You can buy tickets online to see From Time to Time, the new movie based on Lucy Boston’s famous Chimneys of Green Knowe.  It just keeps getting better and better for fans of Lucy Boston, especially those who are making the Patchwork of the Crosses (POTC) with Inklingo.  Read on!

This movie trailer was posted on YouTube.

Diana Boston was at the Premiere at the London Film Festival last October.  She told me that when I see From Time to Time,  I will see Maggie Smith stitching on the Patchwork of the Crosses (POTC) beside the fire.  WOW.  The movie did not have a distributor at that time, so I have waited until now to mention it.

The writer and director, Julian Fellowes, wrote the screenplays for Gosford Park (one of my favs) and Most Mysterious Murders (excellent).  From Time to Time was not filmed at Lucy Boston’s ancient manor house at Hemingford Grey, but at Athelhampton, which Russ and I happened to visit in 1991.  Athelhampton was a good choice for several reasons, including the topiary garden.  You can see some great photos of Athelhampton in the online guide book (in 3 parts). 

According to the entry on IMDB several of my favorite actors are in the cast. In addition to Maggie Smith, there are Timothy Spall (Oliver Twist), Hugh Bonneville (many great films, including Miss Austen Regrets and a small role in Notting Hill), Harriet Walter (many, including S & S), Pauline Collins (Shirley Valentine), and others. 

Gosford Park is another connection between Maggie Smith and Julian Fellowes. I know it so well that I can enjoy “watching” it while I am drawing Inklingo shapes on the computer.

It has always amazed me that movie makers have endless budgets for big stars, but seem to spend too little to get a competent script. In this case, the writer is the director!  Judging by Julian Fellowes’ novels and other screenplays, he knows how to tell an engaging story, plus he was given an excellent start by Lucy Boston.

(The Young Victoria will be at cinemas here in Burlington soon, and he wrote the screenplay for that too.)

I can hardly wait until I can see From Time to Time! There is no news yet about dates for North America, but if I were within a few hours of Glasgow, I would find a way to get there! Let me know if you are lucky enough to see it, okay?

Linda & Monkey

The draw was done on January 6th.  I wondered why I had not heard from Lillian TractorLewie@aol.com .  I just need your mailing address, Lillian! If I hear from you in time, this gorgeous fabric will be mailed first thing tomorrow morning from Niagara Falls NY, and you can start Inklingoing.

Thank you to everyone who commented here to enter the draw, or added an Inklingo button to a blog or web site. The majority of quilters still have not heard about Inklingo, so every time you mention it, it might be someone’s very first time and you are helping me and your quilting friend.

If you haven’t yet, you need to order and download Tilde’s wonderful FREE pattern for the Passacaglia Table Runner.

I will write more about the new Dresden Plate Design Book (free) and collections too. Stay tuned!

Linda & Monkey

The dozens of Patchwork of the Crosses (POTC) blocks in the photo albums of the Inklingo Yahoo group have prompted some discussion about Lucy Boston’s wonderful Green Knowe books.

The Children of Green Knowe is the first in the series. They are stories of a boy, his great-grandmother, and the children who lived in the house at Green Knowe hundreds of years ago. They were classified as children’s books because Lucy Boston asked her publisher to include illustrations by her son, Peter, but these stories have appeal for all ages.

The great-grandmother in the books is a quilter who learned patchwork when she was mending old quilts that she had bought to use as curtains, just like Lucy Boston. 

From The Chimneys of Green Knowe:
“His great-grandmother was sitting by the fire mending one of the old patchwork quilts. Tolly had long been familiar with the quilts, some of which were used as curtains in the living room, hanging from ceiling to floor in bulgy folds against the stone walls. . . Mrs. Oldknow had a basket beside her full of pieces of paper all cut the same size and shape, over which she had neatly tacked bright cotton materials. These she was trying on over torn pieces in the quilt to see which looked best.”

The great-grandmother is Lucy Boston, and the old house is her ancient Manor at Hemingford Grey. The boy Tolly is her son (not her grandson in real life), Peter. Peter was a very talented artist and grew up to be an architect. This was an interest he shared with his mother, and he helped her in the restoration of her ancient Norman house near Cambridge, where she lived for over fifty years.

Peter married Diana, and Diana wrote her wonderful book The Patchworks of Lucy Boston before he died. This beautiful book includes photographs and descriptions of all 22 of Lucy Boston’s quilts.

Diana Boston (Peter’s widow, Lucy’s daughter-in-law) still lives in the Manor at Hemingford Grey. Her book is written with love for Lucy Boston and includes wonderful stories about the inspiration for her patchworks, her fabric purchases in wartime England, references to the patchworks in her letters, historical background, and her life story. Diana’s descriptions of the patchworks are insightful and poetic. It is one of my all-time favorite quilt books, even though it does not include patterns.

Since all of Lucy Boston’s quilts were made with the method we call English Paper Piecing (EPP), most quilters do not need a pattern. A photograph and a few measurements (length of the side of a hexagon, etc.) are all they need. Diana’s book was first published in 1995, and was out of print for a long time. It is available again now.

