Visiting Edinburgh and a new 'Hiking Days' embroidery pattern try out

Edinburgh! This was not my first visit to this wonderful city, but after all the months and months of not going anywhere, it’s such a joy to have something to add to my travels journal and I seem to feel the need to let the words tumble out about the last few days. There’s plenty to write about this trip and not least because it is a city full of surprises.

The Edinburgh ‘Fringe’ festival was on and one of the main reasons we had chosen to go was to see my niece who was performing in a show. I don’t think I had appreciated what this event was before, but the city was heaving with people and there were over 2000 shows on a day. We saw a comedian and a circus show too and it was tremendous fun to see how this was the showcase for so many aspiring performers and writers. All the shows are relatively inexpensive, performed in any building that has space, from schools, to shops and old hospitals and most are about an hour or less. There is a sort of carnival atmosphere in the streets and the military tattoo is on every evening as well, although we didn’t go to this.

Whenever I visit a city destination, once the main tourist things are checked off the list, I usually go in search of artistic inspiration for my needlework and it is always easy to find and as we had been to Edinburgh before, this was a chance to see some things that perhaps we didn’t get to on earlier visits. But first, a little history to set the scene. This city has been the capital of Scotland since the 15th century although archaeological findings indicate that there was a settlement on the site from around 8500 BC. As you may know, I am an ‘Outlander’ obsessed person and love all things Scottish, but it seems that perhaps there is something more deeply rooted in my DNA that precipitated this - over last winter I endeavoured to find the links with my Scottish born name ‘Finlay’ and my ancestors and sure enough I saw that we belonged to the Farquharson clan and my ancestor Alexander Finlay was part of this highland brotherhood in the late 1700’s. The Farquharsons fought on the front line at Culloden and somehow this made me feel like my life long love of tartan was justified if not to simply be embraced. So armed with this new knowledge, visiting Scotland took on epic meaning, much to the amusement of my husband, but I was looking with fresh eyes and eager fingers.

One of the places we visited was the National Portrait Gallery. This was an absolutely stunning building and built in the late 1880’s at the time when the Victorians were at the height of gothic revivalism and exceptional architectural design. The entrance hall alone is eye popping in its decoration, with sparkling friezes and murals that exemplify the period.

Some of these motifs will be the perfect inspiration for some embroidery designs as I love the woody, highland feel of the patterns and the earthy colours of the natural landscape of Scotland.

There were some stunning exhibits too - perhaps my favourite was this portrait of Queen Victoria by Winterhaulter from early on in her reign.

There were lots of regal portraits, but it was detail in some of them that fascinated me. I was especially drawn to the images of lace, delicately painted on rich fabric like backgrounds. I wonder if I could recreate this with fine white thread.

We also visited the Royal Botanical Gardens and these were an absolute oasis of loveliness. I am always a huge fan of these broad open spaces in cities, but this truly has the feel of horticultural adventures from long, long ago. It was established on its current site in 1820 having been moved from the park at Holyrood Palace. There are 72 acres of gardens with all sorts of different areas. We weren’t able to go in to the Palm house as it was closed for maintenance, but it was enormous and I hope to return to see this another time. In the warm late afternoon summer sunshine we were able to fully appreciate the magnificence of these gardens. The Queen Mother’s garden was brimming with vibrant blooms and had a darling shell grotto on one side to provide shade.

There was a charming wild flower meadow garden alongside the gardeners cottage. This was such a refreshing space with a deep carpet of delicate country flowers in gorgeous shades of crimson and white and gold and cornflower blue singing in harmony over long deep borders. It reminded me of Liberty fabric and as Queen Ann’s Lace is one of my favourites, it felt wholly inspiring in terms of embroidery.

This cottage was actually from the original site and was moved here in 2008, brick by brick to it’s new home and how happy it looks.

If I lived in a city, a botanical garden would be my ‘go to’ place and I cannot recommend it enough, if you should have the chance to visit.

We also visited the National Museum of Scotland and again this was not my first visit, but it is an awesome museum. As with most things in this city, it is housed in Victorian splendour. It is a sort of mixture between a train station and a palatial mansion. The huge central atrium with it’s wrought iron balconies is a light filled space which pays homage to Edingburgh’s engineering prowess. The museum is filled with artefacts telling the Scotland story, with historical, scientific, industrial and natural displays.

This image was taken from the internet as I simply couldn’t do it justice with my phone camera

As it happened there was a special exhibition on about the Typewriter Revolution which, I confess, made my heart skip a beat. Here are a few of my favourite images.

I might need that wall paper when I am next decorating!!!!

I suppose I hadn’t really appreciated before how much the invention of this lovely little machine opened up a whole new world of work and independence for women. It was a game changer for sure, giving women a chance to earn their own money in a reasonably comfortable way and to use their minds to find ways to improve their lives.

To conclude all of this, I wanted to show you a new pattern try out. This potential design ‘Hiking Days’ was made as a gift for our friends in Edinburgh, but I was so pleased with it that I am thinking to make it into a new pattern for the shop, to keep ‘Ski Days’, ‘Skating Days’ and ‘Swimming Days’ company. I stitched most of it ‘freemotion’ on the machine and added some hand embellishments to finish. I think it needs a little more work, but I hope it will turn into a new venture soon.

Of course, I couldn’t leave Edinburgh without picking up a few souvenirs, namely a Starbucks mug for our collection and a few Farquaharson clan essentials for someone who can claim no longer be a true Sassenach……..