Past Times

Here we are well into January and the relaxtion time it still happening each day, amazing what you can achieve with a bit for forethought and planning.

We have even managed some time out and on Sunday, DH and i had a trip to Newarke Houses museum. Sports fans will no doubt have heard of the Leicester Tigers famous rugby team, but we went to the museum to see a different type of Leicester Tigers, the army regiment.

It was a fantastic exhibition, and DH got some much needed info for his family history research.

The regimental flags and band equipment is very impressive and yes you can actually see a stuffed real tiger head/skin on the top of the big drum.

There were lots of old soldiers medals on display together with their service records and also some on screen accounts of their times at war.

You can dress up as a soldier if you want to.

A recreation of a First World War trench was very strange, eerie sounds of what they would have heard and how they would have lived in there, so cramped.

Lots of cabinets full of memorabillia, a fantastic exhibiton and well worth a visit.


A couple of the exhibits i found really interesting as a crafter.

A stitched Christmas postcard sent home to a soldiers mum.

That was really lovely and must have been so lovingly kept all these years.

So beautifully stitched.



A german prisoner of war had made a mat whilst he was in a camp.

It was very impressive and so beautiful.


I wonder where they got the wool from to make that??

Another part of the museum has an old street reconstructed with cobbled stones and old shops.

There is a drapers shop, exciting stuff for a stitcher.

I loved this shop. The track around the top is where the money would go along to the cashier and the change returned to the customer.

Lots of lovelies to see in this shop.

Bolts of fabric wrapped in brown paper just as they would have been delivered to the shop.

Wooden glass fronted boxes with threads inside.

Samples of embroidery, i took some close up pics of that, i thought you might like to have a look.

There were some names that are still going today, like Silko and Anchor.



It did sadden to me to see that in the pawnbrokers shop there was a cantilever wooden sewing box.

I couldn't imagine how anyone could have pawned that.


I guess when the direst of circumstances happen to you and you need money to feed your family, anything that would get you a few coppers would have been fair to be pawned.

We had a really lovely time. I hope you have enjoyed the pics.

I have been stitching. Page 8 of the RR is completed so thats all ready to be sent on to the next stitcher next week.

I've also started the challenge design for this month, a lovely design and it's stitching up nicely.

Tonight it's the stitch club and being Wednesday it's The Sampler Girl SAL night, so i'll be taking that with me.

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon with the RR pic.