Day 14 Kendal 3

There must be a ready supply of small fish or plankton just across the river, near the bridge. It is where the swans were feeding last night and this morning a flock of gulls wheeled and dove around the same spot.

My first stop this morning was St George's Church, close by the hotel.


I had intended a longer visit but there was a meeting going on and I decided not to disturb it. Built in 1841, in local stone, it has interesting stone crosses over the side entrances.

St George does his usual thing inside the entrance and one of the bosses (in the architectural sense!) has met with an unfortunate accident.








From here I made my way back to the Quaker Tapestry. Genevieve and her husband were there and after an hour or so we met up for lunch.


This time I was paying attention to the lettering and the Barrett Counterpane but I couldn't resist photographing the young George Fox and his sheep. The chain stitch works brilliantly on these sheep.

I also wanted to photograph the britches that the embroiderer insisted her husband pose for so she could get the folds right! The footwear is pretty good too.












Mostly I wanted some photographs of the lettering. It really is excellent, executed as it is in Quaker Stitch - invented for the purpose. I hope to learn to do this soon.





In the process I noticed the lovely tree in the gardener panel.

This is one of the components for which the shop has small kits. I bought a couple of kits, including this one.

The other exhibition I wanted to record was the Barrett Friendship Quilt. This is a Victorian counterpane, initiated by Marianne Foster when she married the artist Jerry Barrett, who had painted an uncooperative Florence Nightingale. The counterpane was worked on by numerous people, many of them Quakers, in squares and assembled later. The daughters of the engraver Thomas Oldham Barlow worked squares, as did Marian Ellis, whose family friendship with William Morris is reflected in her use of his poetry on her contribution.



The counterpane alternates knitted squares with embroidered squares and each side panel is a lengthy quote.

It is a record of the concerns and interests of an artistic community.

There is frequently a stitcher working in an area towards the end of the exhibition. I did not realise until after lunch that the stitcher this morning was working on a panel for the Australian Quaker Tapestry. The Kendal Quaker stitchers have undertaken to stitch one of the panels. When I returned from lunch the stitcher was not there, and I did not want to uncover her work.




I walked around to the front of the Meeting Hall - the last station on the walk I attempted yesterday. The windows have large visuals of the tapestries  - clever.

From the front gates there is a good view of Kendal Castle ruins.



The lovely chimney line is of the building directly across the river from the Riverview Hotel.

Back at the hotel I did a bit more work on my Estense bag - the subject of a later embroidery blog -, read a bit more of Bruce Beckham and did some preliminary packing. My taxi is booked for 9.30 am tomorrow.


The Cumbrian lamb I had for dinner was nearly as good as the duck last night.










The sunset was less spectacular, probably due to the cloud cover - in itself pretty interesting.




Tomorrow will be mainly spent in travelling to Cheltenham to visit my lovely cousins.