Last week mum and I visited Pollok House...
...which is worth a post in itself. But if you were ever a fan of Upstairs Downstairs (which I don't think I actually ever watched, but is ingrained in my consciousness) or the Duchess of Duke Street which I loved! - you will also love it here, because you can go down into the basement and sit in the old kitchen with it's tiles and old range, have a cappuccino and a piece of cake. "But only for 5 minutes mind, before you get back to work, clumsy child!" The remaining basement rooms and stores are given over to a Pantry style shop with biscuits, chutneys all that sort of thing, and a gift shop. "Not for the loiks of you!"(must've comeover all Duchess of Duke Street)
Sometimes I like what goes on behind the scenes more than the scene itself - and Pollok House doesn't disappoint with a cross-lateral corridor for servants, so they could access all the rooms without "..'anging about" the family areas. Coming out of the servant corridor where it crosses the main axis, you'd have to look both ways like crossing the street, incase of passing Gentry.
We were a bit early for the Christmas decorations, but they were decking the halls and fireplaces with holly the day we were there. If you live nearby and have never been, it is worth going at Christmas, as very festive but away from the commercialism of it all. They have a Mrs Claus for the children - which I like the idea of. The chap at reception was very keen to tell us that a house like this required 30 or so staff to keep it going. He then very kindly let us in for free! "...'ow will we ever thank 'ee, sir?"
My inquisitive nose is always out for the unusual, and I was immediately impressed by a stack of huge books, leather bound and gold embossed with the words Lady Maxwell's Scrapbook on the spine. I was a bit disappointed not to be able to see inside them, but later on found this case with one open...
... not a great photo (without flash), but to add to it all, laid out on a logcabin quilt!
Last week I also received my scrap swap package from Alisa in Canada.
Full of lovely scraps - just great... and photographing it this morning I thought of it as a book of scraps too...
...turning the pages to reveal another layer of colour and pattern...
...here is the logcabin card Alisa sent with the package. Reminds me of Lady Maxwell's quilt. Unfortunately Alisa has decided to stop blogging, but perhaps she will reconsider at some point, to share her quilts with the world.
Then, while looking for something else yesterday, I came across some scrapbooks I kept around the time I was at art college during the 1980's. I couldn't quite understand at the time why I had the compulsion to do this, but certain images would call to me, so I collected and composed them in themes and by colour... just like I do now with the recycled cards. Again it must be an ancestral thing, my Grandma was a colourist for a carpet manufacturer and one of her other grandchildren (my cousin) is now a stylist and set dresser.
Just goes to show brown paper and ribbon never go out of fashion - on the left is a Christmas spread from Good Housekeeping magazine in 1988!... and on the right, I must have had a latent love for quilting, as not sure I was even aware there were quilts in this picture until today!
No wonder there was often a cry of "don't cut that up until I've finished reading it" in our house! - although I did always ask! Wonder if Lady Maxwell ever heard the same thing.
More recently I began collecting images again - this time I put them into plastic sleeves, although now I'm not sure whether to continue, or go back to glue and paper again. As you can see I'm a bit behind with documenting... another of my 'jobs-to-do'.
But look... what's this?
...remind you of anything? I've always LOVED this image, and only today when I was downloading the photos I noticed it says "Handmade...all part of the charm..."
...maybe not the fishnet socks though...
