Stokie Girl

I was born in Stoke on Trent, home of the finest tableware ever produced and occasionally I get the urge to go back to my roots. We did the Staffordshire Moorlands bit for my husband and so it was my turn to do my heritage trail.

First stop was Wedgwoods. Coincidentally, there was a programme on TV whilst we were staying there all about master potter Josiah Wedgwood, the most famous potter and he certainly gave his all to producing the fine china for which he gave his name to. He practiced and practiced over and over until he had the perfect product, carefully documenting each process.

This is he stood outside the entrance to the shop and museum. Apologies for the darkness of these pics but hopefully you will be able to click and enlarge and see them a bit better.

There is much to see in the museum from beautiful crockery to jewellery with lots of video links. Wedgwood is probably most noted for it's Jasper Ware that has little white images in relief on a coloured background. In the museum is a handy computer generated gadget that can take a photo and portray your image as it would look on a piece of Jasper Ware.

This is me.

This bruiser is my husband.

 

We found a snatched hour to meet up for a cuppa in the cafe with Barbara Chainey. Another fellow Stokie.


At the end of the week we had a visit to the Burleigh Pottery. Currently it is my favourite everyday tableware and the factory shop is a must place to visit. Click on the link to read about this wonderful piece of our heritage and also follow the link to see Prince Charles on You Tube. Ha! Love that Stokie accent.

The entrance to the pottery works looking above at the beautiful tiles, notice all those clamshells.

This is called a bottle oven and at one time they dominated the area belting out smoke as they fired and cooked the pottery inside. The area was known as Smoke on Trent. Now there are only a few and this is the only one left standing at Burleigh. Burleigh and the area surrounding is being regenerated by a grant from Prince Charles and his Trust. In my opinion they are doing a great job and a good deal of the terraced housing is being revamped into smart looking homes. Anything which helps to save this wonderful heritage of ours has to be a good thing. This is one of a few Pot Banks left that makes everything from start to finish.

 

This week, on the sewing front the perfect fabric presented itself to me for the scalloped border for the centre of Hertfordshire. Already in my stash. It needed a bit of re jigging and drawing to get the scallops in the right place and hopefully you can see how I did it. I made a little template out of tracing paper and drew the outline of the flower motif so that it could be centred over each one along the line. I marked it with a General white charcoal pencil.

It was placed on the background, pinned in place and tacked down ready for appliqué. Nearly there with it and I am pleased.

Not sure where I go from here with this. Will just sit and stare at it for a while I think.


Happy Stitching.

Shirley.