlands of south-east England over the last fifty years or so.  They include whole landscape memories alongside small details. This new David Hockney exhibition, therefore, could not be more close to me in terms of content.

The exhibition starts in a room surrounded on all four sides with the “Thixendale Trees”.  This same three tree scene was painted in the studio as recalled in each of the four seasons.  There is no written word I have found anywhere about what species of tree they might be but I have one in mind.  Let me know what you think when you have seen them!

This review is not a room by room account, so on through some retrospective landscapes to a group of first Yorkshire landscapes, painted in Hockney’s studio in 1997 from memory, distant recollections from his youth and the three recent months of daily driving through that particular landscape.  There follows an amazing, dense collection of watercolours and first oil paintings from observation, all done on location in 2004/2005.  The contents of just two walls would make a complete exhibition for anyone else.  On to a room in which Woldgate Woods, on specific different dates during 2006, are the subject.  The same viewpoint is painted across six canvases at a time, but in very contrasting light, times and seasons.  Each canvas of the group of six could stand as a balanced study in its own right too.

Hockney’s celebration of Hawthorn was not comfortable viewing for me.  His totems, cut tree stumps, I did not find I wanted to look at for long either, but then they were representative of death and decay and in that sense therefore probably appropriately powerful.

Enter, then, the largest room and the focal point of the exhibition, “The arrival of Spring in Woldgate Woods”.  The dramatic 32 canvas painting that is the final element of the installation, I found all consuming in the most uplifting way.  Add to that the 51 iPad framed prints of sketches Hockney had made also in specific places on specific days, starting appropriately in January 2011 and ending in May of that year.  Exhibited here is inspirational energy from a septuagenarian as well as some individually inspiring pictures.  If all this is not enough, there is then his recent work(!), Yosemite images and close-ups in Woldgate Woods.  Yosemite is one of my favourite places on the planet and did not disappoint.

In addition to mastering the art of iPad drawing, for the last four years Hockney has been using digital video cameras.  At Box Hill last year some of us were involved in some humble experiments with digital stills and short video footage!  In keeping with the “bigger picture” and his practice of painting across multiple canvases, he has experimented with using nine cameras at a time, mounted on a grid on the bonnet of his jeep, using them to draw moving scenes.  These moving drawings are exhibited, paired, across eighteen screens, all side by side.  He uses unexpected elements to mix with the landscapes which, interestingly, are all views ahead.   Allow at least twenty minutes to see this section.

This is not an exhibition where the artist’s skills are invisible.  It does not consist of wax splattering randomly or of a whole wall with one small piece of Blu-tac.  It is gimmick-free.  It oozes the physical experience and skill of decades.  For those who are tired of Monet water lily reproductions, there is a rich seam of multiple possible alternatives for the future.  I have booked to go back again with an aunt.  This exhibition, for me “touches the earth” as no other has done.

Dear Members,

It was encouraging to see such a large number of you at our Christmas meeting filling the room at the Artworkers’ Guild to capacity. Gwen Headley’s lecture on ‘Collaborative Exchanges’ was very well received and gave us something to consider as a future possibility for our own group. The afternoon session ‘Creative Consequences’ confirmed this as well as adding a lighthearted aspect to the day.

Our main focus this year will be our exhibition at the Knitting and Stitching Show in October and November. We showcased there in 2008 knowing that it is by far the best venue in the U.K. for textiles. After quite a lot of thought, the Exhibition committee has decided on a title Touching the Earth which I think is brilliant, giving us just the right focus and inspiration. So now it’s only a matter of getting down to it and wishing you all a happy and creative New Year!

