What I did today or rather ... how I wasted time at the computer ...
February 22, 2005 at 3:42 PM
by Ashleigh
The man did come and fixed it up and it looks much better now. Still slightly shoddy work but much better than before.
But I digress from the purpose of my report, which is to tell you all exactly what I wasted my time doing ...
I read all my boards about needlework. These are Aion Designs BB and Legacy BB both on www.ezboard.com. Both require membership so if you feel like applying make sure your details are fully filled in or you will be rejected!
Then I visited some of the sites that I picked up information from at the show on Saturday. These were:
www.needleworkboutique.com - Bernadette is Australian here in Holland and she runs a needlework store!
www.wolhalla.nl - socks socks and more socks! I am captivated by sock knitting and these new sock yarns do all the patterning for you so you just knit or purl or whatever ...
www.marinpatchwork.nl - a fantastic shop with lovely American patchwork fabrics and the cutest bellpull hangers you ever saw!
www.handwerkenzondergrenzen.nl - this is the website of a Dutch magazine. The name of it means 'embroidery without borders' and its a lovely magazine. I had seen it before but my Dutch wasn't good enough to read it, but now it is! Amazing what you can do when you want to read something badly enough ;) I visited their website and signed up for a 2 year subscription. I get a William Morris book with it which isn't bad so I'm really looking forward to that. While I was looking I saw that they have the Permin Vierlande kit on special offer at 35 euros which is AMAZINGLY cheap! So I'm ordering that!
I followed some links from there and found the Lacemakers Guild in the UK and the Landelijke Organisatie voor Kantklos (LOKK) here. Kantklos is the Dutch name for lace-making. We saw a lady doing this at the show on the weekend and it looked fantastically intricate! I am keen to try this and maybe once the kids are a bit bigger and won't fiddle with the bobbins I can go on a course. The LOKK website has a fantastic links section to Lace Making organisations all over the world.
Then, still following links I found out about a textile exhibition here in Breda soon. Its the 2005 Textiel Festival and looking at that reminded me of the flyer we got at the show on Saturday about a sampler exhibition at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden (yes, the one that recently had a burglary). The exhibition is named 'Letter voor Letter: Friese merklappen van A tot Z' (Letter for Letter: Friese samplers from A to Z) and it runs from 16 October 2005 to 12 March 2006. Click here for the museum website with a direct link to the exhibition. An exhibition is a 'tentoonstelling' in Dutch. I'll make another entry with all the details so I can find it again when I need it.
Still following links I found this site which I had forgotten about, Merkwaardig. This site is notable because a) its completely devoted to samplers and b) it has a great links section to some museums that I wasn't aware of. They are also exhibiting at the Textile Festival.
So, that was my morning of wandering around the Internet. I am surprised still that so much of this stuff is not available to the English market despite the huge interest in samplers in the USA. Maybe I can make a career for myself as a translator of Dutch sampler literature ;)