Victoria's costumes and my outfit snaps.

I took you on a tour of Harewood House in my previous post. Harewood was used as a set for the ITV series Victoria, which is well worth catching up on if you haven't seen it. It focussed on Victoria as a princess and how her life changed as she first became queen and then married Albert. Some of the costumes from the programme are on display in the house until the 29th October and are worth seeing if you need to find another reason to go for a visit!

Formal day dress of Lady Portman, a lady in waiting
and the daughter of the 2nd Earl of Harewood.

A day dress and a state evening dress for the
Duchess of Sutherland.

Evening dress for the Duchess of Sutherland.
She was Victoria's friend and Mistress of the Robes.

Evening dress for Queen Victoria. Worn in the title
sequence for each episode.

A pre coronation dress for Victoria, used in simple
evening scenes to look young and innocent.

Queen Victoria's coronation gown, based on the design
of the original coronation gown. It is made of gold silk
damask, digitally printed and embroidered with symbols
representing the United Kingdom.

A dress for Queen Victoria, worn when she meets Albert
for the first time.

Queen Victoria's betrothal dress, worn when she
proposed to Albert.

Queen Victoria's evening dress, worn in later episodes
when she was married to Albert.

Some pretty fancy frocks there!

And now for something completely different and far less fancy......what I wore on my day out!

You might be able to tell that I was terrified here. I only managed to stand on the first stepping stone and that was a step too far for me!

Not quite on Victoria's level but cool and comfortable for a hot sunny day of exploring. Look at my sleeves! I intended to wear the top tucked in with a belt but frankly it was too hot. I was determined to wear my newly purchased short shorts before my 40th birthday. I will still be wearing them afterwards of course.

Outfit details.

Gingham top - Marks and Spencer

Denim shorts - Vivien of Holloway

Shoes - Hotter

Bag - vintage from an antiques centre.

Happy day at Harewood House

My birthday fell on a Sunday this year and I knew that I wanted to have a proper day out with my husband on the Saturday, with a family do on my birthday. We decided to pay a visit to Harewood House, situated between Leeds and Harrogate and about an hour's drive from us. Harewood was built in 1759 by Edwin Lascelles and he was determined to surround himself with glorious things. He employed craftspeople such as Thomas Chippendale (furniture), Robert Adam (interior design) and Capability Brown (gardens) to make this happen.

The Terrace, built in the 1840's.
See more here.

In the Himalayan garden.

It is a fabulous spot. You can visit the house, gardens, walled kitchen garden, parkland, lake, small farm and bird garden which has an active conservation programme. There are plenty of places to sit and relax and take in the scenery. If you are lucky you will see red kites flying over the estate as they have had success with the birds there. We watched them wheeling and playing for quite some time. I spent much of my time on the visit considering what it would have been like to live there in the 1800's and reflecting on the huge chasm that there was between the lives of the rich and the lives of the poor.

The lakeside garden.

We were lucky that Yorkshire supplied us with one of it's rare but wonderful sunny days so we made the most of it exploring the whole estate.

We decided to have a look around the house first and tried not to be put off when a hoard of Brownies made it inside just in front of us. Luckily they were less bothered about soaking up the atmosphere and details then we were so they got ahead pretty quickly.

Ready for a tour?

The Old Library which had a display of etchings
done by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

A magnificent bathroom belonging to Princess Mary's dressing room.
Princess Mary was Queen Victoria's great granddaughter.

Bathroom ceiling and light

A section of amazing hand painted wallpaper in the East Bedroom.
You can see more of it here.

The State Bedroom, the bed was made by Chippendale.
Princess Victoria slept here on a visit in 1835.

The Spanish Library. The bookcases hide secret doors for the servants to go through.

The Yellow Drawing Room

The ceiling of the Gallery 

The State Dining Room

The Music Room with the stunning Axminster carpet designed
by Robert Adam.

Such sumptuous interiors! Even the carpets, wallpapers and ceilings are amazing. You can see that money was no object.

After touring the upstairs rooms you can have a look around below stairs. There is a massive kitchen such as you see in Downton Abbey and a room especially for cleaning and sorting the produce that comes in from the gardens.

I always like looking at the bell indicator boards in big old houses. I like seeing what all the rooms were called.

More bell boards.

There are also several exhibitions on within the house. I particularly enjoyed the Plaster Bust Re-imagined by Kathy Dalwood.

Miss Egypt

Miss London Town

The artist casts found objects in plaster and moulds them together to make these reinterpretations of Victorian busts. I found them fascinating, looking at all the individual elements and such a clever idea.

The other exhibition is the subject of my next post. It involves costumes...

Tweed, tartan and tapestry

A few Saturdays ago I went on a little outing to a neighbouring town with a friend who gets as much joy from all the crafty things as I do. We get a bit squeaky with excitement. We were most excited to be going along to the Beyond Measure Open Day. If you haven't come across Beyond Measure yet and you like beautiful things to help you in your making and doing then you really are in for a treat. Grace, the owner, was opening her studio for the day and the opportunity to handle some of the lovely goodies, plus the chance to spend our leftover spending money from Edinburgh Yarn Festival, could not be missed!

Beyond Measure is housed in a fabulous old mill type building with lots of industrial architectural details and interiors to look at.

Lovely old staircase

I love a bit of peeling paint

Light switch

We had a really good look at everything in the studio, a really good look and a little fondle and a stroke here and there. There was a lovely atmosphere and it was good to chat with fellow craft fans and make new friends. There was a cafe set up in one corner and we took full advantage of that (who said we had two of the oh so delicious cakes?!), whilst pondering what our purchases were to be.

Pretty Tulip needles

Fantastic storage jars

Trimmings and bindings

Pretty tins of haberdashery

Love these little chaps by Eleanor Bostrom. My friend may have taken one home!

All the colours in the embroidery threads.

Gorgeous tweed just waiting to be made into lovely things.

More tweedy goodness.

One of these fab knitting bags came home with me.

You can probably see that it was time for tough decisions. I got a very cute thimble necklace and a wooden sewing needle holder to keep my yarn needles safe in my knitting bag. I just realised I don't have a photo of them as yet.

If you are wondering where the tapestry and tartan of the title are - they formed the main part of my outfit.

One of my Welsh tapestry handbags. This one has lots of mustard and teal in it which meant I really couldn't resist it.

My tartan skirt is from good old M&S and is a) orange, b) wool, c) lined and d)warm. It has had a lot of wear since I bought it in the sale in January. My local charity shops have had a dearth of old lady tartan skirts so this filled a gap in my wardrobe.

My preciousss

My fabulous sewing machine brooch was a gift from my in laws and it and others like it are stocked by Beyond Measure. I should say here that this is not a sponsored post, I just love lovely stuff.

Thanks for taking my outfit pictures Karen.