Easter Gathering and canal crafts

One of the attractions of visiting the National Waterways Museum for the annual Easter Gathering is the number of traditional canal crafts demonstrated and displayed, as well as the bringing together of dozens of boats, many restored working boats, from all over the UK.

The first demonstration we saw today was rope making, by Ken Nelson. He had built this rope making himself, inspired by traditional rope makers' works. It is basically a spinning mechanism, just on a larger scale. The main difference was in the length of ropes he was making, several metres long, as he told us about the old manufacturers who made ropes 100 yards long, which would require the 'traveller' to be much further away from the spinning part of the system. Ken, who says his middle name must be Heath Robinson, described how he makes the cones of multi stranded cotton to feed into the spinner - by setting out up to 52 separate cones of Egyptian cotton thread on his garage floor, feeding each thread up through a system of rings hanging from the garage roof and winding them onto larger cones.


The threads he uses are 100% Egyptian cotton, which he gets from Quarry Bank Mill. Here's a some of it plied up for spinning.


Ken pointed out the International Guild of Knot Tyers, who had a demo stand next door. Like the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles, the IGKT is a registered Educational Charity, for people with an interest in knots and knotting techniques of all kinds. Of course rope knotwork has many uses on traditional canal boats, particularly the knot known as Turk's Head, used in it's tubular form to make grips on tillers, and elaborate ropework fenders. I found out that the hatamusubi (loom knot) we use to join threads in sashiko is called a weaver's knot in the UK.


Knots and fender-making are two of the traditional canal crafts covered by the Waterways Craft Guild - others include rag rugs, crochet, blacksmithing, sign writing and painting canal ware ('Roses and Castles'). Jes Inglis, a Waterways Craft Guild Accredited Journeyman, demonstrated how to paint a rose on a water scoop -


He explained that the blank space around the petals is as important as the petal strokes themselves, painted with a signwriters pencil (a long-haired sable brush), with the viewer's eye helping to fill in the detail - adding too much detail to the flowers is a common mistake among beginners. The designs are bold, with confident brushstrokes. The painter needs to be able to work from all angles (he is holding the pail upside down here), as not everything can be turned around the way you want it, 'like boats!' The castle motif is visible on the base.


Maintaining and passing on skills like these is important if the canal heritage is going to be preserved and continued. The Heritage Boatyard has been set up to conserve the boats at the museum, while teaching boatbuilding skills to young people. Many boats have been rebuilt and restored already at the museum, while others wait their turn. Restoration includes fitting out the cabins and there is a crochet group meeting most Tuesday mornings, 10.15 - 12.30, in the museum cafe, recreating the crochet lace that used to decorate the cabins, as well as the more solid restoration work carried out on site. From this -


To these - various restored boats visiting for the weekend.


'Ilkeston' is currently being restored and the boatman's cabin (the tiny living accommodation on most canal boats) rebuilt -


'Ferret' -

The decorative paintwork on the boats shows a great variety, within certain design parameters.


Seeing, hearing and smelling the old engines powering the boats is part of the enjoyment of events like today's.


Not everyone has been working hard on their boats!


Adding to the atmosphere has been a sea shanty festival plus a lot of traditional music. The weather was perfect - warm & sunny - no need for a jumper or a warm coat, even on the edge of the upper basin. Hope next year is as good!

Easter Gathering at the Boat Museum, Ellesmere Port

The Easter Gathering is probably one of the best times to visit the Boat Museum, as many vintage working boats visit and the lock system is working, plus several engines from the collection.
Guy & my cousin Richard having a look at the steam boilers at the Pump House.

It is also an interesting source of designs for patchwork & quilting, in the industrial architecture, technology and the "roses and castles" traditional boat decoration.

Jane Moss was one of the artists demonstrating how to paint the latter - you can see more of her work here. Her technique for painting the roses was beautiful and the brushwork reminded me of many of the antique panels at the museum, rather than the somewhat solid style of painting often seen.
"Potters Row" is a group of four restored cottages, built in the 1830s and showing homes from the 1840s, c1900, 1930s and 1950s. In the 1900 house, we got chatting to the museum volunteers who told me their vintage treadle sewing machine was locked and they couldn't find the key. With a bit of help from Guy's leatherman knife, I managed to unfasten the lock. I checked the serial number online to find the date of manufacture and it was made in 1891, when numbers 9.810.000 to 10.629.999 were manufactured - its number is 10596706. I'm still trying to work out the model number - it has a fiddle base and the later kind of boat shuttle rather than the one on the 12k. I suspect it could be a V.S.2 - have a look at the photo and info here (first photo on the page) and see what you think. The decals are slightly different, but they often seem to vary on the same model. The information about how the V.S.2 developed into the model 27 and then the 128K is interesting to note. I have examples of both these machines and the one at the Boat Museum certainly shares many features. Interestingly, it doesn't have the shuttle eject feature found on the 128K and has the low bobbin winder found on the 27. The case and base are almost identical to the Singer model 27 halfway down this page.