Hello, Voyagers!
My last message to you was way back when summer was just reaching its zenith, and now the leaves are dropping and pumpkins are decorating doorsteps all around town. I spent most of my summer in the garden or traveling, but now that autumn is here, I find myself back in my sewing room, searching for inspiration. This is all to say, I’m getting back on my newsletter wagon – I have quite the list of things to share with you.
But first, a tour recap! The Grand British Textile Tour 2024 embarked in late August for a whirlwind tour in London, the Lake District, and Edinburgh. As I looked through the pictures for this email, I realized how many wonderful experiences we had. From beautiful garments to gorgeous gardens, we had a very special time.
Cheers,
Betsy B
| We spent our first few days in London where we dove into high fashion at its best. We began with the NAOMI exhibit at the V&A Museum (oh, the gowns!). Our time on Savile Row was, as ever, absolutely brilliant. A highlight was meeting with Andrew Ramroop who is a tailoring legend. Finally, we got to visit the Biba exhibit at the Fashion & Textile Museum, which was everything I hoped for. Though we couldn’t take photos, we also spent time in a couture workshop at the museum, studying how the garments were made. Fascinating! Oh, and I need to give a special shout-out for our tour of the Royal Opera House. We weren’t allowed to take pictures but it was so good. And, they gave us a special peek into the costume department because we were on a textile tour. How sweet is that? |
From London, we drove up to the Lake District, with a quick stop at Beckford Silk in the Cotswolds. It is a family-run silk printing business and we loved learning about their dyeing and printing process.
The Lake District is stunning, and while I think we could have been happy just enjoying the lake view from our hotel, we did venture out. We were lucky to visit Hill Top Farm, Beatrix Potter’s home – it’s so dreamy. Jane from The Woolly Rug Company invited us into her studio and showed us how a rug tufter works. (Which reminds me, I need to put a small tufter on my Christmas list.) We also popped by Farfield Mill, a fabulous place to see local art and artists.
We spent the last few days of the tour in Edinburgh. I was thrilled we got at least one proper misty Scottish day – perfect for visiting Greyfriars Kirkyard cemetery. Our other Scottish visits were less spooky but no less beautiful. We learned about different Scottish textile artists at the Scottish Textile Showcase, before learning about Tapestry Weaving at Dovecot Studios.
Whew! That is a full 10 days condensed to a couple of paragraphs. England is my happy place and it is always a joy to introduce it to our guests. I’ll be back soon with books and projects to hunker down with as winter comes. Spoiler alert – I’m starting my first-ever quilt. Let’s see how long that takes for me to finish.
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