The best of days ~ Gawthorpe Hall

Sometimes little parts of our life collide – and often something rather magical can happen. Last week I had the pleasure and and honour of being part of a rather exciting party of designers visiting Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire.

Gawthorpe Hall is quite beautiful stately home near Burnley in Lancashire.  Within the Hall there is a wonderful textile collections which was amassed by Rachel Kay Shuttleworth.

The Shuttleworth Family had lived at Gawthorpe since 14th century and Miss Rachel was the last surviving member of the family to live in the ancestral home. She had a passion for textiles and collected thousands of examples of needlework, lace, crochet, knitting and costume for her craft house.

She had a vision and a passion to preserve the skills and joy of craft and displayed her collection throughout the house so that visitors and students could learn and observe the traditional craft skills and our textile heritage would not be lost.

The lovely people  at Gawthorpe Hall textile collection have been able to secure Arts Council Funding to commission designers to re-interpret part of the collection and produce contemporary designs and patterns inspired by the collection.

I was very fortunate to be part of this wonderful gathering which included some British knitting royalty; Debbie Bliss, Kate Davies, Jane Ellison and Claire Montgomerie.

We spent a fabulous day looking at the museum displays, walking through the house and many many hours looking in detail at the collection. We were able to read original collection labels – commentary by Miss Rachel herself on the quality of the stitch work – I shudder to think of what she would think of my handiwork.

We laughed, chatted, shared anecdotes about our craft experiences. It was brilliant fun. Just one snag, I need to come up with a design now, inspired by the collection. There was such a treasure trove of artifacts to get the little grey cells going. Throughout the afternoon you could hear the odd lament – ‘I don’t think my brain can take anymore’. – but we didn’t mean it.

There were many moments when I just had to pinch myself. Spending time in such illustrious company I felt a bit of a cheeky interloper. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. If you are wondering, the big names of the knitting world are utterly fabulous. There was a really funny moment when a curator friend of mine arrived after lunch – she is an avid knitter and is very informed. As she walked in Debbie Bliss was to her left and Kate Davies to her right – it would be like walking into a room with the knitting equivalent of Madonna and Joni Mitchell. Both these famous designers politely introduced themselves, and my friend grinned and replied…’Oh, I know exactly who you are.’ It was a lovely moment and I giggled with glee.

Such funny, generous and inspiring women. I am so grateful to all our friends at Gawthorpe for patiently allowing us to submerge ourselves in this stunning museum collection. I only hope I can come up trumps with a good design.