This letter was initially begun in Poland, away from all the distractions of Reigate and I wrote:

‘On this day at the beginning of the New Year the weather remains harsh in the Bieszczady forest situated on the borderlands between Poland and Slovakia. A chilly wind chases the grey clouds showering flurries of snow over a rolling landscape etched in black and white. Dried grasses pierce the snowline against a backdrop of dark green pine trees standing starkly against the heather – brown branches of beech and larch. Snowy footprints of wolf, fox and red deer suggest a life under cover of darkness transforming the forest to a place of magic and mystery. A century or so ago the folklore was strongly linked to this world of nature. In wintertime peasant figures and animals were sculpted out of wood and cut paper snowflakes were frequently placed in cottage windows displaying the skill of their makers. Under the flickering glow of oil lamps, costumes for special celebrations would be embroidered in the style of the region along with linen pillowcases and sheets for a wedding chest.  When the daylight hours were short in this bitterly cold season, large quantities of neatly stacked logs were essential for burning on the old ceramic stoves for heating the house and providing a cooking range. Today, the stacking of the logs carefully graded in scale has become an art form in its own right. Our politicians may witter on about the big society but here in this country area a community and maintaining good relations with your neighbour are essential for survival.’

Artists have always shown a keen interest in folk culture prompted by exhibitions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries throughout Europe in ethnographic and open air museums. It was a search for national identity allied to the conservation of many rapidly diminishing cultures due to new technologies. There was also a strong appeal to the idea of a kind of Shangri-la existence in an unpolluted landscape where the arts and crafts could develop with a unique directness within a self-sufficient lifestyle. In the 1920s in Paris, Paul Poiret, the French fashion designer incorporated many folk art motifs into his designs from the Atelier Martine. In this country Godfrey Blount founded the Haslemere Peasant Industries in 1894 to combat materialism and preserve our arts and crafts tradition. Later, Rebecca Crompton, Kathleen Mann and our late President, Constance Howard (Design for Embroidery from Traditional Sources published by Batsford 1956) were equally inspired.

With this in mind I was very pleased to have the opportunity to visit the Uniwersytet Ludowy (University of Folk Culture) in the Podkarpacie region. Situated in a modest purpose built house amidst rolling countryside it’s the only place in Poland where you can train for a qualification to teach any of the crafts. Run under the supervision of the National Cultural Centre in Warsaw, it is a two year distance learning course with five one day workshops each month. The syllabus covers weaving, embroidery, lace, willow basketry, ceramics, felt and paper making and sculpture combined with painting, art history, ethnography, pedagogy and psychology. In the area surrounding the building I was both impressed and moved to see an exceptional installation of wooden sculpted figures entitled Exodus speaking eloquently of the area’s troubled history. The basketry and ceramics were also innovative but to my western eyes, the textiles were rather dull with strong religious overtones and a strong reliance on copying traditional sources. Adults and children are invited to workshops and there were some delightful clay sculptures made by the children reflecting their rural existence. For those students leaving school without any qualifications there are also apprenticeship courses run by the Chamber of Crafts in Rzeszow (founded 1945) covering 55 different occupations.

We were met by Hilary Davidson, the Curator of Fashion and Textiles.  What followed showed us that here was a Museum to rival the V&A.  The Museum had started life in Kensington Palace and has now risen to being one of the top five in Britain.
In theory items have to be connected to London for them to be accepted, but many of the earlier textiles have no provenance so could be from anywhere in this country.  She did say that they were overshadowed by the V&A but that they had a good dress and textile collection ranging from haute couture to clothes belonging to well-known people including Henry Irving and even an early M&S receipt.

She had laid out a large table with some very enticing items with an overall theme of ‘Buttons’.
The items ranged from early 17th Century to early 20th Century.
We started with 4 very different waistcoats.  They were all men’s as in those days men’s clothing was almost more decorative than women’s.  We could see as time passed how they got shorter and tighter fitting and the scale of the embroidery also got smaller.

The first was green 1720/1730, unsleeved with a wide embroidered panel down both fronts and along the bottom.  The buttons were made on a wooden base which had been covered in gold floss to give a base to sew into. They were then covered in gold plate and purl – a lot had tarnished but there was still a little glitter left in some to give us an idea of their original richness.
The buttonholes were also stitched in metal thread.  They must have been very difficult to do up but you could see from the wear that they clearly had been used.

The next cream waistcoat was exquisitely stitched in very fine cream drawn thread work all over the front panels.  This waistcoat had sleeves that were shaped with an elbow to allow for puffed sleeves to be worn underneath and so give room for movement.  This waistcoat had very fine Dorset buttons.  Most of the stitches on the buttons were almost too small to see in detail. The latter two waistcoats had narrower embroidered panels but had little flower sprigs all over the front panels and had embroidered Peking style collars.

