I'm just back from another week-long stained glass course at West Dean college. I had such a good experience last time, and felt I had a few more ideas I wanted to experiment with more, so went back for a second week with the same tutor. The panel above is the one I'd drawn out in advance, though colour choices are always something that have to wait and see what glass is available. It uses the iron oxides which are heat fired on top the glass to give a permanent design, plus a few bits of plain glass coloured with glass enamel, and silver stain (making this proper stained glass rather than leaded glass!). This is the second panel I made using leftover pieces, and some painted plain glass. The college has a sandblaster available to use, which is very helpful to make clear silhouettes like these birds using a masked out shape to remove the oxides and silver stain. The rest of the assembly was very similar to making a quilt, with lots of pieces cut to a set width and then shuffled around to find a pleasing colour arrangement! On my way home I called in at Packwood House, which happened to have a fabulous collection of stained and painted glass in the windows of nearly every room. I particularly love the mixed-up reassembled pieces, the original design has been completely lost, but the glass itself was too precious to simply discard. The gardens at West Dean were looking stunning, and it was so interesting to see the structure after my visit in the lushness of summer. The chalk stream was flowing again, rather than being a muddy ditch, and the spring bulbs were putting on a real show.
Speaking of gardens, this summer we're opening our garden as part of The National Garden Scheme. This is by appointment only, and the Hilltop Cloud studio will unfortunately not be open due to insurance limitations, but our 3/4 of acre will be open to explore, along with a chance to discover how we transformed it from a wilderness. A while ago I started hand dyeing some ramie, just to add to the range of solid commercially dyed fibres in stock. Dyeing plant fibres is a very different process to dyeing animal fibres, but it's possible to create versions of the same variegated effects I normally create on wool, and I thought the finished yarn could be very interesting to weave with. So the fibre went from this, to a yarn that looked like this. I chose to leave the yarn as singles, plant fibres are much more stable with unbalanced twist than animal fibres, and it means it's much quicker to spin the yarn to the required thickness. These ended up in the same ball park as the 2/8 cotton yarn I normally use as warp. Some bits are thicker, others thinner, I don't spin enough plant fibres to have effortless control of the the yarn thickness... but it's only for tea towels, and in the finished piece it's really not an issue. I put a full width warp on my Louet Erica, that was wound using various colours of 2/8 cotton (I use Yeoman Yarns Organic Cotton, or sometimes their Brittany 2-ply cotton, it's sold as machine knitting yarn, not quite as high quality as Venne Cotton, but it's a fraction of the price, and I mostly only make tea towels, not heirloom pieces). I wound with 5 ends in my hand at once, and then picked ends at random as I threaded. The draft was a basic M and W threading, and because I was in a hurry to get the warp on I made a bit of a mess of it... I can see the mistakes, so will fellow weavers, the gift recipients will have no idea! I wound the bobbins straight from the skein, which didn't cause any issues, I made sure to break the yarn in the middle of a blue section so I could create a piece that didn't have any obvious colour jumps. Once I'd done my test towel I then used up the rest of the warp with odds and ends. And here's the finished set, all very different, despite having the same warp.. Here's a close up of the ramie once its been washed, you can see how the singles sit quite happily in the cloth, as it's washed and used it will get more flexible and even more absorbent. The ramie towel I've woven before is incredible at soaking up liquid. The purple towel used the same treadling sequence, but was using some some leftover lithuanian linen from Midwinter yarns that had been used in a knitting project. This is going to be another super absorbent towel. The final 2 were just to empty some bobbins, and to see how different colours played on the warp. that's the nice thing about towels, they're fun to play with and at the end you still have a useful object even if it turns out to be not pleasing to look at!
IF you fancy playing with some of your own Ramie, the selection in the shop can be found here. I have a pair of ravens who visit each morning having worked out when I get up to feed the chickens... if I am late it's not unknown for them to let me know by tapping on the door or sitting on the edge of the vellum window banging the glass with their beaks. They are incredibly intelligent charming birds. In our tale of The Dream of Rhonabwy as retold in The Mab Rhonabwy uses the call of the raven as a way of signalling to the prince's men to come and arrest some bandits. Rhonabwy uses the original tale as a story that he uses to distract the bandits, and within that tale the caw of the raven acts as a signal. In the original version, slightly less pleasantly King Arthurs squires torment Rhonabwy's ravens. You can read a summary of the original story here. If you'd prefer a full text you can find one here on Project Gutenberg, scroll down for this particular tale. If you'd like to listen to the story, this is an audio version. In the story King Arthus plays chess with Owain, the Lewis chessmen are the most well known chess set from the 12th century, around the time when we think these tales were becoming well known. Chess arrived in Britain sometime in the 11th century, and was generally only played by people of a high social status and level of knowledge Todays fibre is called Raven, and there's lots of this lovely purple in the shop together with all of the other 12 Days of Christmas fibres, and all the colours that aren't special editions.
