Hot water bottle cover

I have previously tried using the delightful font at Hinton Parva for inspiration for art, and so from initial trials in felt, I decided to make something bigger.

The creatures and patterns on fonts and tympanums, which we have seen in our travels, lend themselves perfectly to creating something new and artistic. I wanted to do a bag, but not being that sure what sort of bag to make, I settled for a hot water bottle cover, the instructions for which I found online.

First I looked for inspiration in my sketchbook, from all the places we have visited. One of my favourites is the font at Hinton Parva, with its happy snake, birds, fish and unspecific quadruped. It is perhaps he (or she) whose jaunty stance appeals to me most. So I had my main motif for the hot water bottle cover. I then wanted to use some of the symmetrical designs we have seen to decorate above and below.

The zigzags with circles in that we have seen around several arched Norman doors seemed perfect for the purpose, so I used the sketch from Whaddon. I also chose part of the design from our lovely font at Christian Malford, and also the shell shapes from Bremhill for the neck of the bottle.

Not wanting to overload the bottle with creatures, instead of a lamb of God, I chose a pattern for the bottom half of the back, adapted from the doorway decoration at South Stoke, back before the blog began.

Here is the finished result. I am quite pleased with it, and even more pleased to pass it on to my sister, because it is through her interest in these fabulous works of art, that we have both been inspired to create our own artwork.  She made the observation that no one will ever have made a hot water bottle cover with this design before!

Sutton Benger, Lower Seagry, Christian Malford, Tockenham

Part of what I like about our travels is choosing where to go; sometimes it feels like it has to be further afield these days as we have been to so many spots in Wiltshire! But it is not the case, there is still much to be discovered and so this time we chose just north east of Chippenham, where we found plenty to keep us entertained.

Sutton Benger was the first stop, and unusually we found an old woman doing something at the front of the church. Although we rarely meet anyone on our travels (a telling sign for the Church today surely), we are never that comfortable when we do. I mean, it is hard to explain to people what we are doing and why; we understand, but I am not sure that they would. Luckily the object of our visit was outside and we were amused and surprised by its size and shape. It was a huge animal shape set high up on the outside wall, possibly as a gargoyle, possibly not - the front of its mouth was broken so we could not tell. I have never seen such a large carving set on the wall and it was the subject of great debate as to what creature it actually was: my vote is with cow, as it had the solid, rounded body of a cow and hooflike feet. It also had little ears and a rounded face. My sister however thought it might be more bear-like. I thought I could see a swishy tale. But like with a lot of these worn carvings, it takes a great deal of observation and sometimes some guesswork to figure out what they originally looked like. And does it even matter, as the form it is in now is just as pleasing to look at.  What amused us both as well as the size of it, was how one hoof was up to its face - it really looked like it was on the phone - or moo-bile, perhaps.

At Seagry, one of those places where you have to get the enormous church door key from a neighbour, there were two figures - a Norman knight and a woman. There were also some weird skull shapes on the wall as part of some memorial tablet. If ever we needed reminders that we are all mortal and that "the time is now", to seize the day, we get enough traipsing through churchyards. Seeing gravestones and sometimes catching sight of people who died young is enough to remind you to get on with things.

On to Christian Malford, no, not the name of an American filmstar but it could be. What a beautiful chunky font met our eyes as we went in. I am becoming quite fond of fonts and how each one is unique in its design. They share patterns such as zigzags, dots, curves but each one is always a surprise. This one was quite low, fat and squat. It was in quite a large church and we enjoyed sitting drawing it quietly.

Our final stop on this trip was Tockenham, where again we found another font, and although it had similar arches to the one in Christian Malford, it was different - this one was higher off the ground and very solid looking. The church also had a possible Roman figure in the outside wall.