In one of the little cottages I spotted this:
A handpieced hexy quilt and a yo-yo doll's quilt. There were three beds in the cottage, each with a hexy blanket. Those hexies are about 1" by the way! When I turned round, I saw one of the ladies who works there (in full Victorian dress) hexing away. Of course, I stopped for a long chat. Mr CA nearly dropped to the floor asleep...
One of the other cottages held a handcrank sewing machine and a lady had been doing patchwork. Unfortunately she'd gone for her lunch as I wanted to ask her about the method she was using, I think it was quilt as you go onto a blanket, and the fact that I spotted several different recent lines of Moda squares amongst the old-clothes she was using! Not so authentic there Ironbridge!
There is a dressmakers and haberdashery, so I spent 5d of Mr CA's Victorian money on this half yard of beautiful sage fabric. You have to have a souvenir!
There were people making stuff all over. These are made from plaster of Paris and I intend to paint them.
Some things you can have a go at. I dipped this candle. A really easy process, I had one of those "why didn't I think of that" moments.
Unfortunately, there was nothing else I could have a go at on that day. A criticism of the place is that you aren't told the times of things when you enter - for example, we walked all the way down to the bottom and stopped for a coffee. After that, we saw the school house which said there was a lesson in 1/2 hour's time. If we'd known that in advance, we could have timed our visit around it.
Next we went to the China Museum. I was really excited as it was billed as very hand-on. I wanted to have a go at the pottery. There wasn't even anyone demonstrating. The place was almost deserted, except for the gift shops. A couple of the exhibitions were even closed but they'd charged us full price! I wasn't impressed. I was particularly disappointed that I couldn't have a go at glass blowing, advertised as available for £5. I'd have loved to have tried that.
I did buy these porcelain flowers though. And ate quite a lot of biscuits. Then fell asleep in the car.
8 comments:
Sounds like a great day to me and I love the candle.
I love country museums so this sounds like a fabulous day.
A bit of a mixed day then. Shame they don't have something advertising the class/demonstration times at the entrance. It seems like a no-brainer.
That sounds just like my kind of day out :)
Some shopping, some sight seeing, some biscuits, some crafting, then a nap - sounds like a great day to me, lol!
I haven't been there since I was a child, I can't remember there being all those museums then. Looks like you got some lovely goodies, even if everything wasn't open
that sounds such a great place to visit...
Hugz
I just read about Ironbridge in a Joanna Trollope book this week. I thought, what a cool idea! And, then, you actually went there.
Sounds like fun, especially the biscuit eating :-)
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