Day 6: all in white

This morning’s vision from my bedroom window  at 6.30 am was joy to an Australian- when she is in a warm hostelry with no need to go outside, great company and an embroidery project to look forward to.

I made myself a coffee with the excellent, ingenious in-room provision and settled down to read Murder in School, the third one of Bruce Beckham’s DI Skelgill series set in the Lakes District that I have on my Kindle for reading this trip.

The coffee sachets sit on a cup to form a filter and make very decent coffee. As far as I can see, the sachets biodegrade.

After breakfast we got going on our harp. Today is our last day on this project. Most of the day we worked on the finial, beginning by covering a wooden ball in silk and decorating it with gold thread


adding beads







and then a needlelace framework.

After lunch we worked on the rod for the finial.




This required wrapping metal rods with silk thread. I had trouble making my rod fit into the knob but Jenny says it will work and is giving me a hand.


Lunch included salads and a variety of seafood - some smoked. 






There were brown shrimp - apparently from the North Sea, a bit darker than pink prawns. The taste was not very strong, but I have no idea whether they had been frozen.

Around 4pm we had some instructions and a demonstration in construction. This is going to be fiddly and time-consuming but is relatively straightforward. I'm hoping to have my front panel embroidered by Thursday when Jenny has offered to help further in our free time. That would enable a partial construction. It is a lovely project -very precise in its requirements and processes - and beautiful. Jenny is endlessly generous with her knowledge and assistance.





By 4pm much of the snow had melted. It was still cold.




Tonight we went to the Wild Boar for dinner. There was a lot of interesting conversation and laughter. I love the wide-ranging discussion, the cultural similarities and differences.

It has been a long and intense day of work - but full of learning and camaraderie. I am too tired to elaborate on the many discussions we had today and the issues that occupied us.

Tomorrow we are off to Cockermouth to the Wordsworth Trust building. On Tuesday we swap tutors and projects. I'm hoping I can get both projects finished when I get home.