I think the order of events went something like this...
In 2010, Fran H-B sent me a copy of a book, Bloomsbury in Sussex and it included a chapter on Monk's House. Fran then very kindly went and took some pictures for me to share on here.
I eventually visit Virginia and Leonard Woolf's cottage Monk's House and its garden in Sussex with Fran in 2013, and fall in love with it...
I am half-aware that a big book has been written about the garden because I've seen it for sale at Cowslip Workshops in Launceston. It's £30, and I think maybe another day.
In 2014 Bookhound and I do our little regional garden tour and I tell him we have to go to Monk's House so we do. After the fabulous and lengthy guided tour that we had just done over the way at Charleston I think Bookhound might be a little underwhelmed by the speed at which we seem to be in one door of Monk's House, round the house with its tantalising glimpse of the upstairs which is closed to visitors, and out the other door. He might also be a bit gardened-out having done Hidcote, Hemingford Grey, Cambridge and Great Dixter in a matter of days and we have the long drive back to Devon ahead.
But we 'do' the garden, and I am still in love with its paths and planting and its atmosphere, the views, the writing lodge, the everything.
Then the 2015 summer course programme arrives from Cowslip Workshops and I happen to see 'The Hand Embroidered Garden'... two days with Caroline Zoob, curator at Monk's House for ten years, and author of the book Virginia Woolf's Garden.
Using a combination of techniques to create a plan of your garden, or even the garden you wish you had. This two day course will incorporate the use of a variety of techniques, from painting on linen to incorporating papers in hand stitched work to build up a layered textile piece filled with hand stitched flowers, brick paths, summerhouses…whatever you have or wish for in your garden. A great course for beginners or anyone who has been on Caroline’s simple stitching course and now wants to take things further, but also good for people with advanced embroidery skills who want to explore different media.
That's me I thought...the 'beginner'.. not the 'advanced embroidery skills' that is.
And, post-Tinker-loss, Bookhound and I have both awarded ourselves a year of acknowledging and putting time to creativity, and I have never really embraced embroidery fully, nor explored its potential. My mum was an accomplished embroiderer, always with something on the go and trying new things (I well remember the Dorset Feather Stitchery phase) and I found lots of pieces when I was sorting out my dad's things earlier this year. It will be a joy to hang this picture on the wall at Christmas..
And I can thread a needle after all, and I have inherited all my mum's embroidery silks...and if my dad can do tapestries like this in his eighties...
...well, faint heart never won fair stitchery so I book a place on the course at Cowslip and immediately reserve Caroline Zoob's book from the library.
I've now been the temporary curator of Virginia Woolf's Garden - The Story of the Garden at Monk's House for nine weeks. I've read it several times over, browsed it frequently, Bookhound has read it and upgraded his somewhat jaded impression of the visit, and I've since done the course with Caroline Zoob (it was splendid, more soon). I'm at the limit of my renewals but could barely contemplate parting with the book, so a copy is on its way to me.
Virginia's love of her garden can often become submerged amongst the other perhaps seemingly more interesting and print-worthy facets of her life. But the garden, its care and planting and very presence, was of vital importance to them; the place where Virginia and Leonard could relax after the rigours of life in London, on many-an occasion its 'deep peace', as Caroline Zoob suggests, helping to sooth Virginia's troubled mind, her writing lodge offering a haven and its views an inspiration.
Caroline Zoob traces the evolution of the garden in meticulous detail, from its early wilderness days when the Woolfs moved in on September 1st 1919 to Leonard's ongoing devotion to it for many years after Virginia's death, and through to Caroline and her husband's own restoration of the garden during the years of their tenancy. It required a form of artistry and an eye for what would work now, as well as gathering snippets of information from Virginia's letters and diaries about what worked back then, and the result is not only a very beautiful garden but also an exquisite and covetable book that I have had no hesitation in buying when faced with that 'You have no renewals left, please return this book' message from the library. The book more than compensates for not living nearer to Monk's House and being able to visit every five minutes.
The photographs are superb and plentiful...
with detailed planting plans ..you too could plant your own Monk's House flower bed)
And skilfully entwined around all this are the details of the Woolf's life at Rodmell. Whilst Virginia always felt her artistry was a very poor second to her sister Vanessa's when it came to home decorating, and whilst she would frequently suffer huge crises of confidence about her writing, it would seem the garden could (almost always) never fail to restore her spirits and Leonard took to horticulture with a passion.
But by far and away the stand-out aspect of this book to a would-be embroiderer like me is Caroline Zoob's rendition of the garden in hand-embroidered pictures...
More about the course and my attempts soon.
But meanwhile...embroiderers out there, please declare yourselves and advise accordingly...
Best threads...
Best needles...
Best books..
Favourite methods...
Hoop or no hoop...
I am intrigued and want to know much more...
And does anyone else have memories of mothers embroidering??
I really wish I had paid more attention as a child.
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