We then looked at a stiff leather buff jacket (1685), a style associated with the Civil War.  This was quite a robust jacket and the only concessions to decoration were the buttons and a decorative edging to the bottom of the jacket.  There were about 20 closely spaced spherical buttons.  Hilary said they were covered in net but it looked to me more like detached buttonhole.  A discussion took place on ‘buff’ – in the buff meaning nude – to buff up something.  However, the computer later gave us buffalo, possibly they were made from buffalo skin.
The coat had a silk lining and whale bone stiffening in the front.

In complete contrast we then looked at what Hilary thought might have been part of a fancy dress costume.  It was a short white jacket in a knitted jersey fabric with applied brightly coloured hearts and circles.  It was fastened with Dorset buttons which were stitched on a metal ring.  However, these were in a concealed panel – what a waste!

The next piece was under wraps and was certainly spectacular when revealed.  A Court coat which was an amazing work of silvery bling with the main coat made of black and faun striped material. All the sequins were mirror glass in silver and blue and gave a shiny border edge.  Large cuffs were also covered in sequins. There was a repeated pattern of large flowers on either side of the centre opening – possibly carnations and below them were 4 smaller round flowers. We then saw a waistcoat that was embroidered in a self colour, followed by a jacket (1788) that had 16 large buttons which Hilary said were woven threads to give a check effect.

We then moved on to a coat that was made for Queen Mary.  It was made around the Coronation time 1911/12.  It had ermine round the top and was in pink velvet with gold lamé woven in – a dévoré effect with gold and green embroidery.  Quite a heavy material – it was quite fashionable at this time to have more of an upholstery weight fabric.  Apparently worn by Queen Mary in India – I can only hope it was their winter.

Next we saw buttons that were made for the 1851 Great Exhibition by C.T. Danby.  They were on cards and graded from large to small with the same embroidered design on each card.  The wooden buttons were covered in cream silk floss and then stitched with a single colour.  Again these were embroidered with very fine stitches and you were asked to buy a card to help support the ladies who stitched them. The final item was again a complete contrast – a Pearly Queen’s jacket covered in pearl buttons and the cap.  A dress suit and everyday suit has been given to the Museum by a Pearly Queen.  The jacket was almost completely covered in mother of pearl buttons – all different and some had even been dyed.  The arms had buttons depicting the Tower of London, St. Pauls and Big Ben.  The crossed pistols were traditionally there from the time when highwaymen attacked people.  The cap had a pearl bell dingle dangle, again a tradition.

We all had a fascinating historical afternoon all round the theme of buttons.

Having enjoyed Anthea Godfrey’s talk on her mother Margaret Nicholson’s wonderful or nué work, I was pleased to be able to do a sample based on the technique but doing it in a very different way using unconventional materials. I wanted to explore transparency and translucency, incorporating diffraction and refraction of light. I found a model-making shop and cake decorating shop and purchased various rods, tubes and wires. I already had translucent plastic canvas and transparent gel monofilament thread. I cut the tubes to size; put glistening silver wires through some. I then stitched, using the gel thread, over one or more tubes, varying the pattern. I sometimes used multiple threads through one hole.  This made the play of light vary from row to row. I also used glass bugle beads to add a three-dimensional look to a row.

Once I had finished the small sample, even more fun was to be had as I took the piece out into the garden used my digital camera to take macro photographs from all angles, with the sun from behind, from the side and light shining directly through. When I was photographing with brightness directly from behind (taking care not to hurt my eyes!), I noticed you could see the outlines of the trees upside down, with the canvas and gel thread acting as a lens. (More scope for the future here, I think).

I reproduced the best of these photographs onto good quality photo paper.  I framed five of these in apertures on a long frame. The photographs looked very much like the pictures I had taken of city buildings with light shining through and on them. The gel threads reminded me of transparent cables or pipes.  The bugle beads formed little arches.

I bought a digital microscope at Christmas time and did some more experimenting with close up photography, including exploring my or nué piece.  I now want to do more work with stitchery and photography combined, and maybe stitching into the photographs. This could lead to video (and sound?). Who knows where it might take me!

