Dwellings & Utrecht Psalter

Hello, to another project completed...
It is all still to do with using recycled tea bags which , when dry and emptied, turn into these fascinating and antique looking shapes.
The first lot looked like Medieval tents to me, so imagine my surprise when I started looking on the Web for information on these. They are actually making Medieval tents and pavilions today and there are societies which re enact jousts and other activities of Medieval times.

Getelds

The shapes on the first page look like tents which were called "Getelds" which originated in the  North of Europe. Pictures of these can be found in early illustrated manuscripts dating back as far as 840 AD in the Psalter of Utrecht. I found it rather intriguing that the University of Utrecht which is in the Netherlands and somewhat North east of The Hague, the city where I was born, has the largest collection of early illustrated manuscripts anywhere. Utrecht evidently was a very Protestant city from the word go, well, I guess since Luther split off from the Roman Catholic church in the early 15 hundreds.
The Psalter of 840 AD is an illustrated book of Psalms and were done by monks in Reims. Somehow the Psalter finished up in the Utrecht University. Apparently the illustrations are very lively and  not unlike the depictions by Hieroniemus Bosch of a later time.

On the second page the arrangement is that of a suburban landscape. Again there is a Society for
Philosophy and Geography which investigates the experiences and meaning of urban and suburban landscapes. This is so amazing I find,what will the human race do to keep itself occupied and interested in the way we all live.....
A lot of people love living in close proximity to each other of course and are quite lost when faced with open spaces, large open spaces especially.....

If the cursor has behaved itself (and so far it hasn't, placing itself somewhere without my permission) the page on the right is a take on a sampler my sister-in-law had hanging in her guest room in Sunnyside lodge at Beaumont.
It basically said the" The road to a friends place is never long" and that saying has stayed with me  the rest of my life, it is such a lovely thought. I do wonder what has happened to that sampler.
I have run out of denim to back the pages and so am using some heavy cotton a sewing friend gave me, but it is not as kind as old denim I find.

The back cover is a little different to the front as I forgot to turn the pattern around.
 The little base player is there to keep the book open at the right pages to photograph
He is made of steel rods and nuts and bolts, a friend sent it to me and he lives in the Studio.....