Heavens above, over a week later and we are still only on Friday...
Our second event and one of the most relaxed for me, because Helen Rappaport and I had already talked a great deal about her book Four Sisters and before that Ekaterinburg, so this really could be conversation over a cup of tea...except by now it was clear we were in for such a scorcher of a weekend it was pints of water all round.
We agreed that Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia would have adored the festival, probably heading straight for the Wardrobe Department in the walled garden behind us for some costume frivolity and some whacky eye shadow effects.
Helen was cool and collected and as always completely in command of her information and her audience...
We ranged across many aspects of the lives of the girls, and how they coped with teenage-dom when their world was so restricted, along with the freedoms that suddenly became apparent when World War One broke out and they could fufill a more public role as nurses. This gave them much-wanted contact with men, albeit in tragic circumstances, but how well they coped with it all....and plenty of discussion about the impact of the haemophilia on their marriage prospects too and how wary this may have made other royal families around Europe, as well as the role and influence of their ailing mother and adoring father in their short lives.
Throughout it all I was sitting on my hands with excitement knowing that we had a very special Knitsuke to give to Helen at the end...
Four immaculate knitted Grand Duchesses and of course a Faberge egg,,,
Here is the Knit Angel's report on the making of...
"I decided that I needed a doll that would be the sort of thing a child might have made; not too sophisticated and it needed to be small. I duly knitted one, and when I showed it to Lynne she said the obvious “...but there were four sisters...”. Fortunately, having made the pattern up, I had written down what I had done along the way and so could replicate the first doll. With four dolls made, they were popped in a small box like sardines, together with 4 white hearts and a spare dress and sash. Finally, a knitted Faberge egg, complete with the finest plastic jewels.
How clever is that Knit Angel.
I had made a 9" square Quiltsuke for Helen too; Sister's Choice in a selection of lilac-coloured fabrics and hand quilted using my new best quilting thread friend, Aurifil No 12, a slightly thicker cotton available in a great raft of colours that creates a nice even visible stitch...
There is as much pleasure in the making of these as in the giving, that much I know, and the delight on Helen's face said it all, a really wonderful event.
Thank you Helen.
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