Lest we forget....

Armistice Day has come and once again it is so good to see so many people wearing poppies and taking the time to acknowledge what it represents.
We see a definate increase at this time of year of orders for Medal sets to be framed, often to be passed down to younger generations which is very encouraging and so important to keep these family stories alive and present.
I've said often to customers and I really mean it, that we feel it to be a real priveledge to be asked to frame these collections and to be entrusted with such personal, often poignant family heritage and their many amazing, sometimes tragic stories.
We hope that our customers are reassured that we always treat these precious family heirlooms with the greatest respect and care.

Here are a few examples of some of the Medal sets we have framed for our customers...
A Royal Marine collection, all painstakingly stitched onto the mount with invisible thread...



More cherished family medals...





Below, a most unusual collection of very rare medals including a Waterloo Medal! And most astonishingly a Crimean War medal showing clasps for the Battles of Balaclava and Sebastopol - the Charge of the Light Brigade of course, where the soldier was apparently shot and captured by the Russian army... and many other rare medals that we will be unlikely to have the chance to handle again.

This fragile embroidery stitched by a wounded soldier in his hospitol bed, had too little fabric for the lacing needed to stretch it flat, so in this case I carefully stitched on linen extension pieces all the way around...
And then laced it carefully over a layer of wadding and conservation board...

It was then mounted and framed with UV protection conservation glass to preserve the colours of the threads and protect the fragile fabric.

Here from a different customer, below is another beautiful piece of soldier's embroidery, this time made whilst he was a Prisoner of War, using only his cap badge as a guide... an amazing piece of history rightly cherished by his family.

There are some more examples on the medals page at the top right hand side of the blog, and some more will be added soon.

Wear your Poppy with pride!