POLLY'S FAIR

This is a fair well worth visiting if you are interested in, or collect, ethnic textiles from all over the world.  Some of the exhibitors are the top dealers in their fields and travel widely to collect their special items.  You can learn a lot and handle very interesting examples. Polly Lyster and her family will welcome you .The village is high on a hill above Stroud  in a delightful village hall.  Excellent home-made food too. E.B. 

STOP PRESS FUTURE FAIRS

From March onwards I shall repeat, under the title above,  the list of textile fairs to be held by Talent for Textiles in historic buildings:
Ilminster Town Centre, The Meeting House, April 4th Wed.
Poundbury, Brownsword Market Hall, June 13th, Wed.
Yarlington, July 6th, Fri. Royal School of Needlework lectures
Bradford-on-Avon Masonic Hall, September 7th, Fri.
Ilminster Xmas Fair, The Meeting House, October 12th Wed.
                                   For further details and invitations contact dbaer@onetel.com
World Textile Spring Fair, Bisley Village Hall, nr. Stroud
     12th, 13th May,                                                        contact  thedyeworks@mac.com

Pastoral Sheet Music

Looking through one of the glossy magazines of this month, I am rather amazed at the prices quoted for old French sheets;  the first pair of sheets I ever bought were priced at 20 Francs each ( approx £2).  I bought them at that bargain price from a young lady with a shop near the Loire at Gien.  Her boyfriend had told her she would make much more money selling pancakes and told her to sell all the cheap brocante she had in her shop.   So I bought a lot and she then said I must buy her sheets.  I resisted and said I was not interested in being a 'linen lady'.  She insisted I bought them 'at a price you cannot resist' and I carried them home thinking they would make good dust sheets.  Later that summer my daughter's bedroon was lacking curtains to go with her new wallpaper, so I hung up the two sheets as temporary curtains.  She, and all her friends, thought them so up-market (pure linen! and so cool), that I suddenly realised they were perfect for the minimalist look and every next trip to France I loaded all I could find.  Then the film wardrobe people found my stores and bought every one for dressing Romans, Greeks, pirates, serfs and Elizabethan nobles as the weave was identical with the cloths that were used in ancient times.  Three years ago I had over 800 in store and now I have about 30 and soon they will all be gone.  I was lucky to be in at the beginning of the demand (and supply) of old rustic textiles and I am sad that it is now nearly finished -

BLISS IN BED

   Already, two of my readers agree that newly laundered linen sheets are a real delight and one says she starches the turnover - (good idea, mine gets very crumpled during the week).   One hotel we stay in,in the Var, France, changes the linen every day and I do find that a great luxury, although almost all hotels in France now have a notice in the bathroom that, to save water, they ask you to put used towels on the floor and the rest are not automatically sent to the laundry.   I once read that the Duchess of Windsor who lived in France  in great style, had all her linen specially made and embroidered by Portault, the famous linen purveyors in Paris (still active) and she directed four footmen (one to each corner) to carry her sheets from the laundry to her bed each day, so that there were no creases or folds to spoil them!    Some luxury!
   

SLEEPING BEAUTIES

  Just to say that a local book-worm has informed me by snail mail that there is a good bargain going at Amazon if you dream of owning that wonderful book about linen called THE BOOK OF FINE LINEN by Francoise de Bonneville -Flammarion Press.    It must be a re-issue because I know many found it was out of print a few years ago - and if you collect, buy, use French linen, it is a wonderful reference book as well as a very good read.   She is a journalist and writes well with lots of details and wonderful pictures of almost anything you might find at antique fairs and brocantes in France and you might also identify things you have or have inherited - there is so much to learn!     They had 10 new copies at about 1/2  the original price.

HUMAN HAPPINESS

Virginia Woolf, in Orlando, says that human happiness is lying on fine sheets and listening to pigeons.


A very fine linen sheet with filet lace insertion
 and decorated with a princess' crown (centre)



Would you agree?  I have to say that here in Bradford on Avon, we have to listen to the squalls of seagulls seeking perches and nesting sites amongst our old tiled rooves - and doing a lot of damage when they pull the moss out to find food - and not the way we like to wake up at all. Bar a pop gun, there is not much to be done with these pests!  but I do agree that sliding into a bed with newly laundered fine linen sheets, faintly smelling of lavender, is a real pleasure and many of my clients write to me about these  pleasant and relaxing sensations.  I have a client in Australia who says that in the great heat, her bed becomes very sticky and the linen is so much the best as it wicks away all the humidity - another in South Africa uses rough hemp sheets to drape over all her sofas and easy chairs for the same reason and it is a great economy compared to having loose covers dry cleaned.  For babies, old people and invalids who all spend a long time in bed, linen and hemp are medically proved to be much the best and healthiest - I sound like a patent medicine advert. but I think I am telling the truth, no hocus pocus!

Taking a break.

   I 've been awayfor a sunshine holiday so there was a Bloggap.  In the meantime, some of you will have received the programme of fairs for this year with brief details of dates and venues.  Undoubtedly the star event will be on Friday, July 6th, 2012 at Yarlington House, nr.Wincanton, a beautiful early Georgian mansion in a lovely park with delightful and romantic gardens. It is owned by Count and Countess Charles de Salis and they are both deeply interested in textiles and needlework.  The event is by invitation and the entrance fee is £5. or £3.50 in advance ( all of which goes to the two charities, MacMillan Cancer Support and The Royal School of Needlework.The Countess is a past President of the School)  If you would like to join our mailing list for an invitation, please contact me by Email with your name and full postal address - dbaer@onetel.com   Everyone on the mailing list will receive all dates of all fairs etc., in March.  You may remember the Needlework Festivals that were held at Yarlington in the past, so you will know that this event with talks and demos by the Royal School will be extra interesting.   They were closely involved in the lace and embroidery for the Duchess of Cambridge's wedding gown.  There will ALSO  be the popular Rag Bag stall where everything will be sold for Charity, so please start collecting  surplus  fabrics, wools and anything to do with dressmaking and sewing NOW! Delivery dates later on.  This is an ideal outing for a minibus group! and there may be some extra surprises included in the entertainment!