There are houses throughout the UK built for people of modest means but with artistic aspirations influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement of the late C19th and early C20th. Many Dulwich houses feature stained glass door panels with linear plant forms, ceramic tiles in fireplaces and porches and wrought iron window handles. Possibly some of the first occupants would have bought items of furniture or textiles for their new homes designed by one of the architects involved in this movement.

Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott designed many modest houses for the new garden suburbs in southern England together with a range of furniture that was made to his designs by the firm J.P. White of Bedford; but Blackwell, designed by him in 1898, is on a different scale. This Arts and Crafts house in the Lake District is one of Baillie Scott’s largest and most important surviving buildings in the UK.

The house is situated above Lake Windermere with fine views across the lake to Coniston Fells. It was completed in 1901 as a holiday home for a wealthy Manchester family, the Holts, and remained in the family until it was purchased by The Lakeland Arts Trust in 1999. Throughout the years when it was leased out, most of the house’s internal features remained intact due to being boarded up or carpeted over.  After meticulous research and extensive restoration following its purchase,  the house was opened to the public in 2001.

The design is strikingly modern but at the same time the exterior with its whitewashed walls, steep pitched Westmorland slate roofs and cylindrical chimneys reflects C16th – C17th  Lakeland farmhouse architecture. The interior is stunning. All the decorative details designed by the architect have been expertly restored and the rooms furnished with a mix of C17th and Arts and Crafts period furniture favoured by Baillie Scott. Throughout the house wild flowers, berries and birds feature in the carvings, plaster work, stained glass and tiles.

The design of the main entrance hall was influenced by the medieval hall and it was intended to be a social gathering area for the family and guests. Originally it contained the billiard table, now gone, but the six dish shaped beaten copper  electric  light shades designed by Baillie Scott have been re-hung after being found hidden in a cupboard. The walls of the hall are lined with C17th oak panelling recycled from a redundant church. Local craftsmen were extensively employed throughout and the intricate frieze of intertwined rowan berries on the lower parts of the walls was carved by Simpson’s of Kendal.

The most beautiful room in the house is the White Drawing Room. Here again rowan berries feature in the design of a plaster work frieze. This room is considered to be one of Baillie Scott’s finest interiors. The inglenook fireplace and the large bay window with their comfortable settles  were places to sit, relax and enjoy the room and the view. I particularly admired the mantel shelf supported by long tapering columns topped by wood capitals carved in a design of birds, fruit and leaves. It extended from the fireplace around the room  becoming a display shelf for ceramics.

Light floods into the house from its many windows and colour played a vital role in the interior decoration. Paint analysis on the bedrooms shows that the colour schemes were very bold ranging from strong green to bright yellow. Downstairs a combination of different materials such as the warmth of oak panelling, green slate against pink sandstone, copper light fittings and varieties of coloured marble made the rooms glow.

Blackwell is well worth a visit especially if you enjoy Arts and Crafts period design. It is very welcoming and you can sit, relax and absorb the details in each room – and there is a good café and an excellent shop!

Our day started as we gathered at St. Albans station and seventeen of us made our way to Liz Holliday’s home on the other side of the city centre. We went up to her amazing Billiard Room studio and all sixteen of us gathered round the grouped tables in the middle. Liz led us into talking about our various projects and we had a good discussion about where we were going with these.  Some of us had work based on our day at

Box Hill. This project had really inspired those of us that were there that day and we brought along all kinds of work (photographs, drawings, and paperwork) and we worked on this for a while.  Also ideas for our work for our next exhibition were discussed.

Liz then showed us her wonderful “Footprint” project which made us realize that textiles are not just to be hung on the wall but can occupy other spaces including the floor.  Liz went on to show us a book that she had made with a leaf theme.  It consisted of layered pages which had been painted and there were holes through which you could see other painted pages and interesting things happening on them.  She demonstrated this to us by making us tear various shaped holes in small pieces of paper.  She then made up some ‘brusho’ paints in three colours and she painted each sheet quickly with a combination of these colours and slapped them one on top of the other and left them for a while…

Meanwhile, we broke for lunch and formed a large circle while we sat and ate our lunch in Liz’s beautiful garden.  It was not so warm when we first went out but the sun came out and warmed us all up and intensified the colours in the borders.