And this concludes our 12 Days of Christmas. Tomorrow is St Distaff's Day when spinners would get back to work following the midwinter celebrations. I hope you've enjoyed these posts revealing a little bit behind the inspiration for this years theme. Todays folktale is probably the oldest of the Arthurian legends, it dates to the 11th-12th century. In The Mab it's retold as the story of The Amazing Eight, placing the characters of our questing knights very much in the roles of comic book superheroes. Super Ted was one of my favourite cartoon shows as a child, and I never realised that the original version was actually Welsh Language and originally aired on Welsh Language channel S4C. In Culhwch and Olwen our protagonists have to complete a series of tasks to free the daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden, Olwen. Unlike her father Olwen is beautiful, and Culhwch wants her to be his bride. In total there are forty tasks to be completed, though our tale only narrates the completion of some of them (this is a long, long story in it's original form) This is a long story so this site breaks it up in to 4 sections. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 This video explains the story, and narrates the tale. Purely co-incidentally I've just found this live (but with a recording to watch later) lecture on this tale by Dr Mark Williams, Fellow and Tutor in English at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford, a specialist in the medieval languages and literatures of Wales and Ireland later this month. Tickets are available here. Sadly another day with very limited amounts of this colour, but what is available is now in the online shop, or if you need an alternate Soft Fruits if very similar in tone and colour.
This is the final of our Three Welsh Romances contained in the Mabinogion. Geraint and Enid is a love story, in The Mab it's tweaked slightly to remove the jealous husband aspect who believes his wife has been unfaithful, and then makes her trail after him as he goes on quests, but not letting her speak to him, eventually in the end she proves her worth, and they live happily ever after. Historically this would have been romantic, to my more modern feminist brain I'd rather she left the idiot to his own questing... This article has an interesting perspective on the way the original Welsh legends would have originally heard this tale, the ideals of courtly love are a French-Anglo-Norman tradition and not one that is Welsh. Many of the original characters in The Mabinogion were deities, could Enid have been one as well, hence the perfectly realistic expectation that she would accompany Geraint on his quests. This is a story that has been retold by many other authors, this is one version. If you'd like to read a fuller written version there's one here. The name of todays colourway is Marchog, which means Knight in Welsh, more accurately it might also be used to mean horseman, the hierarchy or courts and the sorts of fighting men was very different for the Welsh nobility than it was for the English. There's barely any extra fibre for today, but Storm is a very comparable colour, and can be found in the shop here.
In our tale it's not King Arthur who fights the black knight but one of his knights. The Lady of the Well is retold in The Mab as Luned and the Magic Ring. Luned is the wife of the Black Knight and she gifts our hero, Owain, a magic ring which makes him invisible and allows him to complete his quest. This tale is the second of the three Welsh Romances contained in The Mabinogion, all found in Welsh but with strong links to the French Arthurian tales. This site retells the story in a brief way, or if you want a lengthier read try this version. Sadly there doesn't seem to be a good online reading of this particular story. Luned is also the Lady of the Well, wells and springs were hugely important in pre-Christian Wales and that importance continued with churches often being built on the sites of those wells. Many places names feature references to this being a location where there was a well or spring. The image above is of Ffynnon Ddrewi, Ceredigion, where there are 3 separate wells, each is supposed to cure a different ailment. St Winnifrede's Holy Well has been a place of pilgrimage since at least 1115, probably the oldest continually visited site of pilgrimage in Britain. The fibre today is called Magic Ring, and sadly is one for which I don't have a huge amount of spare fibre. What there is available is in the shop now, and if you miss out on that, but feel the need for more pale purple in your life Lavender and Provence are both very similar colours.
This story in The Mab is called Three Graces, it's a retelling of the story called Lludd and LLevelys. The original version is a brief and sparse affair, but the retelling is a richer story. It's a classic tale of a cursed kingdom and the things the king does to free his people from three oppressions. It's also contains the story that forms part of the Arthurian legends, that of the Red dragon fighting the White dragon, as a foretelling of the coming of King Arthur. In the retelling the oppressions are rephrased as graces, in that they allow the ruler to better understand his people. This is the traditional version Lludd the ruler in the tale was earlier called Nudd and is thought to be a character developed from the pre-Roman God of Healing Nodens. Very little evidence of him survives apart from a plaque found in Gloucestershire with a Latin inscription. JRR Tolkien was one of the scholars invited to study it, and it's very likely he borrowed heavily from Welsh mythology in his creation of Middle Earth. Lludd is referred to as Llaw Eraint or "Silver Hand just like the Elvish smith who makes the rings of power Celebrimbor. If you love this blue shade of fibre from today then there's lots now available in the online shop.