The BBC adapted the books for television in the 1980s. All of Lucy Boston’s books are still in print, and Diana has shared some other exciting news with me which I will save for the appropriate time (at her request).

Lucy Boston lived to be 98 years old (1892-1990). She published her first novels and children’s books when she was in her sixties. She continued to write, and sewed some of her most impressive patchworks when she was in her eighties. She sewed and worked in her famous garden in her nineties. She was an extraordinary person, who still inspires affection and admiration.

I think you will want to visit Diana’s web site for more about this fascinating quilter, her house and garden, her quilts, and her children’s books!

Since I have very little energy, I am tempted to prop myself up against the pillows and re-read The Chimneys of Green Knowe in bed. (I have not developed a fever, so I just have an annoying cold, not H1N1.)

Linda & Monkey

All of these blocks are lovely and some are spectacular. The artistic way these quilters have used fabric might give you some ideas about the fabrics in your stash. Enjoy!

Linda & Monkey

It is amazing that Carol was able to send photos to me with her Blackberry—from a dwelling built in about 1130, which still retains a stone fireplace and a stone window arch built by Normans. Hemingford Grey is magical, which is no surprise to anyone who has read Lucy Boston’s classic books, beginning with “The Children of Green Knowe.”

I will update the shop on my site, as soon as I have a date for shipping Diana’s book. 

Thank you, Carol, for sharing your photos with all of us! 

Linda & Monkey

Carol wrote:

We’re staying the Cotswolds and it was a 2 hour trip today to Hemingford Grey Manor.  It turned out to be a simple trip, mainly on A and M highways (unlike the narrow back roads we took yesterday to Stonehenge).  Parking is a bit tricky near the manor as on-street parking in much of the village is by permit only.  We left the car at a nearby athletic field and walked the public footpath through a pasture which led to the river and right to Lucy’s front gate.  There were cattle grazing in the meadow and geese & ducks doing their thing on the river.  Very picturesque.

I introduced myself to Diana Boston right away and she very graciously signed Linda’s book for me.  She managed to be quite elegant and poised in her gardening workclothes.  She asked about Linda’s other work and thinks that the reprint of her own book about Lucy’s quilts is on the presses now.  Let’s cross our fingers. 

My husband & I walked the grounds & enjoyed the gardens as we awaited the beginning of the tour.  Diana directed us to visit the back of the house which retains some of the oldest features. The gardens are mainly exuberant perennial borders with tall topiaries, several in celebration of the queen’s coronation.  As the time for the tour approached, we sat under a shade tree and enjoyed the company of Sam, a golden retriever who belongs to one of the gardeners/tour guides, Graham.  I understand there is a Jack Russell terrier on the grounds too and it is for him that there is a sign posted at the door: Cave canem

There were approximately 12 in our group.  Luckily one member was a young girl, between 6 and 8 I think, who knew the children’s books and was delighted at every detail in the house that corresponded to the stories – the mirror in the front hall, the rocking horse, Tolly’s sword etc.  Her excitement was infectious.

One tip – in the room on the main floor, the group took seats while the guide, Janet, did that part of the tour.  Choose the red armchair by the fire – that’s where Lucy Boston did her patchwork. 

The main highlight of course is the patchwork room.  The quilts are stacked on a bed, folded back half way, ready to be unfolded and displayed.     The guide went through them one by one and pointed out the details of each – fabric choices, materials available, the stage of Lucy’s life when she worked on each quilt, who was the recipient of the quilt, Lucy’s inspiration etc.  All are summer quilts with no batting and only one has quilting.  I think it’s safe to say that Lucy was all about exquisite use of fabric as well as fine piecing and applique.

A few last details: The garden and house tour cost just £6.  The shop has mainly postcards, notecards and books for sale.  A nearby pub serves an excellent meal.  The sun shone all day.  I’m awash with inspiration.

Cheers, Carol

P.S. Don’t miss the photo gallery on Diana Boston’s site too!

Cathi Godwin has been posting all of her POTC blocks on her blog, Quiltobsession, and she gave me permission to show the one that is my favorite. Thank you, Cathi!

Cathi’s POTC is a gorgeous example of the effectiveness of fussy cutting a few of the hexagons in each block, and Monkey decided I should feature it in a little video, so you can see how fussy cutting is done with Inklingo. 

Easier said than done. What a monkey.

This is my second official day on WordPress, and I think I have learned quite a bit, but I had trouble figuring out how to include the video here, so I used a workaround and added it to a page on my web site, in order to post it before midnight—just barely. This morning, I opened a YouTube account and edited this entry to embed the video.

You will also want to see Cathi’s blog post, which shows how she pressed the block. If you click on her photos you can see a larger size.

There are many other beautiful POTC blocks posted on the InklingoProjects blog too. Please check all of the links in the sidebar.

I think I am going to like blogging, but this one post took me most of the day! It was fun, so if you like this little video and would like more of them, please let me know.  If I am making any blogging mistakes, I would like to know that too. Thank you very much for visiting.

Linda & Monkey