I'm just back from my gite holiday in France, staying in a fairly remote but very pretty converted farmhouse to the north of the Charente area (near Poitiers). The hosts were lovely and looked after the four of us very well, including driving us on outings to various incredibly scenic towns such as Chauvigny, Angles sur l'Anglin, Montmorillon and Saint-Sevin. It seems to be a requirement for township here to have a medieval bridge, a ruined fortress on a hill looming over a scenic river, and at least one picturesque but brooding Romanesque church with painted frescoes inside. All the buildings are made out of a beautiful cream-beige limestone so they all match, and there were roses flowering everywhere beautifully. Walking around each town was just lovely, every view could be a postcard, it was all so beautiful and historic. The retreat was full board, so no cooking or washing up, and the farmhouse was in the middle of huge fields with no traffic noise at all.
However I did run into a linguistic issue - which wasn't my abysmal French. It was billed as a tapestry retreat, and since I've had my weaving hat on for a year, and the low-res photos of the tutor's work were all geometric, I thought it was going to be tapestry weaving. I completely forgot that the Brits use 'tapestry' as a catch-all term for both needlepoint and woven tapestry fabrics. So it turned out to be a needlepoint retreat. I've done needlepoint in the past, it's not my favourite, but it's ok. On the first day we had to sketch our design out - when I thought I was going to be weaving something geometric, I had in mind copying a quilt block. So I did that anyway in needlepoint. I'm not in love with either my design or the colours I was able to select (a mix of the tutor's stash and also some I had brought from home) but I like it well enough to intend to finish it. This is on 13point canvas and the yarn is tapestry 4-ply weight (which seems to be about a DK weight). It's going to be a cushion.
Tuition was minimal, it was more of a 'relax and stitch' type of retreat. The weather started out fairly grey and wet, but went up to 25C by the end of the week. We were taken to a few of the local markets during the week, and stumbled across a few brocante shops. We visited a small haberdashery craft store in Chauvigny, where I picked up a few bits of quilt fabric, a lightweight vinyl with a Japanese pattern on it, and some very decorative webbing strap.
Angles sur l'Anglin (said to be one of the most beautiful villages in France) was once the home of the traditional craft of 'Les Jours d'Angles', a type of counted pulled thread whitework on fine linen. There was a display and a video about it in the tourist information office, as well as books on the technique. I managed to resist embracing a new hobby, but did pick up a book about the tradition.
Also from the charity shop, I picked up a pretty embroidered tablecloth, and a traycloth. And in a brocante I found these charming ladies' newspapers filled with fashions and needlecraft patterns.
When I wasn't stitching, I was doing a bit of knitting on my lace shawl. So it was a fairly relaxing week, too much eating and drinking (although I resisted most of the wine as I'm not really a wine drinker), and a chance to live the gite dream for a week without any of the gite responsibilities that come with it.
Lots of laundry to do when I got home, and a week of paperwork to catch up, the garden desperately needs weeding, and the May sumo tournament has started. I've got two weeks to get ready then I'm off again, to St Kitts for the quilting retreat. So I need to start prepping the fabrics for that project.
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