Back to work.  Liz had gently peeled the pieces of coloured paper apart and dried them.  There was an array of lovely muted colours on each piece which were stronger at the torn edges and each shape had printed through onto the next sheet below forming interesting shapes and effects.  Liz has used this dyed paper technique to create her own large art scrapbooks.

There followed a short design exercise where we all produced doodles on small squares of paper folded into nine. These were all so different and it was interesting to see them hanging together on the wall. The purpose of the exercise was to illustrate the principle that if a design works on a small scale, even as small as a postage stamp, that it will work on a wall, or on the maximum 1 x 1 metre square size option for next year’s exhibition!

Afterwards we watched, in another room, the video that Liz and her husband had put together from the photograph and videos we took on the Box Hill day, plus sound recordings and pictures of the work that was done – it brought it all back in a magical way and showed how you can have an all round sensual experience and record it.  When the sequence has been further refined it will be shown at a Queen Square meeting.  We then had a group photograph taken and as a finishing touch I read my piece of prose, most of which I had written while sitting surrounded by the Box Hill panorama and evoking memories of my own.

The day gradually came to an end at the studio and a few of us, not quite wanting it to end yet took a walk through the beautiful Verulamium Park on our way back to the station.

We all agreed we had had a lovely day and would like to thank Liz and her husband for their wonderful hospitality on the day, and to Liz Ashurst for helping to organize our recent ventures.

For those of you who haven’t been before, a day out at Ramster (nr Chiddingfold, Surrey) is a delight with some beautiful and inspiring pieces of work on show in a lovely old barn-like building.  For partners who don’t want to look at embroideries there are beautiful wild gardens to wander through and, at the right time of year, a stunning display of rhododendrons and bluebells;  a tea room for that all important cup of tea plus sandwiches and cakes.  Enough of the sales pitch……

Every 2 years invited textile artists are asked to submit their work for the Embroidery Exhibition. This year there were 310 pieces on show which ranged from small exquisitely hand embroidered birds to large machine-stitched panels that showed a bird’s eye view of the South Coast.  Do I get the feeling that there were a lot of birds depicted this year?

Having had time to look at all the pieces, whilst stewarding on a quiet Saturday morning, my overall impression was of a very high standard of work, there being something for everyone’s taste, whether it was representational or abstract, 3D or wearable.  On reflection I thought that the standard of framing and mounting used was sympathetic to the embroidery.  Design elements were well thought out; although several pieces were technically excellent they didn’t necessarily have a focal point, so that the eye wandered aimlessly over the work.  Some colour combinations were vibrant and visually exciting, whilst others were subdued and reminiscent of the atmosphere that was being portrayed.

Whenever I go to an exhibition I always try to pick out a piece of work that I would like to take home with me.  This time I was torn between two pictures.  I particularly loved the figurative work of Susan McArthur, showing a young woman in a curled position.  The artist had laid down pieces of paper and fabric which had then been painted and stitched, resulting in an evocative and thoughtful study.  The other piece, by Wendy Dolan, was of a view looking down over the Snowdon range and surrounding mountains, all of which I have tramped over at some time in the past.  The design was beautifully and sensitively executed in neutral colours, with lightly padded areas, torn strips of frayed, machined fabric over which had been laid an image of the OS map of the region.  Contour lines and roads had been picked out in machine stitching and couched threads, together with the names of the various mountains being cut out and applied to the background.  The whole panel was of a richly textured surface that was very subtle and harmonious.  Unfortunately both pictures would have been a strain on my bank balance (oh for a sugar daddy!)…..

Other works that caught my eye were:

- A trio of pieces by Delia Pusey, of a collar, floating panel and bridal shoes.  These had been richly stitched on hand dyed fabric with added tassels and machine stitched lace – inspired by a Chinese Wedding ceremonial costume.

- Three small panels by Maggie Hills, of ‘Allotment Chickens’ – with attitude – worked on stitched and painted textiles.  They were a delight to look at and raised a smile.

- ‘Grandpa Hoodie’ by Mavis Walker, was a small 3D fabric sculpture of a figure seated on a chair.  A little wizened old man dressed in a track suit with his hood up, sporting a pair of trainers, brought another smile to the face.

