Layered Landscapes

The Yorkshire Dales 

It was such a lovely day at Skipwith Common, near York, to teach Layered Landscapes. The workshop at Silver and Stone is such a pretty place, looking out onto fields with sheep and listening to the birdsong.   Three keen glass artists designed and created fused glass panels based on ideas and drawings of The Yorkshire Dales including trees, hills, water and big skies.  I love the use of dichroic shards on blue glass to emulate water, red glass pieces for poppies and opal grey glass to make Yorkshire stone walls. 

Yorkshire Barn

If you would like to improve your glass fusing skills or learn a new craft from scratch please visit my WORKSHOPS page and my STUDIO DAYS page for more details. 

Jo X

Grassington Festival - here I come!

For the first time I will be taking part in the Grassington Festival  Saturday 22nd June. 

Grassington, North Yorkshire

Grassington is a small, but very popular, village in the Yorkshire Dales - not too far from Skipton.  I shall be outside under a covered market stall (must search the attic for the bunting) from 10.00am with a display of new glass items alongside some favourites. There will be a lot of activity going on during the day with street theatre and music, craft stalls and shops.  I am actually mentioned on the website HERE but you will need to scroll down the page to find me! 

There is plenty to see and do in Grassington with lots of walking country, great views and lovely pubs to go for lunch.  We go there often as we like to walk between  Hebden and Grassington or Burnsall and Grassington , walking back via Thorpe.  There's lots of parking too with the Yorkshire Dales National Park car park 500 yards down from the village square.

So, if you are in the area, please come by and say hello!

Malham Dale

Friday was a public holiday (Yay)! so we took a walk around Malham, starting off at the village to Janet's Foss and then along to Gordale Scar. 

It's not a strenuous walk as there isn't much up hill walking until you get to the Scar. There people can climb up the rocks past the waterfall and walk on to Malham Tarn.  But, as we had two dogs with us we didn't attempt the climb.

Instead we walked over the fields toward Malham Cove and the weather got warmer and brighter. 

All the walls around Malham are made from limestone and they glow a bright white in the sunshine. 

The top of the cove has the famous Limestone Pavements,  created after the last Ice Age by the slightly acidic water that ate into the soft limestone to create fissures. 

It's easy to walk across the pavement and it's fascinating to see the rocks looking like ancient prehistoric bones.

The descent from Malham Cove is quite easy as there are man made steps running down the side that lead to the path back to Malham Village. 

Of course a walk wouldn't be a walk if Jackson couldn't carry the largest stick he could find with him. This one was a bit charred and had obviously been used in a camp fire at some time. It was very heavy and gave me a crack across the back of the legs on several occasions. 

So our walk terminated at the pub for sandwiches and chips. Thanks for the day off, Will and Kate!

Stitches through Time

My friend Eileen and I were looking through a photo album and reminiscing about our Silsden Quilt Group that we used to attend when the children were small. Not an organised group - more a collection of friends with a love of sewing and a need to spend an evening away from the family! 


We were looking at the photographs of our only exhibition, Stitches Through Time, which was held at The Dales Countryside Museum, Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales in 2000. 

This was an idea that three of us had to show a history of quilting in Yorkshire and how quiltmaking has changed from a practical necessity to a past time and also how quiltmaking has had a revival in the past twenty years. 

We placed an advert in the Craven Herald requesting the loan of old quilts and we had a great response. We travelled around North Yorkshire collecting up quilts from farms, houses and an antiques dealer. Each quilt was loaned to us on trust so it was a huge responsibility.  and there were some beauties! One quilt from Settle still had the original backing papers attached -  which were the original hand written milk bills dating back to the 1920s.  Another quilt was a fine example of Victorian applique from Long Preston and a crazy patchwork of velvet, silk and embroidery came from Embsay.  We even had some adventures whilst collecting the quilts including, getting lost, entering the smelliest house on earth and being chased by a herd of cows! 

We had a great time setting up the exhibition with a lot of help from Fiona and Debbie at the Countryside Museum with the old quilts were hung from the walls of the gallery and our quilts displayed on the boards.  We had a table to sell small quilts and to demonstrate our sewing skills and Eileen researched the tradition of quilt making in Yorkshire. (There isn't much. Unlike Durham and Wales there isn't a particular style of quilting in Yorkshire - most quilts were made just for practicality rather than heritage). 

Although there were just three of us exhibiting at the museum (Eileen, Jane and myself) we each have a distinctive style and colour palette which made for an exciting and contrasting show. Eileen likes earthy tones, using yellows, russets and blues and her quilts explore and rework the American tradition of machine pieced and hand quilting.

Jane has a fascination for tribal and ethnic designs with a vibrant palette of blues, purples, sea greens and jades. She loves African applique and batik fabrics. 

I was taught American machine piecing from Eileen and my colour schemes are more "in-yer-face". I love Japanese indigo-dyed fabric and clashing colours.

Jane, Eileen and Jo

So here we all are at the preview evening of the exhibition. (This photo was taken 10 years ago!) The exhibition plus the daily 3 hour round trip to Hawes left us exhausted and we haven't repeated the  experience.  But we had a fantastic time - quiting, talking to people about quilting and selling our smaller quilts. Since then we have continued to sew separately (Eileen won an award at the Quilter's Guild the following year) and the skills we learned 10 years ago have stayed with us today. 

Follow I Love Red 2 for sewing tips, stories and free patterns. 

Pen-y-ghent (or Are We There Yet)?

So, last bank holiday Monday we decided to take a walk up Pen-y-ghent, one of the three peaks. It overlooks the small village of Horton in Ribblesdale in the Yorkshire Dales.

The weather wasn't too bad for the last day of August in the UK (it was dull but warm) and, once we had started the walk the cloud over the crag lifted. It's a shallow uphill climb for the first couple of miles.

We stopped at a bank of scree for a chocolate break - I insisted - and looked down on Hull Pot (the one filled with water).

View across the valley with Horton in Ribblesdale in the distance.

The climb got steeper toward the top and the guide books said it was a "short sprint to the top". Ha ha! I wasn't sprinting, I can tell you.

Jackson sit! Sit I say! Stay still for the camera! Oh never mind....

The views from the top are spectacular although it is very windy up there. Fortunately, there is a sheltered bench to sit on. Other people were there eating their sandwiches - much to Jackson's delight. A dribbling dog is not attractive!

The descent is much quicker and steeper. Jackson hopped from rock to rock but my Sister-in-law's little dog panicked and had to be helped down by a kindly stranger. Everyone else leapt around like mountain goats leaving me to plod my way down. Not impressed!

At the bottom it began to rain that diagonal sleety Yorkshire rain. I had brought a hat and waterproof clothing (unlike some people) and had a change of clothes waiting in the car. Typical me, though, I fell over in the mud in front of a group of people.

Well, that was five and a half miles and is the least strenuous of the three peaks. I'm looking forward to climbing up Great Whernside and Ingleborough next, although I could never do all three in one day. We adjourned to the pub for some cheer and I fell asleep over my drink.

For more pictures of Pen-y-Ghent visit my Flickr.