Mwnt and the Welsh Quilt Museum

We are now home safe and sound after several busy days of travel. We had a wonderful time away but it is lovely to be home. It was especially nice to see Ma, Paul and Jeni in Sydney and to see our kids and the little people tonight. Best catch up on the last few weeks.
On Tuesday, 4 August, we had a rainy day so it was nice to have a relax in our little cottage in the morning. In the afternoon we visited a place called Myrw which has a rugged beach and an old church. We visited the church but as we left the wind was wild and it was rainy. Penny and I decided to sit in the car and stitch. The weather cleared a little and Bruce and John decided to walk up to see the view. It was pretty spectacular.

As you can see there were people on the beach even though the weather was very cool. On Wednesday we headed back to Hay on Wye and visited Lampeter on the way. At Lampeter there is a lovely patchwork shop called Calico Kate and the Welsh Quilt Museum. It had a wonderful display of gorgeous old quilts. Many of them were whole quilts of one fabric which had been hand quilted.

 There were pieced quilts too.

 The embroidery below has been done by an amazing 90 year old woman!

 I especially liked these framed machine embroideries. Many of them were churches and chapels which have been appliqued and embellished by machine.

Dinas Head and St David's

On Monday, 3 August, we went to Newport for morning tea and a wander through the little markets there. We then went to Dinas Head and walked up to see the amazing view. Bruce and John went further up than us but we did pretty well.

 We then went to St David's and visited the cathedral, parts of which had been built in around 1180 as a monastery and has had an amazing history.

 Penny and I noticed a Sampler tea room so we just had to have afternoon tea there and see a the amazing, old samplers. So hard to believe that some had been stitched by little girls of 10 or 11 and some even younger.

Cilgerran Castle and Cardigan

On Sunday we headed towards Cardigan and stopped at Cilgerran Castle on the way. They were having a reenactment of medieval times which was really interesting. 

 This fellow told us all about the different types of arrows used and how to make the quite complicated bows.

 We had a great chat to the monk/doctor inside the castle. You certainly wouldn't have wanted to have toothache in the Middle ages or any other ailments either.

 The monks were the scribes in that time too so we had a go at writing with a quill.

There were archery demonstrations too and Penny and Bruce had a go and did very well.

 We then headed into Cardigan for our roast lunch at a very yellow pub! It was really delicious. We wandered around  Cardigan castle. In the gift shop there were these quilts on display. The top one is knitted.

 In the afternoon we headed to Poppit beach and had a walk in the windy weather. The tide was way out.

 The life saving club (like our Nippers) were having a carnival.

Croft Castle and off to Wales

On Friday, 31 July we headed to Croft Castle, another lovely National Trust property. The history of all these houses is always so interesting. The Crofts built this castle in medieval times and lived in it for almost the whole 500 years.

 There was a vineyard here and a lovely garden.

 There were some amazing textiles inside the house too.

 All the sides of this box were embroidered with stump work. The photos don't do it justice at all as the work was protected by glass.

 This clock was amazing too as the eyes on the face above the clock face moved! Quite eerie.

 Here we are enjoying the lovely sunshine in the garden! We had another yummy lunch at the cafe and Bruce and I also did a tour of the attic. This area was the servants' quarters and was also used as a school in WWII.

 On Saturday, we all travelled to our cottage in Pembrokeshire. On the way we visited the Gold mine at Dolaucothi. We all went underground into the very dark mine and experienced what it was like for those early miners. It would have been very dark, damp and very hard work!