Treasured Things

Treasured Things.

On the Saturday me and Jim went to Leicester town to get some thread for sewing patches on Jeans and some sewing machine needles especially for jeans.
It was an interesting trip as we went to places where I hadn’t gone before, finding shops that I didn’t know had existed, art shops, new age shops and the brand new John Lewis’s store which was nice to see but very very expensive at fourteen pounds a metre just for patchwork material that is.
I was very pleased to see fabric medium in the art shop. I could not buy any but it was great to see and things like this was what was used to paint Witchy Woo and Hallie.
After walking around the shops Jim took me to the back of Leicester town which showed this gorgeous really old church. St Mary’s De castro church is supposed to be the oldest church in Leicester town which sits right next to the castle wall which is a ruin. Luckily for us the church was open so we were allowed to go round and have a look. I felt very honoured about this as usually the church is not open to the public, only on Sundays and Funerals. Several kings had been knighted in this place,coat of arm tiles showed the different royalty that I stood there and came to services.
Jim interestingly said it’s the most haunted place too as just on the outside at the back of the church was where the executions too place poor people getting their heads chopped off. As there was so much superstition round the chopping block and who ever touched this receiving bad luck, the block got buried under the grounds.
I have included some photographs, some will give me ideas for quilting.
The church had been decorated for the Harvest festival it was nice to see. St Mary de Castro (meaning St Mary of the Castle) is an ancient church in Leicester, England, near to Leicester Castle. Today it acts as a parish church in the Church of England's diocese of Leicester.

It dates its founding to 1107 when Henry I of England took the lands and castle from a rebellious owner and granted them instead to Robert de Beaumont, although some legends say that a Saxon church of St Mary had existed before the Norman Conquest before then [1] and Robert merely refurbished it. Whichever, he established it within the castle bailey as a college served by a Dean and 12 Canons (that is, a collegiate church) in honour of the Virgin Mary and All Souls and as a chantry chapel for the souls of him, his family and the first three Norman kings. He endowed this and 4 other churches with £6 of his income and land in or near the city. However, these endowments were all transferred soon after by his heir to his own new foundation of Leicester Abbey, although this was made up for by an annual grant from the Earl of 20 shillings for lamps and by restoring a Dean, six Clerks and a Chaplain to the church, which was by now a parish church too and so supported by tithes and offerings.
It was rebuilt in the 1180s, and has undergone alterations since, including the addition of a spire (1400).
The collegiate nature of the church last until when the college was disbanded in 1548 by Henry VIII.



It is rumoured that here, around 1366, Geoffrey Chaucer married Philippa (de) Roet (a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen, Philippa of Hainault, and a sister of Katherine Swynford who later (ca. 1396) became the third wife of Chaucer's friend and patron, John of Gaunt). King Henry VI was knighted in the church in 1426 when he was an infant (whilst the Parliament of Bats was being held at the Castle).


This bought an extraordinary feeling as if I had met Royalty and if Royalty was actually there maybe they were there but we could not see them properly but felt something there, it felt wonderful. I have the vicar’s address… I want to do some tiny little gifts things for them to sell. I noticed that they had a tiny table selling things such as small hand made things to raise money for the church which I thought was rather sweet.

I have written some fascinating history bits about this church.


On the quilting front I have just another 31 strippy blocks to do, I managed to dig out some more fabric to cut up for strippies, slowly it is coming together and I'm pleased with it. There will be some more pictures tom morrow as the page would only let me put so many pictures on.