Friday 24 January 2014

A very nearly successful trip to Bath with a couple of quilty links







January is such a dismal month so I planned a day trip with Mike to the wonderful city of Bath to see an exhibition at the Holburne Museum. The exhibition was by the artist Joseph Wright of Derby who lived in Bath between 1775 and 1777.
Everything went well until we arrived at the museum to find that the exhibition starts tomorrow, Saturday January 25th and runs until 5th May. I will be returning! We had visited the museum before and seen most of the permanent exhibition but I spotted the following large oil painting of "The Stapleton Family" by Thomas Beach, painted 1789.




In the close up you can see the detail of a pale blue quilted petticoat.
If you are ever in the Holburne try the Garden cafe which is fab. We had very good coffee and florentines to cheer ourselves up.

Then I decided that the Fashion Museum in the Assembly Rooms would be worth seeing. It was only about a twenty minute walk. However when we got there we found most of the costumes were being arranged for a new exhibition starting,… you guessed it… tomorrow! The exhibition is called "Georgians - Dress for Polite Society" and I am sure will be worth a visit. We saw a very small selection of costume and I loved the details on the following.

jacket with Wedgewood medallions, beads, crystals and embroidery

Beautiful cross-stitched Georgian gloves
Embroidered and embellished gloves



Dior cut-off ball gown, silk flowers, pearls and gemstones.


Mike had booked lunch at Allium,  a restaurant in the Abbey Hotel. We had taken the train so decided to have a drink in the ArtBar before lunch. It was meant to be an alcohol free January for us so that was the end of my New Years Resolution. Wonderful martini in a very comfortable bar. The food here is super and I can highly recommend the set lunch menu at £15.95 for 2 courses.

While I was in the hotel reception I picked up a leaflet for a Kaffe Fassett exhibition which is to be held at the fantastic American Museum in Britain from March 22nd-November 2nd 2014. The title of the show is "The colourful world of Kaffe Fassett"  This will be well worth a visit  (as long as you get the date right!) I saw an exhibition of his work in Lampeter last autumn and I will go to this even if it is the same. There was too much to take in on one visit.

There was just time to fit in a visit to Country Threads in Pierrepoint Place. I was looking for some low volume or plain fabrics to tone with my Nel Whatmore Secret Garden fat quarters for the Hummingbird quilt. I bought fat quarters of Stof quilters shadow style in a bright raspberry, an orange spotted fabric, and Moda grunge in Rosemary (a shadowy lime). There is a good selection of notions and threads in this shop too as well as my favourite Kaffe Fassett.

We flopped into our train seats having enjoyed a good day out despite missing our exhibition.
I'm all set to continue on my patchwork this weekend.

Happy sewing,


Catherine.



1 comment:

  1. Love the wedgewood jacket. I'd wear that in a heartbeat. xxx

    ReplyDelete

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