Designs of a past World


While, as I have said in the past I love travelling, seeing new places, meeting interesting  people and getting some truly wonderful inspiration for my needlepoint designs I have to admit that it would appear that some terrible things have happened almost immediately after we have left a country.

This has been brought to mind with the destruction and bulldozing of the ancient Assyria capital of Nimrud and the great concern for the future by Unesco the United Nations cultural agency. I well remember the excitement of visiting the Riace bronzes in Reggio di Calabria, more than 2000 years old and discovered in the sea of the coast of Italy – I wrote about them in a blog of the …… when we had been on one of our Italian stitching trips

However some of the buildings and architectural detail that have inspired me have resulted in lovely designs.   There are two from Christchurch Cathedral on the South Island New Zeeland; Christchurch Tiles on the left and Cathedral Tiles on the right.  A year after we were the city was destroyed by a tremendous earthquake.   Should a reconstruction be planned I have offered my very amateur photos of the tiles taken while they were in situ on the Cathedral walls.


Christ Church Tiles
Cathedral Tiles
 
On another trip, Syria just days before the troubles started we visited Aleppo.  Aleppo features often in the most destroyed in the whole of the country but, then, on our visit the wonderful carved and gilded ceiling in the Throne Room of the Palace intrigued me and at the moment that is the next project I plan to stitch.
Friends jokingly ask us not to visit places – even Myanmar (see recent blog) people who visited just ten days after us got involved in a demonstration and held up for quite a while the police dealt with it.

Of course not everywhere we have been suffers such a fate; ‘ Tiles of St Mark’s’,  Moroccan Tiles’ ‘’Calabria’ – all on www.needle-point.co.uk are fine – sincerely hope so as we are going on our stitching holiday to Calabria in June.

A
 

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