Todays 12 Days of Christmas fibre is inspired by Dream of Emperor Maxen. If you're reading along in The Mab, it's the story Follow the Dream. The Romans conquered Wales along with England, though many of the Welsh tribes carried on being rather troublesome, hence the large numbers of Roman Forts found over much of Wales. Many of the few straight roads in the hillier areas of the country follow the routes of the roads originally built by the Romans. The image above is a representation of Segontium Fort, just outside modern Caernarfon (you can still visit the ruins today). It was built nearly 2000 years ago, and was occupied for around 300 years. Built by Agricola in AD77 in order to suppress a Ordovician rebellion, around 1000 infantry men lived here, guarding access to fertile Anglesey and also providing a defence against Irish pirates. This is the fortress that becomes known as Caer Aber Seint (the fort at the mouth of the Saint river), and appears in the Dream of Macsen Wledig in the Mabinogion. You can read an English version of the story online here. A note on spelling, in English the Emperor would be Maxen, Cymraeg has no x so instead forms the same letter sound by using cs. Emperor Maxen is a real life figure from history. He was Roman Empower of the Western Roman Empire from 383 to 388, and his rule marks the end of Roman occupation of Britain. This is the story of the Dream of Emperor Maxen, a retelling the transition of power from Roman rule back in to the hands of local nobility. Maxen falls in love with Elen, a Welsh princess, and as part of her dowry hands over control of several Roman fortresses and lands to her father. In the story Maxen looses his throne due to being absent from Rome for so long, but, with the help of Elen's brother, Maxen marches across Gaul and Italy and recaptures Rome. As a reward Maxen awards Elen's brother Cynan Meriadoc a portion of Gaul that is now modern day Brittany (Breton language is very similar to Welsh). What about Elen? Abandoned by her husband she was left behind in Wales. She declared "croes awr i mi yw hon" "a cross hour for me is this", and died of grief in a village called Croesor in Eryri (Snowdnia) beneath the mountain Cnicht. So important is the tale of Macsen, and the way he left Wales that it's stlll being sung about today. If any of you followed the recent World Cup you may have heard Welsh football fans singing Yma O Hyd. This is a contemporary Welsh folk song written by Dafydd Iwan. It was a song designed to raise spirits and to encourage people to keep the Welsh language alive. There's lots of Macsen available in the shop right now if you either missed out on the 12 Days of Christmas parcels, or if you had one and decide you need more of this beautiful aqua colour.
Todays tale is one of the Three Welsh Romances that are included in The Mabinogion. They bear certain resemblances to the Arthurian legends found in the work of Chrétien de Troyes a French poet who wrote some of the most famous Medieval literature. It's not know who wrote the stories first... were these romances a retelling of his work in the Welsh language or did de Troyes use a more ancient Celtic legend as the basis for his tales. Either way, this story may seem familiar because it's not dissimilar to the tale of Perceval and the story of the Grail. In my modern retelling in The Mab, this is the story of Peredur, the Monster and the Serpent of the Cairn. The legendary King Arthur appears for the first time in our stories. Arthur probably did exist, he was likely to be a Romano-British warlord who fought against Saxon invaders in the 5th century, our first written reference to him are Welsh, but he wasn't necessarily Welsh, as he pops up in battles all over modern day Britain.
The Battle of Camlan was supposedly Arthurs final fight, where he was defeated by Mordred. Camlan still exists as a place in three different parts of Wales. One of them is just down the road from me, take a look around the suggested sites of the battle on this rather charming website. If you want to read the original tale then you can read a copy of the Lady Charlotte Guest text here. Sadly I can't even begin to find a decent online reading of this story... it seems to be one of the less popular tales. The fibre today is inspired by the serpent that Peredur kill in one of his many adventures. There's not a lot spare of this vibrant green, but both Green Woodpecker, and Ivy are very very similar in colour, and you can find them all in the shop. "With bewitching words Gwydion conjured flowers from thin air and soon floral perfumes of broom and gorse, cherry blossoms and bluebells, oak and meadowsweet swirled around and their petals scattered the landscape. As the spell settled, a woman made of flowers appeared. Her hair drifted like a field of wildflowers in a gentle breeze. Her eyes sparkled the green of new shoots in spring and the heady scents of a thousand blooms kissed the air around her." The Mab, Meadowsweet and Magic by Eloise Williams This the story of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion. This video is a modern retelling, with a beautiful painting being created along with the story. If you'd rather read a summary of this story, you can find one here. If you enjoy exploring Welsh landscapes then this is a delightful look at the places where this complex tale is set. This video is a more traditional retelling One of the intriguing things about old Welsh law is that it granted far greater rights to women. Under the Laws of Hywel, before the final conquest by England a Welsh woman had much different legal standing than an Anglo-Norman woman. If a woman husband cheated on her she was entitled to compensation, the first occasion it was set at six score pence (half a pound), the second occasion a full pound, and on the third occasion she was entitled to divorce him. Women could still be beaten by their husbands, but only for three specific acts, giving away property that she was not entitled to give away, infidelity, or for wishing a blemish on her husbands bears. Again, if she was hit for any other reason the man would have to pay her a fine. Alas poor Blodeuwedd wasn't really counted as a person as she was created by magic, so many of these laws wouldn't have applied to her, but I do find it interesting how many of these old stories feature women as more than just side characters. There's lots of this fibre available in the shop, if like me you would enjoy a promise of spring flowers.
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Beautiful fibre you'll love to work with. Established 2011 VAT Reg- 209 4066 19 Dugoed Bach, Mallwyd, Machynlleth,
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