- ‘Jenny’s Thorn’ by Stella Murray, was of a Botswana thorn tree stitched onto a subtle metallic fabric background with added beads, knitted wire and threads, was skilfully executed and sumptuous.

- Another amusing piece by Jenny Beard, ‘All dressed up and nowhere to go’ was of 2 parrots perched on a line in all their finery and feathers, one staring over its shoulder with that look in its eye!

- There were a number of landscape and woodland scenes, beautifully machine stitched.  Pieces that were painted and appliquéd, collaged and quilted.  A few used modern technology to transfer digital photographs to fabric and then stitched into, together with exploiting all of today’s mixed media.

I could go on but there are too many to mention.  Collectively I thought that this year’s show was of a very high standard.  Roll on 2 years time!

Liz Ashurst is not only a gifted artist and teacher, Chairman of the New Embroidery Group and regular contributor to this newsletter, she is also an idiosyncratic tour organiser. If you are prepared to rise in time to check-in at Gatwick at 4.15am, brave the free-for-all that is Easyjet and not mind travelling around Poland in a series of minibuses of varying vintages, some without working seatbelts, with the occasional detour in an ex-Russian army jeep, then Liztours could be for you.

These minor travelling inconveniences were insignificant compared to the sights and experiences that made up the trip to the south of Poland that Liz led from 17th to 25th May this year. We were fourteen, including Liz and Joanna Jskoczynska, a Polish speaker, who joined us in Krakow. Liz’s knowledge of and contacts in Poland enabled her to put together an itinerary tailored to the group’s interests in art (including folk art), textiles, architecture and natural history. We also met and enjoyed interactions and meals with local people.

Two days in Krakow visiting museums and galleries, historic buildings and churches, and meeting a group of embroiderers was not long enough to explore fully this beautiful city. The ethnographical museum was a particular highlight.

From Krakow we travelled east to Sanok, stopping en route for lunch and sightseeing at Tarnow. There we visited another fascinating ethnographical museum, this one specializing in the culture of Roms (gypsies). We stayed in Sanok for 3 nights, visiting the beautiful wooden church at Dobra, having lunch with a Polish family on their small-holding, being guided around the outdoor museum of buildings from the past at Skansen, going to an icon museum and enjoying a picnic in the woods with Liz’s husband and his friends.

En route from Sanok to Osada Czorsztyn, we stopped at the village of Olchowiec Koko Dukli and listened to a special sung church service and visited a small fair selling hand-made goods and local food. Our hotel at Osada Czorsztyn was magnificent: old wooden buildings rescued when the valley was flooded to make a reservoir and re-erected on the shore of the lake: beautiful rooms with wonderful views. Birdsong was the only sound. On the following day we travelled by raft through the Dunajec gorge of the Pieniny National Park, a journey of 18 kilometres. Two boatmen, dressed in traditional costume, one fore, one aft, punted us through the gorge, Poland on the left, Slovakia on the right, to Szczawnica. The same evening, the mother of Liz’s friend Marcin, who had helped arrange the tour with Liz, entertained us to a cookery demonstration. She and her friends, all dressed in traditional costume, cooked pierogi (dumplings) and other potato dishes and encouraged us to try our hand at them too.

Our last night was spent in Zakopane. On the way, we stopped at the wonderful wooden church at Debno, with its beautiful painted interior and were privileged to have its glories pointed out to us by the parish priest. Zakopane attracts many tourists and has shopping opportunities to match. A huge outdoor market sold souvenirs as well as fruit and vegetables and was the perfect place to spend our remaining zlotys. Problem: how to squeeze 2 kilos of rough Polish wool into my already bulging suitcase. There was just time to visit one last ethnographical museum and then have our final supper together at the hotel. An alarm call at 5 the next morning and we were into our last minibus to take us back to the airport in Krakow. I recommend the bison grass vodka sold in the duty-free shop.

We packed so much into these 8 days that it felt as if we had been away for much longer. It was a great experience and one I very much enjoyed. Encouraged by Liz from the beginning to keep a sketchbook and journal, collect ephemera and take photographs, the reunion lunch we had about 6 weeks after our return enabled us all to compare notes (literally) and to remind ourselves how wonderful it had been