An interesting redwork story...

I have just been on a river cruise with Stitchtopia around Holland and Belgium, it was divine. I met Sarah Smith, a tutor from the Royal School of Needlework, and we were chatting about the history of Redwork and how the Americans embraced it and stormed off with it. Well, she told me about Bess of Hardwick, a notable figure in Elizabethan society who married well, rose to the highest levels of English nobility. She was a force of nature, a woman builder in an era where there were none, she built four houses which were said to rival the palaces of Elizabeth I. One,  Hardwick Hall, survived and is now a National Trust property. She became the second richest woman, after the Queen, in Britain! Anyhow, the famous portrait of Bess has redwork on all her collars and cuffs, so there!

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